Everyone Has A Story- What Is Yours?

Editor’s Note: One of my favorite blogging features is being able to go back through the archives and catch a glimpse of what your life was like.

It is a snapshot in time.

I like going back to see if the significance of those moments is still applicable. Sometimes they still are and sometimes what seemed important then looks silly now.

This post is just about three years old but I like it because it captured several key moments in my life and because I see it as tied into a tipping point in which I decided to make significant changes in my life.

And for those of you who are curious, this sort of stream of consciousness style of writing is among my favorites.

Everyone has a  story but not everyone gets a chance to tell it.  One of the 982,834 things I think about is what those stories are and how can I find time to hear more of them.

Stories are the secret behind Post Secret. Sometimes they are secrets but most of us wish we could share those secrets with someone else.

Think about it for a moment. Here is what I am going to listen to while you do.

1. Silver Springs- Fleetwood Mac
2. Landslide- Fleetwood Mac
3. Happy- Bruce Springsteen
4. If You Could Read My Mind- Gordon Lightfoot
5. Hurt- Johnny Cash Cover

My Old Kitchen

I had to go through the old neighborhood this week and made a point to drive by the old house. Been more than a year since we sold it and moved out, but it feels like a lifetime has passed since then.

That kitchen you see in the picture is part of what I think about most. I have vivid memories of my daughter standing in it, pacifier in her mouth, asking me to let her cook dinner.

I blink and I see us there on the last Father’s Day we spent there. The kids are yelling at me to get out of the kitchen, they have a surprise.

They don’t know that I have already spotted the meal they have made for me and when they bring me breakfast in bed I act surprised.

When I blink again I remember standing in the garage late at night. My father lay unconscious 3,000 miles away. The last time I had seen him was 12 hours before.

Clicks, beeps and whistles from the machines helped to make sure his chest kept rising. I grabbed his hand and told him I had to go home, reminded him there was 3 year-old boy waiting for me and a pregnant wife.

Told him I expected him to fight harder and that I wanted him to meet the grandchild that was coming.

Looked down at his hand and remembered when they had seemed to be the biggest hands I had ever seen and noticed that now they were exactly the same size as my own.

That Was Then

Dad came home and was there to take a picture of two great-grandmothers oohing and awing over the only great granddaughter on the west coast. He and I watched as the grandmothers tried to coax their new granddaughter from the arms of their mothers.

My grandfathers beamed with pride and talked to me not just as a grandson, but as a man. That had started when my son was born, but it became more pronounced with the arrival of a girl. It was understood that things had changed again, in a very positive way.

Later on I stood in the garage again and worked out on my heavy bag. It was the one place that was all mine, my refuge.

5 More Songs

1. Gypsy- Fleetwood Mac
2. Walk- Foo Fighters
3. Atomic Dog- George Clinton
4. Baker Street- Gerry Rafferty
5. Hey Hey What Can I Do- Led Zeppelin

The Garage As Thinking/Laughing Place

Fast forward or click backward if you will and you’ll see me standing in the garage again. We buried my grandfather earlier today. It is also the day my old boss texted, emailed and called repeatedly so that I could check in so that he could fire me.

I am sitting in the garage thinking about…stuff.

The kitchen you see in the photo above doesn’t look like that. That is because we are in the middle of the remodel. I am trying to figure out what kind of person fires someone the day of their grandfather’s funeral.

I am angry and embarrassed, but mostly angry. I didn’t get fired for not doing my job. The sales numbers don’t lie.

My grandfather reaches out to me and tells me I am better off, or at least I think he might have. I hear his voice, but he is not there any longer. He tells me not to lose my temper because I can’t do anything to the man who did this to me. That is, I can’t hurt him because he is clearly already broken.

People Want To Be Heard

There are a million stories tied into those fragments. There are a million tales I could tell and secrets I sometimes think about sharing.

Sometimes I’ll go to the store/park/airport/coffee shop solely to look and listen. Call it voyeuristic, but I want to hear more stories.

Sometimes I think about past relationships and see that part of what killed them was the point when we stopped listening and sharing those stories.

People want to be heard. They want to be loved, listened to, trusted and made to feel like they are worth something.

One of the best things our blogs can do is meet those needs and desires.

I hear the echoes of the future in the voices of my past. Changes are happening now and more are coming.

What stories will I tell down the road.