What’s Your Story?

I have spent the better part of a week exploring the one-sided story. We all love them. From hero to victim, we formulate and lock in our character then move on to the other players.  Bully, narcissist, accuser, over-bearing jerk are some of the favorites. Them versus us. Us against the world.

Someone did something to us that we did not appreciate, like, approve of or understand. Rarely do we tell the story of when we were the oppressor or instigator, but my goodness we have tales to tell of how we were attacked or wronged.  Often, we can provide how we overcame the situation and triumphed thus, in our minds, moving us from the victim space to the hero, but the story stays the same. We were the innocent in the scenario.

We love our stories. I have lots of them and I can still access many of them for the enjoyment or edification of others. The difficult aspect for me is that staying in the role of damsel in distress has become harder to justify or inhabit. My mind defaults to:

                “How did it benefit me?

                “When have I exhibited the same behavior?”

                “How did it benefit the people to whom I demonstrated the behavior?”

                “What, in my fantasy, should have happened?”

It really ruins a good “boo boo kitty” story. It is a buzz kill to wallowing in self-pity. I can still muster enough time to lick my perceived wounds and with some events I can flop about in the mire for a reasonable length of time being sure to really get covered in it. Then, sooner rather than later, I now seem compelled to hoist myself up, have a good rinse and sit down with pen and paper to work out the balance.

My approach is not about forgiveness because in the end there is nothing to forgive because the “other” person did not “do” anything to me. I simply reacted to behaviors that to quote my husband were perhaps “less than elegant.” They are only as hurtful or unthinking as I choose to value them. This does not change the fact that the person raining down the circumstances that have gotten me there is not doing it for some reason or doing it in the hopes of the results that entail, but their motives are not mine to embrace. They may be mine to analyze and strategize how to avoid, but they only have the power I give them.

As I attempt to balance events of the present and past, I feel as though I am being squeezed through the end of a toothpaste tube. Leaving a safe contained environment and knowing that I will be shot back out into a world that is open and full of potential and possibility. It will be less burdensome and a bit brighter (for a while until the next opportunity for growth) but leaving the familiar takes courage.

I have never thought of myself as a risktaker, but I know now that the risk of not changing is far scarier for me.