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