My Own Story

It looks like it's time for another blog post! Despite my desires to post more frequently, I've only been able to get about one post up per month. Perhaps in the future, I'll be able to post more frequently.

I'm currently writing a short story about a group of young adults who have fallen into monster hunting. The story was inspired by the role-playing game and novels of #iHunt, which are fantastic by the way, but I wanted to approach that subject matter my own way. It's been a fun ride, so far, and I'm really enjoying the characters I've created and the story that's unfolding. I started writing it with only the vaguest of plans, so the events that I end up adding to the story surprise me, more often than not.

The act of writing this story, of sitting in front of my laptop and typing out words, is extremely enjoyable. While I've known for quite awhile that I like to write, this project has brought that home. And, it helped me realize another thing: I love to journal.

I've kept a journal off and on ever since I was a child. It's something that my mother made me do on Sundays and it's something I've done on my own as an adult. When I was young, it was torture. What do I write? Most often, I wrote about how angry I was with Mom that she made me journal. Or how I was hungry. Or how much I didn't want to go to school anymore. You know, quality stuff.

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I just went to the garage to hunt down my childhood journal. I flipped through the entries and, surprisingly, they are more descriptive than I remember. Though, here's a gem that fits the previous description:

July 9, 1995

Today is Sunday. I hate Sundays. We half to write a whole page in our journal. I half to work on Citezenship in the Nation. I hate scouts. They're boring. [Name Excluded] is merit badge counsolor for Citezenship in the Nation. I'm friends with [Name Excluded] & [Name Excluded] now. They like me. I think we will turn out to be good friends. I hate dad. He yells at us all the time. I wish he wouldn't yell at us all the time. 😄

Yeah, lots of spelling errors and teen angst.

That brings me to the point of this post: telling my own story. Perhaps it's because of how much my mother emphasized journaling, but for a long time I've felt compelled to journal. Journaling is documenting my life, telling my own story. At times, though, this all feels pointless. I don't share my journal with anyone else and I don't go back and read my journals. I'm too busy living my life; I don't have time.

So, I ask the question: What is the point?

I can't tell you the point, other than to say I feel compelled to do it. I like to write these things down. I like to keep a record of the events I live through and the things that happen to me as I go through my life. I think that the act of writing these things down helps me to remember them, but I can't say for sure. Since I have never really sat down to re-read my journals, I can't tell you if I've forgotten anything that I thought would be solidified in my memory upon writing it down. I can't tell you if I experienced epiphanies that I thought would change the way I viewed life to later either realize I was wrong or forget the lesson learned.

What is the point of journaling? Perhaps I am doing it wrong by not reviewing them. Perhaps I would be leading a more successful life if I had only clung to some nugget of wisdom I discovered and wrote down.

Or, maybe, these journals are not for me at all. Maybe they're for my family after I'm gone. I have struggled with my mortality quite a bit, over the years. I grew up in a religious environment where the focus was on just making it through life. "This is all temporary and doesn't really matter. Just make it through, to the end, doing the right things, and you'll have everything you ever wanted!"

I ceased believing in that, and shifting my paradigm took several years. My thoughts and feelings got written down occasionally as I fought through the depression and confusion that brought with it. Maybe those thoughts and feelings will help someone else down the line, as they struggle to find their place in the world, too.

Whatever the reason, journaling is a form of writing, a form that I enjoy. And, those documents tell my story, right from the horse's mouth.

My story is the most important one, to me. It's the one I'm living. It's the one that affects me, every day, at the beginning and at the end. It's a story that only I know inside and out.

To be honest, that's a little scary. Do I want to be the only one that knows the ins and outs of my story? I can answer that one right now:

No!

I don't want to be the only one. I know that one day, I won't grace this world with my illuminating presence. 😏 I don't want to be forgotten. I realize that my name is not going to go into the history books. The world at large will not know me; I am insignificant. But, someone who reads my journals will know me. They will read my story. And, I think, that's enough.

The Stone Figurine

The statue sat on the glass display case, uncaring as the man and woman standing on either side of it argued. They bumped the case with their gestures, rocking the small figurine on its uneven base, as their words grew more and more heated.

"We had a deal!" the woman yelled. "I have emails, from you, agreeing to $500 for this piece!" She waved her phone at the man as if it wielded some kind of magic.

The man growled in response. "That was before I learned its history. Its worth!" the man yelled. "It's worth ten times what we agreed, which you obviously knew! You were trying to rob me!" The case rocked a bit more as the man's belly bumped against it while he jabbed an accusing finger her way.

"Me?" the woman shrieked, "rob you? You're the one committing robbery here, and..." she began to dig in her purse, then raised a small revolver from it and pointed it at the man, "I don't have to take it!"

The man barely had time to raise his hands, palms out, to try and placate the woman before the small space exploded with the sound of a gun shot. Then another. The bullets slammed into him like the worst punches he'd ever felt and he gasped for breath, then his body went limp and he fell to the ground.

The woman grabbed the figurine from the case and shoved it into her dark purse, where it nestled up against a key fob and an old, forgotten lipstick.

Hours passed before the figurine saw the light again, a brief moment in which a latex gloved hand transferred it to a clear bag marked 'Evidence', the placed the bag in a cardboard box.

Much more time passed, so much that, had the little stone figure been able to tell time it would have lost track. Then, suddenly, its box jostled with movement and it opened. Light streamed in and illuminated the contents, which were then removed and sorted into separate bins. The one that received the figurine was marked 'Auction'.

The auction itself was a whirlwind of movement and sound which surrounded the little uncaring statuette until it was placed on a pedestal and sold for a surprising amount of money. The old man who collected it handled it carefully and rested it on his lap while his driver took him home.

Once there, he placed it under a glass display on a red velvet pillow. A young woman bounded down the stairs just as the man finished locking the display.

"Is that it, Daddy? Is that the statue?" she asked in an excited voice. Her red curls bounced around her bright and round face. The rich man looked down at her and smiled his small, reserved smile, though his eyes lit up with joy.

"Yes, my dear," he said. His voice was quiet and strong and he rested a hand on his daughter's shoulder as she bent down to peer through the glass. "That is indeed the statue. Can you believe this tiny thing has caused so much grief in its existence?" He allowed himself a disbelieving sigh and continued, "Death has always followed it, wherever it goes..."

"Well, it's here now, Daddy. Did it bring Death with it?" She asked, peering up at him with her bright green eyes.

The rich man chuckled at her question, his eyes warm, and patted her on the head. "No, dear one. It did not bring Death with it." He pulled her towards him and kissed her forehead, then walked away with another small chuckle. He shook his head, marveling at how his little girl could always bring light to his life.

The young woman pressed her face close to the glass and stared at the little stone figure. The glass fogged with her breath, expanding and contracting as she spent minutes admiring the piece. Finally she smiled.

"You're going to be mine, someday," she whispered. "All mine."