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What Was I Thinking?

Life lessons in half a dozen words

by AARP The Magazine Readers, AARP The Magazine, Nov./Dec. 2010 issue | Comments: 0

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

More Six-Word Memoirs

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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