The Stories I Want to Tell

The best stories are often the ones that are hardest to write.

They are more often than not ones involving heartbreak or pointed opinions that are unpopular with large swaths of people or topics of conversation that your Grandma might disapprove of even speaking out loud about. They usually involve digging deeper than just some bullshit fluff you can crank out in thirty minutes just to meet a deadline or just to get another post out there in the universe with your name on it. Sometimes they even elicit concerned phone calls from one relative or another asking if everything’s okay because somehow with your words you shattered their perfect ideal little bubble of happiness they’ve created for themselves.

These are the stories that I want to tell.

The ones that make people laugh, cry, cringe, think a little deeper about a topic than they ever had before, consider a new viewpoint, or make someone realize that they are not alone in the universe. I want to talk about the unpopular opinions, the topics that might make people hate you, and the things that are really going on in my life.

The stories that I want to tell are the ones that I shouldn’t.

They involve telling the truth, or at least my version of it, and being totally and completely and brutally honest with a bunch of people that I wouldn’t normally bare my soul to on a regular day. Sometimes they involve fantasies - what you wish the world could be, your life could be like, or what the next 24 hours could hold if Covid wasn’t a thing anymore or if you were rich and could take a private jet to a remote island and just stay there for a while.

They take time and effort to actually get the details right.

To double check your sources so you’re not a spreader of fake news, to make sure your reader gets out of it what you want them to see or question or understand, and most of all, to figure out why you think this story is worthwhile to share in the first place.

For the right story, the details matter. 

Most times, even in life, it’s the details that make all the difference. The small nod of hello while passing a new coworker (or a small smile of acknowledgement in a mask-free environment), the card that comes in the mail from relatives you only see a few times a year to wish you a ‘Happy Birthday’, the feeling on the palm of your hand when it’s holding a stubbly cheek just before a kiss you’ve been dying for and have literally dreamt about for months. 

These are the things that matter and the things worth remembering. 

Big picture ideas are good and important, but for me, life is in the details and the beautiful little moments that have you sitting alongside the road drinking a beer in the middle of Wyoming surrounded by rolling hills and mountains and perfectly petite yellow and white flowers. Playing a Jenga game with new friends and getting so lit that you literally try to remove a piece that is holding the entire structure up and is an engineering impossibility. Holding each other in a corner of a dark bar with music playing that you vaguely know the lyrics to until the wee hours of the morning and feeling 100% alive in that moment.

These are the moments that I want to remember.

The ones that make you realize that even on seemingly monotonous days there are some truly spectacular flashes of color if you look hard enough or care to notice. That make you see the beauty in this crazy thing called life even on days when everything is going to shit and you just got in a fight with your Mom and you’re hating your job and it’s pouring and you’re trudging through puddle after puddle in inappropriate footwear just so you can spend the next two hours sitting in traffic on your way home. The ones that allow you to really see into someone’s soul, even if only for a brief fleeting moment, that changes your whole perspective on who they are as a person. The stories that get you out of your own head because they are so captivating or ridiculous or hilarious that you can’t help but to forget about your own shit for a moment and just get lost in the words of another.

These are the stories I hope to share and the ones that I hope you’ll read.