Quite a few years back I listened to a woman explain how everything in life eventually becomes a story. We live our lives and things happen to us that give good feelings, leave ugly scars, or leave no lasting impressions at all. But ultimately, with time and experience, everything that happens within our days becomes nothing more than a story- an experience that, quite simply, happened.
Longer stories become chapters, and smaller stories remain ordinary accounts. Sometimes this realization is unfortunate and disappointing, like when a positive life experience becomes a detailed report that I so painfully want to share with the rest of the world. I want to recall every last second for the listener in attempt to gift the wonder of the moment. Perhaps by doing this they can channel it all, maybe somehow take it on as their own. But sadly, no matter how much I want to re-live the words, for myself or for the other person, it all becomes nothing more but a routine breakfast conversation that is shuffled off as quickly as the dirty dishes on the table.
The worst of experiences can also be the most beautiful and inspiring of personal legends as they transcend into the history of our lives. Like the times we forgive and finally lift the weight off our souls after someone does us wrong. When we reveal lessons and inspire. When we join with loved ones to hash out a conflict, in the process becoming closer and more understanding of each other.
Sometimes, like a good book, its all meant for sheer pleasure. I love those precious moments after an incredible wave of life washes over us. Loveliness lingers in the details as we soak in every last drop before the wave recedes back into time’s predictable rhythm.
It makes me wonder if there’s a real reason why we call those problems we hang onto “issues.” We all have things that we just can't release. These are those "issues" which we then proceed to either hold onto and drag around like cargo, box up and place in storage, or recycle, putting them to use towards producing new, and hopefully better, things. Perhaps it’s a couple lines on our mind's page that we recount, some old leaflets we dust off every once in a while, or a whole limited edition volume in our soul that we can’t seem to finish or get just right.
It seems its the most burdensome of these old articles we keep re-reading, regardless of what page we're on. We memorize them by heart and then fail to realize that we aren't even really listening to our own soliloquies anymore. I think its healthy to acknowledge that most passages are intended to be lived only once, and then placed mindfully back on the shelf. Being healthy about it is the hard part, though. There's no time to read about how to be healthy when I've got all these damn issues of my own to go through!
Conveniently, this theme was part of the last lesson I taught in a couple of my classes quite a few weeks back. Never would I have predicted that only a few days later I would proceed to be sharply reminded of the process that’s involved in the development of these noteworthy plots, and how hard it is to put the pen down. In my particular drama, tangents of physical pain, personal trials, emotional suffering flooded my pages. Heroes rescued, love lost and love prevailed, thousands of dollars were squandered. Agonizing dilemmas and fierce antagonists forced themselves onto my storyboard. Drugs were even involved, folks! Details, details, details, details and more details cluttered every line. Every. Single. Line.
Finally, like brick through a window, it hit me that this story's been told, and its time to shut-up. Even though this particular plot development felt overwhelmingly unsatisfactory, and I'm not really sure if my character even developed, I had a sense of satiety deep in the pit of my stomach that signaled to my brain that its time to crank out a final sentence and close up this chapter.
It's a relief to have this manuscript done, but still part of me sometimes wants to go back and revise and edit, see which parts I could have changed to make it better, try to re-write it all for someone else, anyone else, to read differently....
But I can't. That's all she wrote. Besides, perfection is for fairy tales.
And they lived happily ever after.
