An Unnatural Story

There is a story I have been telling myself for most of my adult life. I won’t share it with you because it is a terrible story. It is a story that should never have been told, but I told it all the same. Unlike good stories, this story cannot tell itself. It is unnatural. It would not exist if not for my ceaseless attention to it. And yet whenever I tell it this story becomes like a puppet that can hypnotize his puppeteer into believing their roles have been reversed.

Eventually I grow tired of the energy required to tell this story and I surrender. This always feels a bit like failure until I become aware of the difference between telling it and not telling it. With the memory of telling it still fresh in me I can hate the story as a parent would hate some villain who has abused his child. I want to hunt this story down and murder it. This story must never be told again. But to go in search of this story is to find it, and to find it is to tell it, and to tell it is to believe it. It cannot die at my hands. In fact, it will only grow stronger in my embrace.

I am sure I have told this story to my friends from time to time, and I am sorry for this. I hope they recognized the story for what it is. Telling it to my friends was only my way of asking them if it was true that nothing in life can be known until it is proven.

Write Within Yourself: An Author's Companion. "A book to keep nearby whenever your writer's spirit needs feeding." Deb Caletti.

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