There are some people whose stories you have to ask for, like maybe they don't even have one. And there are people whose epics project on a big screen when you encounter them, their credits rolling as they walk away. I am blessed (or cursed) with being the former. I've had missteps and lapses in judgement, but nothing I can blame on a parent's divorce or a tragic loss or a rapist uncle. Life happens--and I eat my feelings, cry in the shower, and get over it like any other normal functioning adult.
Not long ago I sat down with a friend I've known about two years; it's one of those no holds barred, instant connection kind of friendships. Until that evening we hadn't really spent any time together without our spouses or large groups of people around. And then he asked me, "So what's your story?" It was asked as if we'd just met, like it wasn't unusual that he didn't know by now. And I really didn't have A story. And I realized that's probably why I have so many tiny stories to tell, why I manage to meet all these strange and interesting characters that do have stories. I'm a sponge, a blank slate--I listen and experience and turn other people's stories into something else for them. Essays and Op Eds. And it's almost as if they know it.
A Wednesday or two ago, hungover from an Alabama Shakes show, I found myself day drinking on the water with someone going through a gut-wrenching breakup. A couple hundred dollars later we were chain smoking cigarettes with Asian Brian and his friend Matt. (Asian Brian is how he introduced himself-and I've actually known more rare Brians. I once knew a Brian with one testicle, and that's exactly how I set him apart from all the other ones. "You know, Brian with one testicle." So I'd rather sound a little racist than get Asian Brian confused with One Testicle Brian.) Anyway, me having once known One Testicle Brian led into a whole conversation about genital health with total strangers. Which led to us discovering that one of their phone numbers spelled out WET-TWAT. Which opened my companion up to laying herself bare with these two guys we had just met about what a shitty shitty time she was having. Turns out Matt is a pretty realistic and compassionate guy who had his own story of love and loss and been there done that. We learned about his family, his mother, his former friend who betrayed him, the fact that he had actually been trying to avoid Asian Brian all day, and that he had helped recently engaged friends move that afternoon. And there was weight to every word he said, he analyzed every bit of it-start to finish. Or maybe he was just looking at her boobs. Either way, to hear her tell it, he gave her some of the most cosmic, important advice she's ever heard. And after a hot shower and an egg sandwich she was better. Not healed or whole. But better. Because now she has a story.
And I'm better, just for having watched and listened to and absorbed two open books with no fear interact and fix each other the way human beings do.
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