Tell Me Your Story
She’d always hated the feel of sweat on her neck but Mississippi sweat was its own kind of beast, a slow, downward creeping that left a memory on her skin she would never fully shake off. Walking into the Greyhound bus station, she was slightly amazed at how little she’d brought to sustain her in this next chapter of her life – a small suitcase, the old red-letter bible her grandmother had given her when she was seven, a carton of Marlboros, fifty dollars and a dread that would be her traveling companion from Jackson, MS to the mid-Atlantic. She was 19 years old in December of 1980, but she felt so much older, worn down and lost.
She barely had time to check in at the counter when it was time to board the bus. One step was as far as she got before she looked back, seeing nothing in the early morning Mississippi haze but the taillights of the car that had left her there. She took a quick peek at the side of the bus, barely noticing the logo of a racing dog stretched in full stride, having no idea the part that would play in her future.
Stories. We all have one. The words of our lives. The ripple that begins when we enter this world is created with the first word of the story of this lifetime. What is your story? Who knows it? We all have a story and although we might think our story isn’t interesting or inspiring, trust me, it is. Every person is unique and important and every story is too. Stories are life waiting to be shared.
As an adult, moving back in with one’s parents often doesn’t go well. They didn’t want her there, that much was evident, so she got a job right away for no other reason than to avoid the feeling that she didn’t belong in their home. They gave her a cot to sleep on in the hallway next to the washer and dryer. It all became unmanageable and within a month she moved into an apartment with a woman from work. She took the cot with her and that is where she laid at night, just far enough off the floor to avoid scurrying roaches, and allowed the darkness to come. As the days went by, the darkness within her soul became more dense and she succumbed over and over to that which would temporarily erase her pain and make her numb.
Our stories are remarkably important, not only because they are ours, but because they offer bits and pieces of wisdom to those with whom we share them. Every story has lessons to offer, gems of insight that can awaken the senses of those who receive them, and countless feelings and sensations that bring other worlds into our own.
If you’ve ever wanted to know someone but they took their story to the grave with them, you know the ache of the loss of their story. On the other hand, if you’ve been fortunate enough to come across a diary or journal, something that tells their story, you know the elation of getting to know them better even though they are gone. Getting to know them is also getting to know you.
The years ahead had been kind and unkind, a mishmash of good, bad, ugly and amazing. Relationships came and went, experiences either lifted her up or tore her down. Living a nomad/gypsy like life, she flitted from here to there, never quite finding what she was looking for. Substances that brought numbness and relief changed in quantity and type but the reasons she used them remained the same. All the while, something stirred inside her, an unexplainable faith in something that felt just out of reach.
It doesn’t take much to tell your story other than a little time. You don’t need a fancy computer or device to type on. If you have pen and paper (or table napkin and pencil), you can tell your story. If you don’t, tell it to someone, speak it out loud. Give it life in words and tone. Proper grammar and punctuation are optional. Tell your story your way but please tell it because it matters. There is something in every story that will inspire someone else.
“I’m going to marry that guy someday,” she said to herself as she watched him from a distance and eventually that is exactly what happened. Feeling ready to settle down surprised her but this was meant to be and they both knew it, obstacles and all. An unfortunate medical condition in her early 30s removed all chances of having children but they had each other and that was enough.
Her first real home offered the opportunity to adopt a retired racing greyhound and that set in motion a 30 plus year odyssey of love with a breed that amazed her in how they overcame the baggage they brought with them from the race track. She often thought of the bus that carried her north and how it foretold what would be a very special part of her life.
In many ways, the next phase of her life became a book all its own, one of settling down and settling in, getting comfortable enough for all the demons in her soul to surface and demand attention. They would not be denied.
There is a quote that says something to the effect that in the telling of the story of the mountains you climbed, your words become pages in someone else’s survival guide. Telling your story can heal you and help heal others. Iyanla Vanzant is quoted as saying, “When you tell your story, you give other people permission to acknowledge their own story.” One story can change and heal the lives of many people.
Life continued as life does, both exciting and mundane. Mistakes were made and good decisions as well. Relationships were repaired and a few destroyed. Birthdays accumulated as did gray hair and wrinkles. Chronic pain joined the family and changed everything. There were blessings and complete busts. It was a life where one moment blended into another like words on a page. It was a story being written in real time.
Telling your story isn’t necessarily easy. It all depends on how much you want to divulge, how deep you want to go and how you feel about so many others knowing so much about you. But that’s the point isn’t it? To tell your story is to fill in the empty spaces created by words left unsaid. Telling our stories fills in the blanks in our lives and the lives of others.
Inside the lines of her story, she lost herself in her own darkness and found herself within her own light, and vice versa. At times she was met with love, sometimes distain, curiosity or disbelief. She was surrounded by vibrant people and visited by the dead. She was normal and not-so-much. Entangled in her story were a series of unexplainable graces that gifted her the ability to easily give up decades-long drug and alcohol use that kept her numb and to dump the cigarettes she’d been smoking for almost 30 years without a single craving or desire to let either back in. Miracles as far as she was concerned.
Outside the lines she discovered that love was enough, until it wasn’t. Trust mattered, honestly was vital and yet sometimes crossing the line was easier than crossing the street. She learned that her story was not just hers but became part of the stories of everyone she ever came in contact with.
History books are filled with information and no shortage of details but not much in the way of stories within the events themselves. We might read about war, but we are not told of the utter emotional devastation it caused or how it felt to try and rebuild one’s life afterwards. The people who lived these stories have to be the ones to tell them. Somewhere within their stories we find a connection to our own. History is really her-story, his-story, our story. Without our stories, there is no history.
It sometimes catches her off guard how quickly time has gone by. So much happened in those years since the long bus ride from Mississippi landed her in Baltimore. She is blessed and she knows it. She is haunted too but at least now she better understands why.
As she concludes her 62nd year, she is keenly aware of the changing of seasons, her seasons. The days are shorter and go by faster. She and her beloved of 32 years ponder time and talk of retirement. Her story is forever entangled with his and yet her story is her own. What remains of her days are chapters yet to be written and the lifetimes to come are the sequel.
There is not one life ever lived that does not have a story worth telling. These stories are the roadmap of the world, waiting to be told. The earth has been telling her story since she came into being and our stories are bonded with hers, co-creating a library of lifetimes. Together we are the book of life, the never-ending story.
“She held her whole life up to the light and it struck her how beautiful it was, even with the threads of dark woven through it and if she cried easily after that, it was only because she understood at last, this is what she is making with the life she has.” (unknown)
© Terri Onorato 2023. All Rights Reserved.
Aging Inferno 