What's Your Story

"We tell stories in order to live." - Joan Didion

"Tell me the story, mom, that says 'there was a little boy who lived in a city . . .'" That's the way our bedtime begins now, with my youngest son requesting the unique story of his adoption from Guatemala. We have told his story through various picture books and memorabilia since he came to us almost three years ago, but the newest version of his story is different. My latest effort was produced via simple word processing, without pictures or embellishment of any kind. What it does have, that the earlier versions did not, is emotion. Tough emotion, like his legitimate fears, worries and sorrow upon leaving a home and people that he loved for a brand new place where he did not know a soul, did not understand the language, and could not be understood. In the past I have glossed over those pieces in the interest of 'sparing' his current feelings. I was not being truthful in my storytelling, and the center of my story knew it. No wonder he recognizes and likes the current edition much better.

I've heard that we all need to figure out our individual narratives in order to make sense of our lives. I've been trying to do this with increasing difficulty as shifting jobs, motherhood, and the swift passage of time unravel my particular narrative thread and leaving me grasping for continuity and meaning. I realized as I wrote the emotions into my youngest son's story that I was leaving out the feelings (particularly the bad ones) when I told my own history. Events do not comprise the entirety of my life; just retelling the stages and steps of my history (high school, college, jobs, etc.) removes its uniqueness. I needed the emotion: did I hate college? Love the first job? Rebel against the possessive boyfriend? How did I react and how did my emotional response help to dictate the next move? What we learn, how we choose our path . . .the deeper, murkier stuff of our pasts makes them interesting.

Maya Angelou says, "there is no greater burden than carrying an untold story." Perhaps that is the reason why 175,000 blogs start every day. And we must not confine our stories to the proper, the glorious, the successful - even if we have all of these shiny elements in our narratives. The favorite stories are always of the hero who gets knocked down - perhaps repeatedly - only to get up again and again. We cannot empathize with a protagonist who does not feel fear, who is loved by everyone she meets, or who achieves success in every venture. Why would we tell our own stories this way? I have started re-telling my own story (in my head, only, fortunately for you) and emphasizing the emotions that I felt, what I responded to or rejected, and how that dictated my next steps. I find that tracing my history in this manner makes it far more meaningful and far more coherent - "ugly" stuff and all. Now I can teach all my kids how to tell their own stories, and make sure they include all the right elements.