Her Perspective: Building a mystery, not!
By Liz Biggs
“That’s what’s great about being a writer,” British novelist Hanif Kureishi told an interviewer a decade ago. “Every ten years you become somebody else.” I’ve only been a writer for five years, but I think maybe I’m ready to become somebody else. Listening to the great song by Matthew Sweet, “Sick of Myself,” on this dreary winter day, hmmm, who do I want to be?
I’ve never been a writer who wants to write fiction — a made-up story. No, I’ve only wanted to tell true stories. I’ve tried to be authentic and vulnerable — to spit it out raw. But my 20-year-old just gave me a lecture on oversharing. I handed her my phone and told her to delete any IG or FB posts she felt were TMI. She clicked all those fun, festive, but mostly food posts into the trash bin. And then deleted the trash (because she’s witnessed me going back to the thrift store to look for something I donated and then wanted back, LOL). “Nobody wants to know what you had for dinner, Mom.” She is right. Guilty as charged as an oversharer. Nobody needs to know if I’m craving really good hot chocolate or if I love Limoncello LeCroix. Or if I love celery but only if I have Hidden Valley Buttermilk Ranch to dip it in. No bobo ranch dressing allowed.
So maybe I need to be more mysterious. How does an extreme extrovert morph into an introvert? I will have to Google that. It won’t be easy. No Post February sounds way more difficult than Dry January or No Shave November (not that I have ever participated in a no-anything month).
A friend asked me when I’m going to stop sending Christmas cards, since we’re empty nesters now. I replied, “never.” And proceeded to put 20 pictures on the 2025 card — mostly because we didn’t have one single moment when all seven of us were together, so I had to do a collage of us all having separate adventures. But maybe I should just stop. Maybe sending Christmas cards is for young people with cute babies?
If I’m being honest, maybe I should delete all my dancing videos too. I look way more like Elaine from “Seinfeld” than Ginger Rogers. I can’t pogo like I did at the Ramones show (at Nightown in Destin!) in 1984. I used to get like three feet of air. “Napoleon Dynamite” fans will appreciate that joke. I really did love dancing with that DJ at a wedding in Key Largo recently — wish I had a video of that to post. (No, no, you don’t, says the Liz 2.0 voice in my head.) And how I loved doing the can-can to “Come on Eileen” with those young cousins. But maybe it’s time for me to step aside? Or just bust my Edwyn Collins “A Girl Like You” video moves alone in the kitchen.
Who knows what Liz 2.0 looks like? I sure don’t. Maybe I should take some advice from Sarah McLachlan in her 1997 hit song “Building a Mystery,” — “Hold it in and choose carefully.” Or maybe I should just be my flawed, festive, oversharing self. I’m literally oversharing in this column about oversharing, so it can’t get much worse.
But maybe meaningful things can happen when you overshare. My sister, Patti, read my deeply personal January column and informed me that one of her chores on our childhood chore chart was to go find me in the neighborhood at dinnertime. “Patricia, go find your sister, dinner’s almost ready.” I never heard my mother say that, but Patti did. It brought back wonderful memories of being wild and free to roam the streets of East Hill in the 1970s. I knew every neighbor in every direction, and from the age of five I spent my days going from house to house chatting (oversharing for sure) with everyone I met (mostly old people). I’ve always been a curious cat. Silly me, I thought my sister just magically showed up because she wanted to hang out with the old people too. Now I know the truth.
Also, my 24-year-old just told me I was killing it on the dance floor to “Come on Eileen,” and those young cousins were out of breath trying to keep up. I would have never heard those words come out of his mouth unless I shared this story with him. So forget about Liz 2.0. Sharing is caring, right?
