Stories.

I tell a lot of stories about myself.

Not long stories — they’re usually just one sentence, a few words to box myself up in a small, easy-to-grasp package.

For example:  I have issues with food.  I’m shy.  I don’t look good in green.  People make me nervous.  I’m not musical.  I’m not very funny.  I exercise too much.  I’m not good at sports.  I don’t have any real talents.

It’s so damned appealing, this summing one’s self up.  It feels orderly and neat, and it’s what people expect, a sound-bite biography.  It gives information but spares any messy, burdensome intimacy.  And really, these stories become so easy to tell after the first hundred or so times; it stops mattering whether or not they’re true.

But that’s the thing. These stories don’t stay true.  I’m not all of my stories on any given day; some of them I haven’t been in years.

For example, part II: I don’t have issues with food — I eat normally and that clashes with all the messages that say I shouldn’t.  And I’m not shy — I’m just not gregarious.

And I don’t have a damn clue if I’m good at sports since I haven’t played any since elementary school, and honestly?  I bet I’d be decent at some of them these days since I now have coordination and good endurance, two things 10-year-old Megan lacked.

And I have lots of talents; they’re just not necessarily the ones that spring to mind, like singing or dancing or painting or what-have-you.  I can cut out anything you can think of with scissors; my line-dancing-turkey paper dolls are legendary.  I bake awesome molasses cookies.  I give the best nicknames.  These aren’t exactly talent-show material, but hey, they’re still pretty cool.

So, what’s my point?  It’s this: I want to give up my stories.  They’re holding me back; those sentences create paths that I’m hesitant to step from.  They give me excuses not to try.  I want to stop telling the stories because it makes me live them and that makes them true.

And I want a bigger life than that.

And as for the story about not being musical?  Hell, that’s just because I hated piano lessons when I was 8. 

We’ll see if that one’s true when my banjo gets delivered next week.