Six Minute Saturday

Because, of course I sort of forgot and sort of didn't have time for Five Minute Friday.

This week's prompt was to write five minutes on the word STORY. What follows is my minimally edited six minutes of writing. I'm not thrilled with it. There's so much more I would flesh out and change and improve and, probably, delete. But in keeping with the heart of Five Minute Friday, I haven't:

Ironic, isn’t it, that the first prompt is about story?

I don’t know what my story is. Not just my fairy tale story—the one that haunts me, no not haunts, makes me wonder. Will I ever figure it out? Will I ever complete it? See, I don’t really know what happens in my story. It’s my story, and I don’t know how it goes.

And the same is true in my life. There are so many things that I have tried for for so long. Goals, dreams, hopes—parts of my story. And I feel, constantly, that my path diverges from what I have planned, to something else. And I try to trust most days that the story will turn out really well. I try to trust that the plot twists have purpose.

But I wonder. Wouldn’t MY story have been better? The way I want things? Surely if I had been allowed to write my own story, it would have turned out better. I would have the job I want. I would have the house I want. I would be happier and, probably, thinner.

Interestingly enough, this brings me full circle to my story—the one I’m writing. Several years ago I was wondering what I would write when the fairy tale was finished, and while lying in bed one night, an idea came to me.

The sequel (or another story set in the same world) is about a girl who finds a magic book and begins to write in it—a journal or diary, or perhaps a story. And in writing she discovers that everything she writes happens to her. Not in a direct way, of course. In an interesting and mysterious way.

So she sets out to write her love story. She writes about a prince and the way they meet and fall in love. And it seems to her that these things are not happening, because she has certain expectations about how the story will work out in her real life. And what she sees happening in her real life is not what she is intending as she’s writing the story.

But of course everything is coming true, in its own, better way. The true story—the heart of what she longs for—is unfolding beautifully. She just has to open her eyes to it.

So I suppose I should just open my eyes to the story in my own life. Trust that the heart of what I long for is unfolding beautifully.

But some days, it’s hard.