Hugging my inner writing nag.
She keeps me Moving Bravely when all hope seems lost.
Writing is incredible. People are just out there pairing words together to express an idea or experience. Sometimes, I forget that I am one of those people. I’m not sure how normal this is for the average person, but I constantly think about telling stories. I want to be told stories. I want to share stories. I relish in the narratives of humans existing on this floating rock. Lately, with the state of things in the world, I ask myself “What’s the point?” more often than I’d like to admit, being that I am known as an optimistic, albeit a bit too naive, person.
When life starts to feel heavier than I can handle, I look for stories everywhere. I fixate on a new podcast (right now, it’s We’re Here to Help). I binge-watch a show on my phone at night in the little free time I get as a mom of a toddler. I crave books that whisk me away to another world, one that’s oddly close to our reality with a touch of magic, because my brain just won’t let me stray too far. I’ve realized I really enjoy magical realism. Please share your favorites!
As I feel weighed down, I turn to the words of others to find a moment to breathe easier and to lift what feels like the weight of the world off my chest.
My mother was a journalist, and the stories she told, printed for all to see alongside ads for the newest dieting fad or the local furniture store’s liquidation sale—things we would surely never see again because they always made it sound like they were going out of business. I’ve rediscovered her stories thanks to Google Newspaper archives, and I find myself transported back to my childhood. I mean, the woman put us in her stories, name and all, but in a way that balanced transparency and vulnerability just right to make you feel seen. From what I gather, her mother definitely did not approve of her “oversharing.” She wondered, “Why did Suellen have to share so many personal and private details in her articles?” This was long before we started normalizing this by posting pictures of our plates and telling people our intimate struggles on the internet, as I very much do.
I think, in a way, my mother was showing others the humanity of it all, giving it meaning and purpose—an act of bravery. Bravery I desperately hold onto since her death. At first, unknowingly, and now, seven years later—deliberately.
Mom’s stories defined bravery because they showed people doing everything from ordinary to heroic things, and she looked for the human side of it all. The magic that exists between what we feel, what we do, and how it connects us to others. That magic is what keeps me moving. That magic is what helps me to be brave.
Sometimes, I get so annoyed with the storyteller in me. I constantly feel a nagging urge to jot things down and capture moments in photos and videos. I want to find the perfect words to describe times that you know are fading even before they end. Moments that will never happen again, no matter how hard you try. Moments that don’t go viral. Moments that give way to stories that make you feel at home, grounded, and secure. And the ones making you laugh until you cry and gasp for breath. I chase the high of a story that makes me feel alive and full of love, to the point of exhausting myself, but I just can’t help it.
So, dare I say, damn you, my inner story seeker. Oh, how you run me ragged and give me purpose when all else seems lost and utterly pointless. And I mean that with all the love from the bottom of my story-hungry, human heart. Without it, all my hope would be lost.
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