Jenn

Survived Cancer at 20.

Went on the graduate from Art School 4 years later.

Illustrated a book cover that went on to be published.

Spent my free time at a hospital making art with kids who have cancer.

Working on the final touches to my first comic series.

Jenn, age 27

Bridget

Refused to apply to any college but an Ivy League one that I had minimal chance of getting accepted to much less being able to afford (got accepted, went, still paying off student loans).

Completed the Paris Marathon (walking/running) even though I weighed over 200 pounds.

Adopted a baby beagle on the spur of the moment from some guy at the shopping mall.

Got naked in a hot springs under a full moon and laughed out loud by myself.

Found homes for not one but three desert tortoises who have appeared in my life at solitary times in very odd places.

Bridget, age 44

Vanya

Had a job wrestling alligators, and wrangling all sorts of other animals, on tour from Colorado to Niagara Falls.

Won a blue ribbon in horse show jumping.

Accepted a position as "kept woman" in Kansas City for about 2 days, when I got fed up and went home.

Traveled to 4 continents while making less than 15K a year throughout my adult life. When I ran out of money, I lost sleep, cuddling up to castle walls, or drifting from tea house to tea house.

Occasional work as a figure drawing model leaves me uncertain as to whether being naked in public is dream or remembrance.

Vanya, age 41

Andi

Smoked my first cigarette at 15.

Pierced my own nose.

Drove 700 miles to be with someone for one night.

Served drinks at the British Consul's apartment.

Opened my own business at age 21.

Andi, age 23

Berta

Hopped on a random bus just to see where it went.

Let out all frustration and stress at 10,000 feet.

Reconnected with my mother.

Found comfort in art and baking after deciding to go to an engineering school.

Almost drowned at the age of three and have been inseparable from the water ever since.

Berta, age 19

Joan

Gotten lost and escaped from a rattlesnake encounter in the Badlands.

Created abstract landscapes in ceramics, acrylics, beading, bread, textiles and other medium for fifty-odd years and not bored yet.

Cooked and hosted a dinner party every night this week.

Received a "Thank You" for helping edit an academic book as a lay person.

Sat holding the hand of each of my in-laws as they left this world.

Joan, age 57

Tanya

Started exhibiting my photos.

Celebrated my 50th birthday.

Went to Greece, Italy and Africa.

Helped my mother survive breast cancer.

Started sewing again after 20 year hiatus.

Tanya, age 50

Katie

Rescued multiple animals close to death.

Became a Vegetarian at age 7, continued to this day.

Said goodbye to my best friend before she moved cross country.

ride my horses everyday, rain, shine, 115 degrees or 30 degrees.

Snuck out of my house on my birthday with my friends, only to be stopped be the police & taken back home.

Katie, age 16

Tara

Hitchhiked across the USA then stowed away on a train coming back.

Lived/studied Art in Italy.

Parented two beautiful creative daughters.

Ran marathons and triathlons.

Worked as a "fluffer" fluffing pillows and beds in a fancy department store boutique.

Tara, age 50

Alex

I broke off relationships that I didn't want to sustain.

I moved alone across country.

I married at 41, which is 10-15 years later than I had expected.

I fell in love with my first dog after my cat was killed.

I started performing as a dancer at age 45.

Alex

Nancy

I became an artist at 7, a writer at 9 and a musician at 10.

I wrote a dissertation that is a standard reference work.

My husband and I were chased by an elephant in South Africa.

I showed my etchings in Japan.

I found a nice assisted living place for my mother.

Nancy, 67 so far.

Jessica

In 3 months from March to June 2008, I:

Started a new job.

Found out I was pregnant.

Sold a house.

Bought a house.

Planned a wedding & got married in 89 days.

Jessica, age 33

Carma

Took a curling lesson.

Began belly dancing despite not being a natural dancer. It shows.

Gone back to college for a new degree 20 years after my prior degree.

Bounce juggled 11 balls with my insanely awesome teenage son.

Tried to eat a veggie burger. Still can't stomach it. -And I'm a vegetarian.

Carma, age 44

Cliff

Hitchhiked 20 miles each way back and forth to high school.

Sang in the shower with Jay black of Jay and the Americans when I was in the Army.

Stood on the sidewalk in Louisville Kentucky in 1968 and watched Thomas Merton's funeral procession go by.

Swam in the ocean off the coast of Maine every day for three straight months.

Have walked at least 3 miles a day virtually every day for the past 55 years.

Cliff, age 65

Christy X

Had my first child at 17.

Went to film school at 36.

Had my first professional hair foiling at 38.

