Storytime

I met a stranger in McDonald's today while the kids and I were eating lunch. My Mom always said never to talk to strangers, but over the years that saying has lost it's fear. Sorry, Mom. I am a disobedient daughter. I have found throughout my adult life thus far, that some of the most interesting conversations that you have with people are the very first ones. The conversations in which you learn about where people are from, what they do, what their life has been like up until the moment that you meet them. I love hearing people's stories and life experiences. I love asking questions that uncover their valuable history and memories. You can learn so much from what other people have lived through and learned. The sad thing to me, is that I feel more comfortable doing this with complete strangers than I do with people that I've known for years.

Sometimes I look around at the people that I interact with often and realize how little I know about their story. Even with some of my closest friends, I am missing pieces of their stories. Most often conversations start with, "How are you doing?" and that is as far as it goes. Sometimes, out of the blue, I learn something that I never knew. A piece of the story that makes my friend make sense or shines light on to the way that they think and act. And I wonder why I never knew that before.

This blog, for me, tells pieces of my story all the time. A lot of it is my everyday life. Some of it is about people who have impacted me. And still another part of it is my memories. Another part is about what I dream for the future. Telling your story is as important as learning to listen and find out what other people are all about. What I write about tells about me; what's important to me and what I strive to achieve throughout living my story. I find that telling people your story puts it into light sometimes. What I mean by that is that when you share it, it becomes real and then you are accountable to it.

My very first blog talked about my dream to become a rock star. By writing that piece of my story I have become accountable to you with what I do to achieve that dream. You can mark my progress, or lack thereof, now because you know part of my story. I think that maybe we don't tell our stories for this very reason sometimes. If we share about our dreams and we don't achieve them or if we fail, we might look idiots. Heaven forbid that our story is not perfect! I have learned a secret, it's often the tension and the struggle that makes for the best kind of story. When you overcome the hard things, there is victory. If you aren't fighting for something or struggling to overcome adversity and challenges, your eulogy is going to be putting people to sleep. (That's going to be my next post....my own eulogy....stay tuned.)