Unassigned
This may come as a complete shock to you, but I am not perfect.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: beneath my attempted “Audrey Hepburn meets Diane Keaton meets Amy Poehler” exterior beats the heart of a “Marilyn Monroe meets Goldie Hawn meets Kathy Griffin.”
Okay, the latter hybrid actually sounds like she’d be a good time.
But I digress. The point is…I do not have it all together (I also don’t have any drug addictions, creepy ex husbands, or blasphemous tendencies, for the record).
I was reminded of this fact last Wednesday when something was brought to my attention after my Cheeky column went up.
It was one of those “Oh, hell, here we go/time for therapy” moments where I remember what a piece of work I am.
One of those moments where someone tells me something and I hear myself muttering, “Have mercy” like Uncle Jesse in Full House, except he always said it in a sexy voice and I’m saying it in a dead panic voice.
Yeah. One of those.
I’m sure you can relate.
On the surface, it wasn’t even that monumental, but beneath the surface was something deeper. (Iceberg metaphor noted. Sorry I’m not sorry.)
It began with Clare sending me a G-Chat Wednesday. It went something like this:
Clare: I just read your article, haha, you never told me you were panicked about drinking my coffee.
Me: Omg. I never confessed that confession to you? Did I even tell you I was writing about it?
Clare: Haha, nope. I found out that last part by reading it on Cheeky.
Me: Wow. I guess confessing and doing the right thing doesn’t count if you only write about it instead of actually doing it.
Clare: I think it half counts.
Me: I’m a hot mess.
Clare: Who isn’t?
I mean, SERIOUSLY?!
I got so caught up in the story ending that I forgot to make it happen in real life.
I mean, I certainly confessed to her that I drank her coffee and I truly decided against the sneaky ‘replace old coffee with new coffee’ maneauver, but I never told her of my original sinister plan.
Is that considered a half truth? Is there such a thing?
This, I realized, is actually something I struggle with as a writer. Over the past two years, I have inadvertently trained my brain to see stories everywhere and through everyday little things. Don’t get me wrong, this can be delightful and does wonders for keeping my overactive imagination happy.
But the problem comes when I manipulate my story into a cohesive, funny, moral lesson instead of focusing my energy on simply living it out.
Who knew being a good editor would turn into a hangup?
The bottom line is that I never want my life to turn into a story for others to read instead of one for me to live well. I never want to view my lessons and struggles merely through the lens of storytelling. I never want to narrate instead of navigate. So this was a perfect lesson in that. The truth is, my life will not always be humorous, it will not always end well, and there will be countless moments where I cannot find a single, worthwhile lesson to pull from it.
But part of the delight of being a professional storyteller (yes, that is on my business cards) is that I do get to develop a perspective where I can take what happens in my life and find a way to share the meaning, joy, and wisdom I discover through it.
Because that is life. And this is my story. And I’m sticking to it.