Pitched my first documentary proposal at 38.

Enjoyed my second run at the Local Sightings Film Festival in Seattle, WA in 2011.

Christy X, age 38

Natalia

I danced in the spotlight for 13 years.

I became a vegetarian.

I ran the Catalina Marathon.

I received my BA in Art.

I meditated in various temples in Japan.

Natalia, age 26

Bethany

I have paraglided over the Swiss Alps.

I have hitchhiked.

I have spent four months backpacking across Europe.

I have eaten alligator.

I have taken a cross-country road trip.

Bethany, age 26

Shurvon

Went to Disneyland.

Wore a back brace.

Went inner-tubing down Mt. Rainier.

Soaked in a Jacuzzi in the middle of the ocean aboard a cruise ship at midnight.

Went back to school to finish my college degree.

Shurvon, age: over 20 under 50

Nina

I have broken up with and gotten back together with someone over and over.

I have ended friendships without giving the friend an explanation.

I have told other people's secrets.

I have kept other people's secrets.

I have let people treat me other than I should be treated.

Nina, age 36

Lele

I learned to love & trust again after years of sexual abuse.

I succeeded after being told I wouldn't.

I found happiness after severe depression.

I danced in LA, Boston and NYC.

I modeled for photographers, artists and sculptors.

Lele, age 22

Mary

I survived on the ice.

I learned to cook.

I fixed my car.

I built good fires.

I listened.

Mary, age 28

Gabrielle

Woke up next to a beautiful man.

Missed my flight.

Learned how to cook.

Learned how to clean.

Drank some coffee.

Gabrielle, age 21

Kira

Hiked the Inca trail to Macchu Picchu.

Beat myself up until I was swollen and bruised.

Grew up on an organic fruit, herb, and flower farm.

Been part of a pornographic film.

Flown in an airplane more than 150 times.

Kira, 20

Mirela

My earliest childhood memories consist of war. I survived said war.

I have lived in 4 different countries.

I have created (and continue to create) beautiful works of art.

I have recently purchased a brand new car. A red one. It's the first (and only) thing I truly own.

My first step towards independence.

I am the first college graduate in my entire family.

Mirela, age 23

Eileen

I secretly sliced my dead goldfish to see if his heart was broken too.

I married for Love.

I adopted the child of my heart not my belly.

I stood up to my Stalker and won.

I've proudly become my Mother.

Eileen, age 50

Liz

I played in the woods as a child.

I was Miep Gies in an Anne Frank re-enactment at age 14.

I received my BFA in ceramics and am pursuing art.

I traveled to Florence, Italy, to eat real Italian food with my friend and husband.

I have loved and been loved.

Liz, age 25

Jessika

I married the purest, loveliest man to ever live.

I was constrained for 30-plus hours in a straight-jacket.

I spent the majority of 10 years in the Pacific Ocean.

I forgave people who I never thought I'd be able to.

I learned the hard way, but learned early in life.

Jessika, age 23

Calgano

I lost my eye and nearly lost my life in a car accident when I was 16.

I've sent 553 letters and counting to strangers in New York.

I received my MFA and then got an arts job.

I had a solo show of my work in San Francisco.

I married the love of my life and conquered the country on a quest for "greener grass".

Calgano, age 28

Alyson

When I was 4 years old, I saved my best friend from being molested by her father.

For many years, in chat-rooms I pretended I was a 19 year old sexpot from California, because people would pay attention to me.

I held hands with an orangutan underneath the cage bars at the Madrid zoo.

After college, I moved to France so I could change dirty diapers and do dishes.

I fell in love with a 6'8" man and a three-legged cat.

Alyson, age 25

Lulu

I wished I was a goldfish at the age of 5 so I wouldn't be judged.

Experienced the death of a father at the age of 9.

I left my family and country at the age of 18.

I lie to my mother everyday.

I fell in love, for the first time, at the age of 24.

Lulu, age 25

Gina Marie

I survived the death of my mother when I was 18.

I lived in Hong Kong for 17 years.

I gave birth to twins in 1993.

I went to Paris on a blind date.

I rode a white stallion around the Pyramids of Egypt.

Gina Marie, age 56

Emory

I adopted 3 special needs children at different times and raised them.

I went to a therapeutic art program for a year.

I was my daughters labor coach and witnessed my grandson's amazing birth.

I became a mentor for an artist with disabilities at an art program.

I traveled to the U.K. two times and explored the country.

Emory, age 47

Lin

I moved across the country at 21 and stayed there for 17 years before returning to B.C.

I graduated college with honors when I was 27.

