Oh Herro!
Just wondering if I'm the only one here, but have you ever had that conversation that changes the way you percieve the last year or so? You had an idea in your head of what was going on, and now it's different? Cause I just did, this morning. And it got me thinking.
I've been feeling a little hard-done-by recently. Not annoyed, just feeling like I'd been walking down the same road for way too long, and it was time to change. To break out. To start over. Then I had this conversation, about life, about God, about the process of development, and at one point, this last year went from being a pointless and difficult trek through a desert, to a refining and wholly neccessary process.
Obviously, I feel incredibly greatful for the whole experience, but it also makes me think: How important are the stories we tell to ourselves? We all narrate our past day, week, major events into bite-size stories, with us as the main character, and either good or bad things happening. Then we string together the ones we remember into year-long ballads, decade-long sagas, and life-long odysseys, and the repeated symbols and meanings we draw from them become our own definition of ourselves.
And then it hits me. The reason we have such bad images of who and where and how we are is because we only ever remember the bad things. The stories where we got it wrong. The tragedies. And we use these stories as our sagas, because we forget the little good things.
So here goes. These are the little good things of the past two weeks:
I was asked out.
Someone I'd met for the second time said she liked my laugh, it made her feel important and funny at the same time.
I told Mrs In Wonderland that I reckoned I was an omni-vert, and she 'almost shot porridge out her nose' (her words)
I taught 200 people how to swing dance. I've only been dancing less than a year, and I had never taught before. Everybody now loves it.
I had a conversation with a really nice girl afterwards, and asked her out for coffee. The resulting conversation began this blog.
That's all I can remember for now, but maybe I should do this more often,
Jonathan
