These are our stories

Just a quick thought about stories.

The other night I was at my in-service for the community college. I ended up sitting by someone I went to college with. He’s teaching there, too. (Same class and time as me, also. We’re going to tag-team!)

Anyway, he asked how I was. I knew how he was. He’d been married and divorced in the two years since I’d seen him last.
He’d moved from PA to NC and back to PA.

But how was I? Well, I told him I dumped my boyfriend about a year ago.

Best thing I ever did, I told him.

“Why is that?” he asked.

Well, I thought about it. And I said, “I have done so much in this last year. I’ve accomplished things I wanted to accomplish. I’m proud of myself. I didn’t do anything when I was with him. He was a slug, and he turned me into a slug. It makes me wonder what I could have done with myself in those five years I was with him.”

“Don’t think like that,” he said.

Why not?!

He said, “That’s part of your story. That made you who you are. You know what you want now, and you needed that experience to get you there. Don't try to erase it or re-write it. Would you be here now if all that hadn't happened? How can you know?”

Fair enough.


And this is unrelated, but I liked it.
I was at church today and the priest made the best analogy ever.
“We are all puppies in God’s eyes.”