I did the eulogy for my mother when she died.

I have loved, laughed, cried, been depressed and been high on happiness and am in gratitude for it all.

I am co-contractor with my builder and have designed and am building a new home to retire to.

Lin, age 60

Atzin

Learned how to play 4 instruments.

Meet the word love.

Share my life with more than 1 person.

Understand how beautiful it is to drink a coffee and read a nice book.

Run in a field of flowers.

Atzin, age 17

Louise

Went to Woodstock with friends in a milk truck.

Completed my masters degree while working full time.

Confronted someone who had abused me, 30 years later.

Raised 2 children who are happy, healthy, kind and full of love.

Married 43 years and still love my husband.

Louise, age 59

Johanna

I learned how the law of attraction works.

I had kittens born in my lap.

I moved to the Caribbean at 33, knowing no one there.

I held my mother's hand as she died.

I slowed down to smell the roses and the coffee.

Johanna

Corey

I gave a stranger in Stockholm the use of her hand when her doctors said she would never write again. She sent me a postcard.

I passed an impossible test given me by a Lakota medicine man...but he never knew it made me bleed when I shouldn't have.

I made 5 would-be rapists run away while totally unarmed.

I have paid the bills in many ways including tightrope walking, selling feathers, being a bouncer, cancan dancing, teaching people from toddlers to adults, doing shiatsu massage, and even for my artwork.

I have had my life changed by becoming a mother, and found new adventures, insights and challenges in it.

Corey, age 34

Tamar

Came into this world, brought 4 children into this world.

Tamar, age 48

Kim

I was at Tiananmen Square during the protests of 1989.

I put legs on a man with prosthetics.

I said goodbye to my father the day he ended his life.

I jumped out of an airplane.

I almost froze when hiking Mt. Fuji off-season and had to sleep in a temple.

Kim, age 46

Helen

I wrote an essay for a national "I speak for Democracy" contest in HS and won first place.

I worked in the missions for a year after nursing school.

I married happily and had 5 beautiful children by age 30.

I wrote a heartfelt poem to my son when he was almost 17.

I took care of my dear mother the last week of her life.

Helen, age 71

Nate

Went to a public high school prom with my boyfriend.

Prevented a friend hundreds of miles away from committing suicide.

Made a bench out of a shipping pallet.

Wrote my name on bathroom walls in 7th grade. Got caught.

Somehow made money off of photography.

Nate. age 17

Lauryn

I got engaged in Trafalgar Square in London.

I slept under a mosquito net in a mud hut in Congo.

I washed my grandmothers feet after she died.

I took acid.

I put rocks in my father's hubcaps so he couldn't leave us (he left anyway.)

Lauryn, age 25

Amira

I saved a life.

I circumnavigated the earth on a ship.

I witnessed a stranger die at my feet.

I survived violent crime in South Africa.

I found strength in my weakness.

Amira, age 22

Stanley

I was an Eagle Scout.

I got shot stealing coal for my girlfriend and her family during the war.

I fell in love with a girl named Honey.

I was a Marine in WWII (Pearl Harbor, Guam, China.)

I lost my memory.

Stanley, age 87

Ken

Volunteered for a month in an orphanage in Romania.

Had my own dessert and pastry business.

Had brain surgery due to ruptured aneurysm.

Published a book in 2009.

Wore a kilt to scatter my Dad's ashes in Scotland.

-Ken, age 61

Bethany

I was born on a holiday.

I was hit by a car.

I have eaten an entire cake.

I have driven across the country twice.

I haven't done nearly enough.

-Bethany, age 27

Renee

I have recently discovered that I suffer from PTSD.

I reconnected with my father when I was 16 years old.

I held my stillborn daughter after she grew in my womb for 6 months.

I've received awards for my photography.

I was a victim of domestic violence, took it to court and won the battle.

- Renee age 33

Brad

I traveled around the US by train.

I skipped a day of high school to go skydiving.

I climbed 4 different "14ers" in Colorado.

I became best friends with a kitten.

I made a sandwich for my wife.

-Brad age 35

Dana

I got a little tattoo at 14 and did not tell my mother until I was 18.

I had both my knees replaced this year because I hated the limitations of pain.

I traveled to Nepal by myself to photograph Buddhist nuns.

I had a lover and a friend commit suicide and never forgave either of them for leaving me.

I jumped out of a plane to conquer my fear of falling.

- Dana age 43

Dani

I have been institutionalized several times for mental illness.
I gave birth to an Earth Angel.
I lost a baby.
I cannot accept love.
I have done many random acts of kindness.

Dani, age 36