Sunday Prayer

More and more I am convinced that the absolute only thing that matters are our stories.

Who we are.  What we've endured.  Where we've been.  How we've been able to still stay standing in the face of all those otherthings that tried to tip us over.

I cannot remember one day when I did not wonder about another person's story and I cannot remember one hour when I did not long to tell mine.

There are so many things about my story that I love would tell you.  If I had the nerve and strength and oooomph to tell you---like all those other storytellers---who speak of their awful upbringings and their incomprehensible stutters and their other worldly abuse and their overwhelming isolation and their lingering, deep doubt and their astounding triumph and their feeling that they just can't do it---I would love to share my story with you.

I have felt, on several occasions, that I just can't do it.  And on each and every one of those occasions, I have been led to or found or discovered or been shown SOMEONE ELSE'S WORDS and those words were the thing that buoyed me and made me feel like I was going to make it.  Like I was going to be okay. 

And each and every time it was the words that made the story and the story was the thing that saved me. 

I have so many stories I want to tell.

I want to tell these stories because they comprise the journey that shaped me and in telling these stories I know they will save someone else.  I just know it.

How many stories do you have that you KNOW, if you told them, someone else's load would be lightened because someone else, upon hearing your story, would not feel alone. There are so many tales we could tell to each other and if we told these tales to each other we could give each other hope.

It might be about the path you chose to take even though someone told you not to take it.

It might be about the argument you allowed while still keeping your dignity intact and your heart open.

It might be about how you decided to go away for an hour and write about your rage instead of expressing it, in real time to real people.

It might be about how, instead of listening to all the awful voices, this one shiny afternoon, you listened to the voice that told you you were perfect.

It might be about how you blossomed into a beautiful person regardless of all the uncaring you suffered.

It might be about how you made it to here and every moment you feel like you deserve a medal.

It might be about that you feel paralyzed when you think of all the stories you have to tell.

It might be about how you feel that no one will relate to your story because you are the only person who has lived it.

It might be about how you feel that you do not even have a story.

What I'm saying is---so many people are LONGING to hear your exact version of your exact story and so many people are waiting to recognize themselves in the story that may be worse than theirs or better than theirs or exactly the same---and so my prayer for this Sunday would be that all of us would reveal our stories in whatever way felt most comfortable for us and in that way the blanket that covers us would, of course, keep us warm forever.

Yours In Big Stupid Blubber Brain,
Stacy of the Sincere