Condensing life

Cutting down my bio sketch reminded me of moving. When you’re driving that U-Haul truck to your new destination, you say to yourself: “Wow, my whole life is in this truck.” After packing up all of your belongings and throwing away things you should’ve never kept, you wish your life were simpler. You wish if you didn’t keep so many things, you wouldn’t have been so stressed and sweaty packing so many boxes. My first attempt at writing a bio sketch was exactly that. I wanted to include so much more but did not want to lose the reader. Then are I threw away more stuff, and then more stuff. I moved my life and made it simpler at the end, and it felt good. All of that nonsense from the first draft was clutter as Zinsser described. Now I know the highlights of my life and what is most important. I have moved on.