Do you remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books from when you were a kid? I loved reading, probably because we didn’t have a TV and it was one of my only forms of entertainment. And I always thought the idea of a story with multiple possible endings would be fun, until I started reading one. I’d get to the first “crossroads” in the story, make my choice, and turn to the appropriate page. I’d read on until things in the story started to get difficult. Then I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about the other option. If I had made a different choice, would the story be better, less difficult? And before too many more sentences, I’d find myself turning back to try out the other option. This would go on for the whole story, so that I never really got a cohesive narrative at all. Just a bunch of starts and stops. And maybe that’s why that style of book never really caught on. Maybe there are too many people like me. People who want, not just a happy ending, but a whole happy story.
Sometimes I’m very aware of my aversion to the “hard stuff.” Deep down, I think I believe that if I just make better choices, my whole life can be one sunny, happy song. And when it isn’t, I long to go back and just try out that other choice.
But when I think about how unsatisfying those books were to read, I’m kind of thankful that I can’t go back and choose differently. I’m stuck in the story I’m both writing and living. I’m pushed to find beauty and sunshine right in the middle of all the choices I’ve made.
This feeling is summed up best in a verse from one of my favourite songs ever. It’s called “She Used To Be Mine,” by Sara Bareilles. The fourth verse says, “You’re not what I asked for, If I’m honest I know, I would give it all back for, A chance to start over, And re-write an ending or two, For that girl I knew.” Somehow, this song gives me an honest look at something I’ve tried very hard to hide from myself. It’s the devastating truth of disappointment in my own life. It’s an acknowledgement, difficult for this optimist, that I would like to have chosen better. That I deserved better. Not really guilt, because I don’t think most of my choices had better alternatives. But more like grieving. A compassionate, mournful acknowledgement of the unfairness of everything I’ve endured. I love the honesty in the song that names the desire to re-write an ending or two. I feel the power of that every time I listen to this song. Sometimes I listen to it on repeat. It helps me grieve and love all the past “me’s.” It helps me learn how to mingle disappointment with compassion and kindness.
And yet, I’m grateful that we don’t get the chance to go back and choose differently. So that my life, even though it has been difficult and painful and messy, is a true narrative. I’m thankful that my story isn’t a disappointing “Choose Your Own Adventure,” filled with starts and stops as I try out and discard carelessly various endings and choices, always just trying to avoid pain.
I’m still an optimist. I still long to live in spaces filled with peace and joy and good feelings. But the biggest thing standing in the way of that is my inability pretend away problems and difficulties. I try to look in the other direction, but I’m too honest to lie to myself for long. I can’t ignore the pain or suffering or injustice that I see. I can’t just pretend to be content.
So here I am, friends. These days I’m still taking the time to grieve all the truly unfair things I hid from my own eyes for so long. I can’t go back and re-write my story. But I can go back and truly read it. I can honour all the pain by gathering it up, from the places it fell along the path of my life – unacknowledged and unseen. And I hope that, by taking the time to truly read my own story, I can bind it in a life-book. All these pages have been blowing around in the places they fell – discarded, wasted, squandered. As I fearfully venture back to gather up my own story, I face dragons and villains I’d rather never see again. But what this quest proves – what it communicates to my deepest self – is that I’m worth fighting for. And my story is not just a throw-away.
May we all acknowledge the validity and worth of our own stories. By doing this work, we will learn how to handle tenderly one another’s stories.
Something Deeper 
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