Why I Write

Memory is a fickle thing. Like many, I have some strong memories of my childhood and some not so strong ones. There are several loose memories tied together I keep coming back to regarding my Papaw Bill. I was lucky enough to have a sense of him, but young enough when the disease set in to know I missed out on something. In my memories, he is laughing, making squirrel noises, and sneaking me pieces of candy while sitting in front of his collection of western novels. He looks like himself, or rather, he looks like the version of himself I carry around in my mind.

By the time I was old enough to ask him about his life, he couldn’t always find the words. The disease had gotten into the filing cabinets, rearranging things, losing some drawers entirely. He still laughed. He still knew love when it was in the room. But the stories, how he grew up, how he met my grandmother, what he was afraid of, what he was proud of, most of those were already gone.

This is why I write.

Not because I expect to lose my mind. But because I have watched what happens when memory becomes unreliable, and I have decided I am not willing to leave my story to chance.

Wander Forward is my archive. It is a collection of essays, reflections, memories, half-formed thoughts I couldn’t shake. It is the stuff that wouldn’t fit in a text message or a phone call. Some of it is about my family. Some of it is about ideas I’m working through. Some of it is just me paying attention to ordinary things because ordinary things turn out to matter most.

The title comes from two ideas I hold at once. The first is that wandering is not a failure. There’s something true in the old Tolkien line about roads going ever on. A life without detours is a life that played it too safe. The second is that wandering aimlessly is its own kind of loss. Even when I don’t know exactly where I’m going, I want to be moving toward something: a north star I can steer by even when I can’t see the destination clearly.

So: wander on, but aim forward.

If you’re reading this years from now, whether you’re a friend, a family member, a stranger who found this through some algorithmic accident… hello. I hope the writing is honest. I hope it sounds like me. I hope that even if the me who wrote this is no longer quite the same me you know, you can still hear something real in it.

That’s enough. That’s the whole point.