Tag Archives: diary of starting over

Time to Celebrate – On Track to Graduate Spring 2026

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May 10 2025

Hallelujah! Took my last final yesterday and just turned in my last assignment! I have reached the conclusion of the spring 2025 semester. Final grades won’t be posted until May 16th, but I already know that I’ve got an A in all classes.

I’m on track to graduate Spring 2026 and so is Thomas. I’ll get to walk the stage with my kid! Exciting, proud times!

Here’s the feedback for the creative non-fiction story I just revised and submitted, titled Diary of Starting Over.

“You have such a knack for conveying the bare essence of a traumatic situation in such a way that the reader can immediately understand and empathize.There are moments of immense heartbreak. Related to this, you also have an incredible ability to balance depressing topics with moments of levity and triumph. The line where you ask “Who the hell can say that to somebody they love?” hits so hard, and I absolutely read it in your voice, haha. Lastly, the nonlinearity of this piece is deftly handled.”

“I think one of the biggest strengths of your piece is the consistent strings and parallels. It can be hard to keep timelines straight when writing about many events over a long time, but you were able to keep everything succinct and orderly. You managed to take a tumultuous story and turn it into something with a positive spin, and I think that’s beautiful.”

Here’s the first paragraph and last paragraph. If you want to read the full story, I’ll be sharing with my Substack subscribers soon.

Starting over. How many times have you had to start over? I’m talking cataclysmic starting over. Life changing, starting over events. I’ve had five life changing, starting over experiences. I was 10-years-old the first time. At 38, I started over again for the last time. So far.

He chose not to use the already reserved ticket for the Christmas visit. Over the next several months, we argued, we talked about working things out, and we argued more. In the summer of 2007, I decided there was no going back. He stayed in Seattle. We stayed in Reno. It was the right decision.

***

That was the last time I had to start over.

So far.

Short Story: Diary of Starting Over

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March 8 2025

My day = 1311 words so far. We’ve moved on to creative non-fiction in my creative writing class. This is where I thrive. I thought about recycling something I’d already written. But I want to write new content.

Thought I’d share a snippet with you. I’m more than half-way finished with the story. This is in its raw state. I do stream of conscious writing, and I do this weird thing of going back and forth with my tenses when I write. I’ll clean it up before submitting. I’m proud of myself for including dialogue. I’m dialogue-avoidant usually!

Diary of Starting Over
Camilla Downs

Starting over. How many times have you had to start over? I’m talking cataclysmic starting over. Life changing, starting over events. I’ve had five life changing, starting over experiences. I was 10-years-old the first time. At 38, I started over again for the last time. So far.

Starting over can be a good thing, an opportunity to escape the mundane routines of life, shake things up, experience all there is to be experienced. On the flip side, it can be incredibly traumatizing, a trauma that lurks in the corners of the mind, haunting the thoughts like poison stained ghosts. I have experienced both types of starting over. We can be forced into starting over by the actions of those around us, or by our own actions. My experiences with starting over live within me, they are the building blocks for the person I am. They taught me that I am stubborn, tenacious, and resilient. These experiences are the blueprints of the survival technique of opportunism and the art of improvisation. They taught me that although I may arrive at my destination bruised and exhausted, I will survive and thrive.

It was November 2006, I had just gotten off the phone with my mom. “You can’t keep this up. You need to leave”, my mom implored. I could hear the opening music from a M*A*S*H rerun coming from the TV. I sunk into the u-shaped, burnt red couch. I knew she was right. I had kept from her what was happening, but a mom knows when their child is suffering. This place that is not my own, with our belongings in boxes scattered around, in this unfamiliar city is not helping me to have clarity. I had visited Olympia before, my mother-in-law lives here. This couch I’m sunk into is hers. This home is hers.

Surveying my surroundings my mind drifted to 10-year-old me at my grandparents home in ….

2500 words and 9 pages. Can’t wait to hear from my classmates! It will be workshopped on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.