THE STORIES WE BELIEVE

The one, single question of late, which haunts me during the day and taunts me at night, in the deep, tortured landscape of my dreams is:

Who am I without my story?

We begin writing our stories when we are toddler-sized and ready to react, shock absorb and more often than not, fall apart

Little boys are all Playdoh based. 

Despite the outward appearance of being two-fisted, self-determined defiant, we are all secretly wobbly-legged, love me tender-hearted and so sensitive that we break at the first blush of insult.

When our still forming souls begin to crack like hot summer night cocktail ice cubes, for most of us, the hard riding cavalry of our mommies and daddies came swooping in for the quick fix playground based remedy of there-there hugs and kisses and from that point on, when we were distraught, deep down inside, we craved the very same kind of instant gratification solution.

Since our parents are just so portable, from kindergarten on, when we’re weary, feeling small, when tears are in our eyes, our most trustworthy saviors tend to be the inner scribes of our irrefutable imagination who are always there, on call, fingers at the keys ready, to beat out the happy ending required for us to see another day.

In order to get there, they have to fudge the facts and funhouse-mirror distort reality in order to make our wounded lives livable and endurable again.

The problem is, as we get older and attempt, mostly unsuccessfully, to mature, our inner authors do not. 

At the helm of the good ship us, are those tellers of tall tales whose job one is to protect and defend our most traumatic childhood fears and voices.  The illusion is that they are our most reliable witnesses when in fact all they are doing is convincing us that we cannot live without our warped like an LP left in the sun, version of the truth.

But exactly what is the truth?

I am an Act Three, grown-up guy who is slowly beginning to realize that I have taken, with loving care, the most personal and intricate details of my life, and converted them into my own, personal gospel, which in fact is complete fiction.

In varying degrees and topography, we are all children to the end. Tens of millions of us are gullible.  Needy. Desperate. Competitive. Self-defeating.

God’s children indeed.

But lack of education or being just plain stupid doesn’t mean that all of us, in varying degrees, are not any less susceptible to the less than charitable act of tantrum throwing.

You have driven on a U. S. highway, right? 

Long after our parents have up and left us alone on that stretch of lonely highway known as Little Orphan Annie Road, most of us, when left to our own devices, will in fact spend more time on devices rather than deal with the rubber band snaps to the heart which seem to arrive as promptly as a compulsively on-time Japanese bullet train.

When it comes to taking on our deepest hurt we are just not very skillful in the art of self-repair and deep down inside want some parent sized person, like a senator or President, or a holy father to take care of us.

Go even deeper and you will discover that if, for example, you were abused, either emotionally, physically or sexually, holding on to the story of those inciting incidents, keeping them etched in Commandment quality stone, does one thing and one thing alone:

It justifies why you are willing to join in on the abuse.  You agree with the punishment that was once upon a time inflicted upon you because you must have deserved it.

After all these years of writing sitcoms, life has guided me to the world of playwriting and although my play has been well-received I find myself full of distrust and anxiety for one simple reason:

I have given my story away.

I feel naked, exposed and undefended

My secret: I have no idea how to live without it and I am terrified to the point that I find myself wanting to go back to the playground for a little mom and dad time.  I keep conjuring stomach and headaches.

My parents no longer exist.  Like the old soldiers that they became, they simply faded away.

So here I am.  Cast adrift.  Further from the shore than I have ever been before.

I am not a fan of horror films because I live them each and every day.  Usually, that is the film that is playing on the memory screens of my eyelids when I first wake up.

One day, many years, ago, when my raging, bug-eyed mother, came at me with flailing fists of fury once too often, I finally had the courage to instinctively protect myself and I grabbed her wrists and yelled, “Enough.”

I would like to believe that one day, I will turn to myself, grab my own wrists and say “enough.”

Based on the path that I am on now, I seem to be inching closer and closer, at the rate of a snail, towards reaching that future.

But those inner writers are very clever fellows and know how to sabotage my best intentions.

The enemy within can be a lot smarter than you, especially when it is hell-bent on outwitting you.

But the truth, whatever that may be, has become alluring and compelling and I would like to believe that sooner than later I will send those inner writers scurrying and in trumph, I will realize this: 

I will no longer require their stories.