Stories. We each have one. When you were born, how you were
raised, who you fell in love with for the first time, how you learned this, or
forgot that, or were hurt. From my perspective, as a writer, everyone I look at doesn’t
really have a story. They are a story. Prior scenes and chapters
in their lives have led to the person now before me, chatting about a broken heart over coffee
or rejoicing in their child’s 4 for 4 at bats in a little league
game. It is no different when I look in the mirror; one moment sad, the next
happy. We vacillate wildly, don’t we, you and I and everyone else? Yes. We do
indeed.
Every part of our story is a journey, documented and
retained. Some stories tell of long stretches of glorious victory and, oh, how
we must savor those, and remember of how we pushed on, and reveled in that magical
state called “peace”. Other journeys were treks across vast wastelands of darkness,
pain and sorrow. The feet carried, and the knees bent, all in an effort to get
through, before the soul broke.
I've blogged in the past about how we're not alone, that we should lean;
on family, on friends, and most of all, on God. The truth of the matter, though,
is that some journeys are meant to be taken solo. I’ve been on one for seven
months now. I’ve finally exhausted my
intellect and spent my will, which is a good thing. It means now, at last, I’m
ready to listen and be loved again. I’m ready to reach out and grab hold,
instead of avoid and push away. It’s a bit of a mystery, no? That God brings us
to places, sometimes the deepest caverns within ourselves, often more than
once, to show us that we can make it
out, that we can indeed close one
chapter in our lives, which helps us begin another. All in the context of an overall
theme of "I Am". All in a character arc that reads beneath the stars.
