Today marks six years of living in Missouri, but more important, of owning my story---of holding the pen, of being okay with not having an eraser at the end of my writing tool, allowing each scribble, scratch, line drawn through a word, to tell my messy story. I think it's important to note that we cannot only know our story and expect better results, but we must own it and we must be okay sharing it, exposing it, and tending to it with great care and love.
I have re-created myself since moving here, so it would be rather easy to float through my new life without exposing the first 23 chapters of it. Nobody would ever know---just doggy-ear those pages, say they aren't important, they're not worth reading, that nobody wants to "see that", or tear them out altogether.
Can we ever understand or accept the entire story, appreciate the ending, without the start--or taking it a step further, the ugly, messy, chicken-scratch of a draft?
Today marks six years of crossing a state's border in the middle of the night, clothes thrown a muck in my backseat, trunk, and floorboard--maybe a dog thrown back there somewhere. Physically shaking, blurred vision through tears, a parent's voice of reason bouncing around my head--yet, I drove. I drove on. I was afraid, but I took the pen. I scribbled--
Chapter 24-Made From Scratch.
Owning your story isn't some easy thing that you can just do and it's over with. Owning your story is waking up every day determined to create yourself anew, many or most days, absolutely terrified. I believe that many of the things worth doing, creating, writing, jumping towards, are so ridiculous, so insane, irrational even, that 95% of people talk themselves out of ever making a move (physically/emotionally/financially).
You can't tiptoe into the waters of your own story--you have to jump. This isn't a kiddie pool, it's a freaking ocean and if you don't start swimming towards something a little scary, the worse thing will happen to you-
No, you won't drown. Worse.
You'll learn to just float. You'll learn to lay down in the waters of your own story and let the rip tides carry you wherever they may, with no direction, no fire, no drive, no terrifying, falling moments with the reward of the landing.
I miss the people I love that I left behind. I cry each time I leave my mother's kiss to the forehead, my father's award-winning hugs to his chest, my sister's laughter. I miss them so much that sometimes I have to jump in the car and go see them. Each time I arrive, I am happy--but, each time I leave to return to Chapter 24, I smile and know that I didn't simply land in this part of the story on accident--
I created it myself.
I took all of the lovely, terrifying, devastating, precious ingredients from all of the previous chapters and made something out of it. I think we confuse starting over with throwing out everything that actually made us who we are.
Don't throw out the pain, the divorce, the losses, the screw-ups, the dark parts--those ingredients are needed too. Own those parts, write them into the recipe. Then, find new, exciting ones and add those in too.
Own your story.
All of it.
Gather all of the darkness and all of the light.
