Catherine H Palmer

From my memoir in progress

"I thought of this old school picture when you said tiny light,” I told my life coach, describing the little girl with the red sweater and a bad haircut. "Think mullet meets The Rachel," The girl in the photo pressed her lips tightly and gazed cross-eyed away from the camera.

What might you have been? I asked the little girl in the red sweater, turning the creased wallet-sized photo in my hand as if, like a Magic 8 Ball, it might have the answer. Faint frown lines creased her seven-year-old brow, forecasting the Botox injections she’d get fifty years later, Reply hazy, she seemed to say. Try again later.

Bio

Catherine Palmer is testing the theory that “it’s never too late to be what you might have been.” In the midst of menopause, she moved to Vermont, hired a life coach, and quit her job to embark on a search for what makes her whole. Catherine holds an MFA in creative writing and has published her work in The Boston Globe, Huffington Post, American Literary Review, and other literary journals. She is a frequent contributor to AARP’s online magazine, The Ethel and is writing a memoir about her midlife reinvention after an accidental marketing career.