Reject Your Story Embrace Your Adventure

today there is

a lot of talk about story embrace your

story

share your story we have the stories

that we tell ourselves

and the stories that are placed upon us

when it comes to story i think we have

it all wrong

it’s not our story that moves us forward

in fact they can trap us and keep us

stuck

i was almost stuck in mine it all

started

when i was a little girl looking back

over my life

i should not be alive i came into this

world as a creative a

chatty bubbly little girl

my heart’s desire was to be a

fashion model a charlie’s angels

and whoever it is that writes those

really really funny commercials i

definitely wanted to be that little girl

when i was about eight years old my

first step to realizing those dreams

was to make pom-poms so i gathered my

paper

and my straight pins and i set them out

on the carpet and started to shred the

paper

i placed the pen in my mouth like i had

seen my grandmother do

so many times when she was hemming my

uncle’s pants

i thought that i felt something running

down

my chin and so

with one big inhale

i swallow that pin

the x-ray revealed that the pin was

about an

inch away from my heart i don’t think i

need to tell you what kind of damage

that could have done

but i am still here

it was not the first time or the last

mistake

or accident that i made my family begin

to say

here comes that mistake baby

oh here comes that accident child

they weren’t trying to hurt me but the

story still stuck with me

years later in high school i

was crossing the street to get the

school bus when an elderly woman

decided to hit me with her car i

catapulted across the street on the

right side

of my body ending

up under the school bus

as i looked up i could see the black

tire coming towards me

i could hear the sound of the driver

pressing for dear life

trying to stop that school bus the tire

rested gently on the right side of my

body

i survived praise god

i survived so much so

that i stood up i looked at my friends

and i announced hey um i’m having a

really really bad day

so i’m gonna go home

me and my fractured pelvis

and my swollen face limped home

mistake baby

accident baby to hey

aren’t you that girl that got hit by the

bus

for years i felt like my story was hi

i’m toy and i’m bad luck because

i had been called that too

when i was in my 30s my husband and i

decided that we wanted to start our

family

after years of trying ivf was our only

option

i was about six months into our

pregnancy when

i went to bed that night and i woke up a

few hours later

i was sweating everything was orange

i was vomiting i started having seizures

i was really worried about our son miles

i passed out my husband called 9-1-1

when we arrived at to the hospital

i was told that my uterus

had erupted and that miles had passed

away

i had to go into emergency surgery i

spent

eight days in the hospital i had an

infection in my uterus

two blood transfusions pneumonia

trying to process the fact that i can no

longer have children

we planned our son’s funeral

the story that i told myself was that i

had a broken uterus

a dead baby i was useless

i was broken clearly bad luck

what is story miriam

dictionary describes story or defines

story

as a report or a description of an event

or an experience story describes our

past

it’s the past that we allow to dictate

our lives and define our future

accident baby mistake baby that girl

that was

hit by the brush broken

useless woman

this was my story i realized in my

darkest moments that this story was

keeping me stuck

my past these labels they were trapping

me

they say there are seven stories that

have ever been told

overcoming the monster rags to riches

the quests the voyage in return

a comedy a tragedy the rebirth

these are all great stories but

here’s the secret an adventure

oh adventures are limitless i decided

that if i was going to take control of

my life i would have to shift my idea

about story i had to reject the idea

of story and embrace the idea of

adventure

adventures are not without danger and

unknown risk

however i refuse to be broken and

useless

this story oh it would not define me

so when my sister-in-law offered to be

my surrogate

i could have told myself that i didn’t

deserve joy

i didn’t deserve to be happy because

that was how it seemed that my life was

going

i said yes i am ready for this adventure

today we have a beautiful creative sun

he is my adventure my life had become

my adventure i have a successful

business where i get to

help people define and create their own

adventures

my life is no longer a story about my

past

it’s my adventure and i’m running full

speed ahead

don’t let your story define you and keep

you stuck you get to control that

narrative

shift your perspective adventures allow

you to learn from your past

release it and move on

life is not a story that we have to

replay in our heads

we don’t need to replay those tapes it’s

an adventure that we get to create for

ourselves so

go go create yours