What Was I Thinking?
Life lessons in half a dozen words
Submit Your Six-Word Memoir
Can you tell a story in six words?
In each issue of AARP The Magazine, we provide a theme and challenge you to tell your personal story about it using only half a dozen words. Past topics include family relationships, great meals and life-changing advice.
You can submit your entry here. If we publish it in the magazine, we'll also print it on a T-shirt for you. Good luck!
WRITING MEMOIR
Interested in memoirs? Join the conversation in our Writing Memoir community group.
What Was I Thinking?: This issue's winners
Thousands of you shared a half a dozen words about the lessons you've learned. Here are a few of our favorites:
Needed Money. Sold my '65 Mustang.
Kay Ruhe, 63, Huntingburg, Indiana
Retired elementary school teacher
Forgot brisket in trunk. Car stunk.
Frances Schube, 50, Dunwoody, Georgia
Art-festival organizer
Widowed too young. Remarried too soon.
Diane MacDougall, 56, Shelby Township, Michigan
Coding-quality specialist
Lent friend money. Believed him. Waiting....
Carol Griffin, 66, Alliance, Ohio
Secretary
Located my childhood sweetheart. Shouldn't have.
Jackie Glover, 67, Abilene, Texas
Licensed vocational nurse
Skipped college. Aged. Learned from life.
Beverly Shroyer, 65, Burleson, Texas
Retired municipal-utility manager
I should have danced all night.
Ann Koster, 72, Dallas, Texas
Former magazine researcher
Hearing missed. Case dismissed. Client pissed.
Edward Siegel, 79, Jacksonville, Florida
Retired lawyer
Market crashed. Hadn't sold. Plan B.
Penny Godoy, 71, Venice, Florida
Corporate officer for health-care and translation companies
Larry Smith, who selected these entries, is the founder of the Six-Word Memoir project and coeditor, with Rachel Fershleiser, of It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure.
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