A Syndrome By Any Other Name…

I’m racking my memory, trying to figure out the last time I had this feeling.  

Bingo! 

My brainball is whirring. It’s all coming back to me. The year was 1977. My firstborn was about to graduate high school.

Dianne would be leaving for college soon. I was in real pain. I was suffering from an advanced case of empty nest syndrome. Let’s face it. It didn’t matter whether I was a good or bad mother. My three daughters filled the hole and whole of my emotional life; no amount of chocolate or good sex did the same. She was the first to leave, and when she did, it felt like an amputation without anesthesia. 

I never thought I’d get over it. I think she thought the same thing. Upon graduation from a college that was close to home, she corrected that mistake by moving to China. A pretty damn absurd chapter in my memoir entitled Chinatune explains what happened when I followed her to China, attempting to keep that empty nest filled. The trip cured me of that syndrome forever.  

But I digress…so what else is new??? Sometime soon, I am going to do a blog post on digression, distraction, diseverything.  I don’t think I’m alone on that one.

Where was I?  Oh, yes!

I can’t believe it, but today that same empty feeling is coursing through my mind and body.  My daughters are in their 60’s. My grandchildren are in their 20’s. So where the hell is this feeling coming from?

OMG!  Move over, Poirot and Miss Marple, I have just detected what’s happening.  

I am experiencing Empty Memoir Syndrome. I completed my book, Not Yet. I even recorded the audiobook version. 

What??? No earthquake! No tidal wave! No committee instantly awarded me the Booker or Pulitzer prize. No 21-gun salute.

This morning, as I have done for the last two years, I opened my electronic notebook and… and… and the only thing staring back at me were two words… THE END.

What to do?

If I just want to keep my stories for posterity in my machine to be discovered after my demise and be declared a posthumous genius (a girl can dream, can’t she?), then all is well.  BUT… if I still wanted to be a little Shirley Temple, a little Betty Grable, a little Judy Garland, a lot Vanessa Redgrave, then I’d have to find a way to get the manuscript out of the machine and under the eyes and into the ears of peoples.

How do I do that? I am too old to pound the pavements like I did when I was in my forties and fifties.  And anyway, does anyone still pound pavements?

And then.. my beautiful friend, editor, and manager Lynnette called.

I moaned. I whined. I shared with her a woeful monologue about my Empty Memoir Syndrome. She responded with a hearty, NOT YET! (great title for a memoir)

Further she explained there was a lot more work to do. To some extent, social media and the internet will be used to do much of the marketing and selling. That was the first good news since I opened my notebook this morning.  I am an electronically challenged olden person. Yes, I have a computer, an iPad, an iPhone, an electronic notebook, and a heating pad for the headache all of these machines give me. 

Basically, they are props. You know, like the props used in plays in the theatre. I have them in my life because, like the fake gun with no bullets, it looks like I know how to pull the trigger. In reality, do not ask me to cut and paste unless it is part of the dialogue in a play. 

Bless Lynnette!  She said she’d take care of the social media and internet details.  All I have to do is write the blurb for the book (that’s editorial speak for writing something to make you buy the book… or else.) and connect with people in my life who have connections and want to read and review the book to promote sales and recognition.

Piece of cake, right? Wrong! At my age, anyone of connection and influence from my show business life has followed Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner’s Angel From Death into the great unknown.

Oh, there are a few people still hanging around from my time when I tripped the light fantastic. However, I’m not sure I want to test their memory. Just the other day I sent my audiologist an empty box so she could repair my hearing aids. When she called to tell me the box was empty and asked where they were, I replied, “On my desk.  Where else would they be?”

And I think I am pretty compos mentis. I do not want to embarrass myself or anyone else who doesn’t remember who I am or what I did. 

Ain’t life interesting? As I write about the vacuum produced by the completion of my opus, someone has just turned on a faucet. Oh, my goodness, I think I did it. It’s almost too hard to believe but a slow stream of satisfaction is filling the feeling of emptiness. You know what? I think I am finally ready to admit no matter whether people like the book or not (damn, I really hope they do like the book)… it’s ok if you don’t because guess what???  I like the book.  I really like the book. A lot. So what if I had to wait almost 91 years to find a way to turn myself inside out to give myself a pat on the back? For two years, when I should have been reeling myself in, I took the ride of my life, peeling the onion right down to its essence… smelling terrible, crying rivers, and laughing ‘til my sides hurt… as I cut to the chase and the truth.  And now that it’s complete, I know for sure the world I live in is completely nuts. 
Totally absurd.  
Off the wall.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Love, Sally-Jane