I Must Have Forgotten

Episode 16: Paperbacks and Prom

Tenth grade is, in every sense, a crossroads. Some of us chase new interests, some of us take on responsibilities we never wanted, and some of us learn, with shock and sorrow, that life isn’t as certain as we once believed.

My own tenth‑grade year held all of that: a loss that reshaped the ground beneath us, a night I had dared to dream about, and squeaky creepers we could hear but never quite see.

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If you've ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter — they do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive, including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB, at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 15: Our Crime Syndicate Induction

The day we felt like we were officially part of the whole came before sunrise, in strange places, stumbling through a dance we didn't know the steps to. It was mortifying. It was embarrassing. And maybe it didn't carry the profound meaning we thought it did, but it became part of our history.

Part of our lore.

Part of who we were becoming.

And we wouldn't have missed it for anything.

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If you've ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter — they do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive, including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB, at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 14: Two-a-Days and Polka

The first few months of tenth grade are nothing short of a growth spurt.

New experiences, new classes, and new people, all nudging us toward adulthood. Ready or not.

Sometimes we get in over our heads. Sometimes we fall on our faces and laugh it off. Sometimes we grit our teeth and level up. And sometimes we're carried along on a cloud we never saw coming.

And when that cloud is a person we admire, we go willingly. Even if it means learning to polka.

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If you've ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter — they do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive, including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB, at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 13; Two Trips and a Cryptic Message

The foibles, triumphs, and small humiliations of eighth and ninth grade were exactly the seasoning I needed before stepping into the wider world of high school. Those two years gave me more than I understood at the time.

Two unforgettable school trips stitched together the kind of friendships that mattered then, even if some of them have faded with time. And a single indecipherable yearbook note, mysterious then and still mysterious now, remains the one I remember above all the rest.

These were years of growth, laughter, and character building, carrying me toward the person I was becoming.

And even though I might have forgotten, I remember it all now.

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If you've ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter — they do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive, including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB, at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 12: Mysteries of Secretaries and Rock

Thirteen is a crossroads: that strange age when we want to be held and protected, yet ache to be older than we are. The fall and winter of 1979 became exactly that for me. It was a hinge year where innocence, bravado, and bewilderment collided.

This was the season when a school secretary quietly kept me safe. When a rock concert swallowed me whole. When I learned that daydreaming about something and being ready for it are rarely the same thing.

Sometimes, good people step in at the exact moment we need them.

Sometimes, we have to navigate the turbulence on our own.

And sometimes, the thing we think will make us feel grown up is a reminder of just how young we still are.

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If you've ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter — they do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive, including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB, at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 11: Firelight and Firsts

Thirteen was a time lit from within. New experiences, unexpected delights, and the first quiet hints that we might be more than the generic selves we thought we were. A single moment can loosen a certainty long held; a spark of perception can rewrite the stories we believe about ourselves.

It is a rare discovery to see our reflections the way someone else sees us.

We were braver than we knew, and we were always more than the shadows we tried to hide in.

Even without firelight.

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If you've ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter--they do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive, including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB, at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 10: Oops and Other Anthems

Even as a child, I was the keeper of family history and stray doodads...the tiny artifacts no one else thought to save. I still carry them.

Seventh grade, with all its awkward ups and downs, and the disorientation of multiple uprootings, brought me a new companion: music. A new means of processing life. A new way to define myself.

Both the music and the doodads have stayed with me, every step of the way.

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If you've ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter--they do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive, including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB, at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 9: Mischief, Mortality, and Michigan

In Indiana’s woods and on a Michigan farm, mischief flirted with mortality. Childhood summers shimmered with laughter and thrill, kinships flickered and faded, and memory gathered the echoes.

Campfires crackled, horsehair clung; river water swallowed, onion rings flew. Each small moment stitched into the fabric of becoming. Joy and danger entwined, teaching me that even the brightest moments carry shadows.

Two summers stand apart: radiant, perilous, unforgettable. They taught me I was mortal, and they shaped who I became. Two summers. Two echoes. Mischief, mortality, and Michigan.

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If you’ve ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter— They do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive—including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB—at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 8: Echoes and Artifacts

Tables and swimming pools, paper dolls and record players — objects that carried recollections and experiences. Relics of history and heart, now gone.

To honor the things that shaped us, as if they were characters in our stories, is the undertaking of memoir, the resonance of becoming.

Our memory is a repository of echoes and artifacts; the scratches, the chlorine, the midnight booms. All the ways memory holds us, even as we let go.

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If you’ve ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter— They do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive—including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB—at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter

Episode 7: Of Tender Strength; Of Wild Hearts

The healing after Fowler carried us forward, but not without speedbumps. Snow and speed, the shock of pain, and the quiet bravery that rose in its wake. Nights blurred with laughter and rebellion, and doors opened to more than just the dark of midnight.

This episode moves between tenderness and wildness, between the ache of change and the thrill of mischief. It is a reliquary of bruises and balm, of hearts tested and carried, of the ways memory holds both fracture and flight.

And the courage to ask for air.

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If you’ve ever wondered whether the small moments of your life matter— They do. Right now is one of them.

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Explore Beth’s creative archive—including I Must Have Forgotten and True Crime BnB—at linktr.ee/bethpods

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Keywords: memoir podcast, narrative storytelling, growing up in the Midwest, Indiana childhood, Northeast Ohio, Parma, mother-daughter relationships, siblings, healing and growth, identity, personal essays, emotional storytelling, sound design, love, heartache, laughter