Outline for Memoir: "The Countdown"

I do not have a very good memory. However, I can guarantee that I know every detail on Dick Clark's New Year's Rocking Eve of 1991. I do not even remember bringing in 2010 but I can still see the television screen displaying the people in New York for the 1991 countdown. They huddled together as they wore glittering sunglasses and oversize oven mitt gloves. The ball was huge that year. It spilled neon lights into the star stained sky, and I wanted to be there--huddled in between my mom and dad.

I was four years old, and I had no idea as I was watching the television, my dad, who I wanted so desperately to be sitting next to me, was spending the night bar hopping with the night's worst.

For my memoir, I plan to recount the details I remember watching on the television screen and juxtapose that excitement with the tension filtering in my living room as my mom and brother wait for my dad to come home. Below is an example of how I plan to incorporate the juxtaposition:

"I remember the excitement from the people on the television screen. I remember hearing a wave of shouts and yelps from people I did not know who were dressed in Eskimo-like jackets and glittery sunglasses. I thought to myself, “If it’s so cold there, why are they wearing sunglasses?” However, I remained silent as I watched the television show clips of people waving hello to their loved ones back home, people clapping with large gloves that looked like oven mitts, people laughing, people crying, and people kissing. What type of person was I? I looked to my brother, and he was one of the people who decided to eat all the popcorn himself. I looked to my mother, and she was one of the people crying."

I also plan on using speech and logic equivalent to a child's mindset in order to highlight my naivete.

"Together we listened to Dick Clark talk about New Year’s resolutions and jokes about people kissing that I didn’t understand.

'What is a resolution?' I asked.

My mother rubbed my forehead and kept me close as she described that people make resolutions to bring in the New Year. “They are goals,” she said.

Goals. I have heard people shout, 'Goal!' during a soccer game, but I knew somehow that it wasn’t the same thing. I then asked, 'What is your resolution?'"

Through this memoir I hope to accomplish a window into my life. I chose a moment in my past that I remember in such detail because it put me on the cusp of change.