define.

I have always been the changeable one. Whether in friendships or in love, I have been the one quickest to shape my thoughts, opinions and personality to fit those around me. I want to fit in. I want to avoid conflict. I want to be what I imagine others must want.

It’s strange to say that out loud. I admit, it’s not one of my proudest character traits.

One of the great challenges, I believe, of my adult life has been to learn how to be myself. To learn how to form an opinion and hold it as my own. To learn how I would like myself to be defined, as a person, and how I would like to tell my own story.

You know that we’re all telling our own stories, right? We’re telling them to ourselves. Which bits will you remember and which will you forget? What will be the mood cast on those memories? Who will be the good guys and who will be the bad guys? It’s one great long story-telling venture, from one end of your life to the other.

Things happen. And then we tell them in a story. And that is our life.

Things happen that you can’t control. But many many many things happen that you can control. That’s your ammo. That’s your story-crafting material.

I ate popcorn for dinner. I tried to watch the newest Downton Abbey, but my internet was too slow. And I told myself to sit down and write you (lovely reader) a mess of crap because writing a mess of crap is better than writing nothing at all. There’s no wisdom today, and really no point (which I believe is breaking a great cardinal rule of blogging). This is what comes of having nothing to say.* I am forced to dredge deep. So I dredged up my slowly growing ability to define myself as a person, independent of what others may want or expect. I also dredged up my story, which made me think of yours. You better dredge it up too.

*For the record, this is what beat out my attempt to write about a glass of water...sitting at the edge of the table...with tiny bubbles. Here we are, being real.