When Our Old Stories Hold Us Back

talking to normal people about normal things?”

“I’m out here because I want to be. Because I’m not normal. And look, I can see my breath, and we’re in San Diego. That’s not normal either. Oh, and you’re wearing Airwalk sneakers, and so am I—which may have been normal in 1994, but not anymore.”

She glances up at me and smirks, this time exhaling her breath upward into the moonlight. “I see you’re wearing a ring. You’re married, right?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “My wife, Angel, is just getting off work now and heading here to meet me for dinner.”

She nods her head and then looks back at the ground. “Well, you’re off the market… and safe, I guess. So can I tell you a story?”

“I’m listening.”

As she speaks, her emotional gaze shifts from the ground, to my eyes, to the moonlit sky, to the ground, and back to my eyes again. This rotation continues in a loop for the duration of her story. And every time her eyes meet mine she holds them there for a few seconds longer than she did on the previous rotation.

I don’t interject once. I listen to every word. And I assimilate the raw emotion present in the tone of her voice and in the depth of her eyes.

When she finishes, she says, “Well, now you know my story. You think I’m a freak, don’t you?”

“Place your right hand on your chest,” I tell her. She does. “Do you feel something?” I ask.

“Yeah, I feel my heartbeat.”

“Now close your eyes, place both your hands on your face, and move them around slowly.” She does. “What do you feel now?” I ask.

“Well, I feel my eyes, my nose, my mouth… I feel my face.”

“That’s right,” I reply. “But unlike you, stories don’t have heartbeats, and they don’t have faces. Because stories are not alive—they’re not people. They’re just stories.”

She stares into my eyes for a prolonged moment, smiles sincerely and says, “Just stories we live through.”

“Yeah… And stories we learn from.”