therealljidol, week 0 (veteran): introduction
The last time I went out for coffee with someone, he asked me about myself.
"Tell me who you are, what you want to do."
I told him something vague about my plans for the future, where I see myself in five years, and he built off of that.
He told me his life story, who he was and where he'd come from.
What should have been a short meeting to discuss a business opportunity turned into a three-and-a-half hour conversation, and we left as friends.
Some people are surprised when they hear me say this, but it's what happens every time. We meet. I say something. You tell me your life story. We leave as friends.
I'm lucky, in that aspect, or maybe not.
I know everyone else's story.
Very few people know mine.
My fiance used to say that it wasn't so much that I was a private person as that I didn't talk about myself.
"Except you do," he said, when it came out that I had some skill he hadn't realized. "You just..."
"I talk about what matters," I said. "You know. I skip what doesn't."
What matters: identity. Personal politics. Experiences.
What doesn't: what skills I might have, except as they're relevant in the moment. Other experiences. Memories. The past.
I would never have told the man I met for coffee that I was a pianist, for example, or that I do embroidery in my free time. He wanted to talk to me about business; we ended up discussing his daughter because it was pertinent to the conversation we were having.
"Normal people don't have these experiences," my fiance says, but it's always been this way for me.
I have a very open face, or something about me tells people I'm a safe person. Hi, I'm someone you can talk to, and people do.
Where other people are waiting to speak, I listen. I really listen.
It's amazing what you learn, when you do.
I've never told anyone my full story. The pieces are sad and strange and painful, or else they're too beautiful to be believed. I add it up sometimes, re-read old journals, try to recall what happened and when, put together a timeline, and don't come up with anything worth talking about. There's a lot of pain, and a lot of darkness, but a lot of joy, too. If I believe in a balance to the universe (and I must, because I also believe in the balance of light and dark), I have to believe in the joy. Even during the worst points of my life, I've tried to find beauty.
I'm not an optimist. I just recognize opportunity.
No one knows my story because it's not a good story. There's no neat endings, no tidy "and then this happened to the villain, so..." Everyone goes on living, unless they die unexpectedly, and no one gets a comeuppance. At 29, the main character hasn't got shit figured out yet. The twists are unbelievable, and the ending needs work. The characterization is hit and miss. Characters appear in one chapter, only to disappear in another, and deaths happen without any buildup, no rhyme or reason. What is there to tell? Where's the narrative thread that links it all together, except that it happened to me?
I know what the thread is. I also know that I'm not ready to tell it yet, not all at once, not in story-form. Bits and pieces, here and there, I'll let out, but I like being the listener, the one who pays attention.
I'm the listener. I don't tell my story. That doesn't mean I don't have stories to tell.
Something that never would have come up, in that business meeting, is that I am also a writer. It's part of recognizing opportunity: seeing the story in everything, and being willing to sit down and bang it out, write it out and capture all the details.
I'm the the listener. I'm also a writer. I have stories that I want to share.
I'm here, this season, to tell them.
"Tell me who you are, what you want to do."
I told him something vague about my plans for the future, where I see myself in five years, and he built off of that.
He told me his life story, who he was and where he'd come from.
What should have been a short meeting to discuss a business opportunity turned into a three-and-a-half hour conversation, and we left as friends.
Some people are surprised when they hear me say this, but it's what happens every time. We meet. I say something. You tell me your life story. We leave as friends.
I'm lucky, in that aspect, or maybe not.
I know everyone else's story.
Very few people know mine.
My fiance used to say that it wasn't so much that I was a private person as that I didn't talk about myself.
"Except you do," he said, when it came out that I had some skill he hadn't realized. "You just..."
"I talk about what matters," I said. "You know. I skip what doesn't."
What matters: identity. Personal politics. Experiences.
What doesn't: what skills I might have, except as they're relevant in the moment. Other experiences. Memories. The past.
I would never have told the man I met for coffee that I was a pianist, for example, or that I do embroidery in my free time. He wanted to talk to me about business; we ended up discussing his daughter because it was pertinent to the conversation we were having.
"Normal people don't have these experiences," my fiance says, but it's always been this way for me.
I have a very open face, or something about me tells people I'm a safe person. Hi, I'm someone you can talk to, and people do.
Where other people are waiting to speak, I listen. I really listen.
It's amazing what you learn, when you do.
I've never told anyone my full story. The pieces are sad and strange and painful, or else they're too beautiful to be believed. I add it up sometimes, re-read old journals, try to recall what happened and when, put together a timeline, and don't come up with anything worth talking about. There's a lot of pain, and a lot of darkness, but a lot of joy, too. If I believe in a balance to the universe (and I must, because I also believe in the balance of light and dark), I have to believe in the joy. Even during the worst points of my life, I've tried to find beauty.
I'm not an optimist. I just recognize opportunity.
No one knows my story because it's not a good story. There's no neat endings, no tidy "and then this happened to the villain, so..." Everyone goes on living, unless they die unexpectedly, and no one gets a comeuppance. At 29, the main character hasn't got shit figured out yet. The twists are unbelievable, and the ending needs work. The characterization is hit and miss. Characters appear in one chapter, only to disappear in another, and deaths happen without any buildup, no rhyme or reason. What is there to tell? Where's the narrative thread that links it all together, except that it happened to me?
I know what the thread is. I also know that I'm not ready to tell it yet, not all at once, not in story-form. Bits and pieces, here and there, I'll let out, but I like being the listener, the one who pays attention.
I'm the listener. I don't tell my story. That doesn't mean I don't have stories to tell.
Something that never would have come up, in that business meeting, is that I am also a writer. It's part of recognizing opportunity: seeing the story in everything, and being willing to sit down and bang it out, write it out and capture all the details.
I'm the the listener. I'm also a writer. I have stories that I want to share.
I'm here, this season, to tell them.