Here Lies Beth is my upcoming memoir that answers the question, “What if Anne Lamott took a sumo wrestling class?” My husband and I unknowingly chose the “advanced level” of parenting when we adopted a nine-year-old boy and a medically fragile-infant with Down Syndrome in our early thirties. Our parenting journey was tough and when my oldest son graduated early and left home unexpectedly, I finally realized that the thrashing currents of parenting had pulled me out to sea, away from myself, and I needed to find a way back.
So, I came up with the idea of a very weird project- do forty new things before I turned forty and write a book about it. The project took me to exciting places like a sumo-wrestling ring, a taxidermy classroom, an improv stage, and a nudist resort. I played D&D and took my first art class. I had a very strange bra-fitting that involved full frontal nudity and a roll of packing tape. Throughout the project, the experiences led me to reflect on death, marriage, my evangelical upbringing, parenting, walking away from Christianity, and, ultimately, what I want the second half of my life to look like.
Here Lies Beth is about my earnest, often hilarious, journey to rediscover who I am—and who I want to be—as I prepare for my next forty years. It offers honest, raw, and sometimes uproarious reflections on midlife reinvention, inviting readers to laugh, reflect, and recognize themselves along the way.
