People think personal stories are static.

Maybe it’s because many of us wrote our English assignments in pen on paper—fewer today than years past, though. Or because we haven’t been curious enough to wonder how a story might be changed over the course of one’s life without losing the truth of what took place. 

If we examine a chronologically driven story, we see that X occurs at this point, followed by Y, and eventually Z. These events or incidents are central to what happened, and they always take place in that specific sequence. For some, this story is a prime example of one that is static. They believe it cannot evolve or incorporate anything other than X, Y, and Z. 

Something happened. No matter how much we may long for it to be undone or changed, we cannot edit that happening out of our lives. We now hold the experience for the rest of our lives. Our X, Y, Z is there, and we can’t reorder it, even if we want to.

Audiences tend to think of storytellers as 2-dimensional caricatures of an issue, based on the snippets of stories that are shared with them. These X, Y, Z things happened to this person. This person shared this X, Y, Z thing with us, now they will leave us having seen it in some eye-opening way. We can only ever view them in this particular way, linked to this specific issue. Person with X experience. Some of us have been called the __X__ lady, guy, person. You know, the “suicide” lady or the “homeless” so and so. It sounds terrible, but in many ways, people meant well. They saw us as the issues we tried to raise awareness around. We are the living embodiment of the awareness we raise for the causes that matter to us. We take in what we are told, sometimes we think back to it or that person, many times we file it away in our forgotten folder. 

As a storysharer, I have come to realize that my story has, in fact, evolved. I now think of it as this amorphous figure with long tendrils that each has a specific purpose or need to fill. They reach in all directions, pulsating gently and morphing as is necessary to fit in the spaces where I call upon them. Quite an image, I know, but it has become what it needed to be to reach the needs of the people I was in front of. 

One could argue that my story evolved in some instances because it was shared with a purpose: to educate and inform. But my story has been tweaked, tailored, and retold in various ways over the years. It has never been stock, or rote, or pointless. Even when the flow became lyrically methodical in nature, it was a power of its own.

In the beginning, my story was my earliest, most significant loss. When I shared, I spent most of the time talking about the person who had passed away and how deeply losing them had changed me. This change set me to embark on an invisible path to gain ownership of a narrative that had been weaponized against me as a child and young adult. I found a sense of empowerment from sharing openly. This story would never be used to withhold from me, punish me, or exclude me. Not like it had for so long. I owned this story and no one can ever wield it against me again.

Over time, the story became less about the horrible day of loss. The person I lost slowly shifted from focus until I found myself centered in my sharing. One might think I should have been there all along, but I hadn’t. I had been a victim, a bystander in a life that had been dictated for me. In finding empowerment, I found me. I found myself questioning why it had to stay a simple timeline of terrible events. 

So, I toyed around with my story a bit. Here and there, I took myself out of it to see what would happen. What if this awful thing happened and this person died, but I had no connection to them? Would this story still mean as much? Would it be powerful? Could it help? The willpower, resolve, and neutrality required to remove yourself from your story and allow strangers to evaluate it are not for the faint of heart or those quick to anger. I stood stoic in front of classroom after classroom as they made snap judgments about this beloved person to me. Not letting them know they were picking my person apart.

I learned that people only know what we tell them. They can find flaws or redemption, but the revelation of your tie and the power it wields can be made more or less impactful. You can shock them, or you can find they knew from the very moment you opened your mouth. It all comes back to timing, well, and how you are willing to share this intimate life event. You can weave them into a journey of discovering who you are, or walk out of that room as someone removed from an intimately human issue. The way they see you depends on how and when you share.

Opening my story like this forced me to detach. I saw it in a completely new light. One where it didn’t hurt me. One where it had never stolen from me, or trapped me, or threatened my existence. It was just a story. Not mine, or anyone else’s that I knew. I could have been reading it from a paper that had just been handed to me, like a facilitator introducing the speaker by reading their bio for the first time.

More time passed in my life, and I found myself less driven by the one bad thing. It had been a force for so long, but I found fulfillment in new ways. This fullness made me wonder why I should have to become a shadow on a stage for the sake of strangers. Why can’t I be bright, for me? Why must I reveal this torturous loss so often? What if I chose to change how I situate myself? Can I still serve their needs while also serving mine? 

Again and again, my narrative has been edited because the life I have been living has been shaping and reshaping how I share based on how I need my story to be known. The awful thing that happened, the loss of an irreplaceable loved one, and the subsequent challenges I faced will never be anything but what they were. Still, each day that I grew past that story, I was able to revisit what it meant to and for me. 

It was once how I defined my life. 

Then it became the drive to redefine myself. 

Later, it was a tool to teach and remove myself from the pity or empathy of others.

Then it became a sacred story that I no longer led with in most spaces. 

Today, it is all of these at once, and sometimes one or even none of these things. Today, I tell countless stories, and this story of my beginning may not even be mentioned because I am more than just this unforgettable life-altering plot and awareness-raising device.  

Renarration is the process of reshaping a story. We learn, we reflect, we grow, and so too do the stories that make us. If a story has been reshaped, the life that surrounds it is the reason. You can take control of your story, so it doesn’t control you, and no one needs to influence how, when, or why this might happen.

You are more than one static story. 

You are oceans of ever-evolving stories, moving against the coast, reshaping the tides of your tomorrow.

Your story is what you make it.

It is also what makes you.

I hope you make it worthy of you.