I was standing in the history section of a popular bookstore, perusing the president aisle. These days, just saying the “p” word causes an unquietable uproar. P for president and also for peruse. (See Webster or Mirriams, or Google, or Your mom).

As I stand in front of this wall of leaders, glancing over title after title of books, I find myself wondering. How many of us have touched pages recently? How many have tasted new syllables upon our tongues and were forced to find their meaning to broaden our base of words and definitions? How many of us know even the depths of what can be discovered of these stories? How many choose to simply stay blissful? The unclickably inclined ones will never ponder these with me. 

My eyes dart back toward the men – mounted on horses, monuments, and hardback lessons. Their names won in times of war – both real and imagined. They are seared into our history. And here they stand, in all their glory and guts before me, right here on these shelves. I can touch each of them, me. 

I wonder, how many stories of theirs have been shared against their will over the ages. How many stories still go untraced to this day? How many stories will emerge from the decaying pages of days long ago still? And how many can or should never be known?

One face bleeds into the next and the highlights of high school history tests flit traumatically across my mind. This one did that, that one did this, there’s another, which one is he? 

I’m a bit envious as I stand and touch these unbent spines. Envious that these stories will survive, in tact, for all time. These stories of leadership, loss, and recovery will never be unknown no matter the when. Whether written in ink upon sepia woven paper, or coded html backed by a blue lighted screen, these men will remain. Indelibly immortal. 

Will I? 

Will my story be deemed as important by historians or men? Will my accomplishments stand the test of time? Will others speak of my intimate fears and scrape stories of me together to be history-relevant because they somehow knew one part of my pitifully small path? 

We know. 

I know.

YOU know. 

I will never measure the length of these rows. My story will seep unfelt into the background of today, overwritten by the determiners, the forbears of now, the makers of tomorrow. My small life, will be gobbled up by good deeds and monumental missteps, right alongside millions upon millions of others. 

We are fated to be the stand-ins, knowing every word of the script, but never having the light shine upon us for the whole world to gaze adoringly fixed upon us. 

I am the inconsequential zero.

Yet, this story, my story, feels so much more than a nothing page in a never book. It feels rigid and cold. It feels scared and small. It feels loved and immense. It feels proud and momentous. It feels, history worthy, right now- to me. I feel so much more than a peruser detached from time. I feel unnervingly here, bold and bare and book worthy. No matter what any of us know. 

Here I stand, as history is being made. 

Knowing I am unknown and will be forever. 

Accepting my ill fated forgottence. 

Acknowledging a time without my name. 

Wondering why, more stories, simple stories, immeasurable stories- like mine, could not be celebrated, or learned from, or revered…. 

Right alongside the men who forged the future of us all.