During my month in Chapala I met many new people. I heard their stories and also heard stories that they told about friends and relations. Because I didn’t know any of these people, I had no context, no backstory, I only had what they told me. This made it easier to be more objective than I tend to be with people I know well.

I started to notice some regular phrases. It started me thinking about those go-to lines that so many of us have. Some of these sentences I heard there, others I’ve heard elsewhere, other, quite possibly (gasp!)  have fallen from my very own lips:

“Oh I always…”

“That’s just me…”

“That’s the way it is in my world…”

God knows what impression I made (except perhaps as that tall woman who endlessly rifled through the American Legion’s library in search of something that (please God) wasn’t Danielle Steele or Sidney Sheldon), then again, maybe I said something a dozen times a day that everyone heard but me…

It’s a funny thing about our egos and their insatiable need to be right. If we keep saying, that’s just how things are, then we will do everything in our power to find all the supporting evidence to keep our storyline alive and true. It’s not much different than those stories we hear of bad cops who are guilty of planting evidence because they’re certain they’ve got the right guy and they’ll make damned sure he’s convicted, even if they have to lie and cheat to do it.

“That’s just my luck…”

“It figures…”

“That’s the story of my life…”

Unlike those aforementioned cops, we plant our own damning evidence and prove, over and over and over, that yes, the world is a frightening place, people are out to get us, we are always picked last,  we always manage to screw things up, we always get the worst of things, we’re just not creative, or whatever story line it is that we need to prove.

This observation felt even more ironic since I was there to write down my own stories. Every day I tried to work on some piece that I could work into a larger narrative. I would try to describe a moment in my history and hope that it contained the nugget that would give me an understanding of how our family morphed from its early days at 33152 Cherry Street in Mission City, to where we have all ended up now.

I had to look at my own stories. Why did I feel compelled to write about this particular time or place. Why tell this particular story? Am I telling it because I am still acting out a part from a long ago and a mostly-unconscious script?

Or am I, (I hope, I hope) truly trying to dig toward the still unknown answer?

I didn’t want to simply be confirming my story so much as discovering it.

It is easy to still play the roles that were often designated in childhood; the busy one, the quiet one, the oh-I-always-talk-too-much one. Often said with a shrug, a roll of the eyes, or perhaps a dismissive wave of one hand, actions suggesting a helpless inevitability in the face of our own personality and the impossibility of ever changing.

Given the amount of time I’ve devoted to the effort of telling my own story, I firmly believe in the lessons found in being both the subject and the observer. It is within that moment of writing, that a thin bit of self-awareness cracks open the door, leaving room for other roles, other possibilities, or simply for the freedom to adapt and morph.

This path is not without some peril. Friends and family are not always, if ever, particularly keen on this new version of you. Often they will try to slam you back into the box that they’re most comfortable with. “Oh,” someone might say, “that is so NOT a Colleen-thing to do.”

And yet I just did it/wore it/said it or otherwise lived it, so perhaps it follows that it IS a Colleen-thing?

Just to clarify – I too have said these kinds of things to my friends. I’m not suggesting this is done by me or others as something malicious. Often it really is a funny observation that is true of a friend’s personality. (It’s pretty easy to tell the difference between box-slamming and a funny comment. You’ll feel the intention of the comment in your gut. Trust that feeling.)

In writing memoir, the subject and the need to be objective get tangled together like some crazy helixed bits of DNA. I observe me, and, as I watch my actions, my behaviours, my words, and my writing, I learn a little bit more.

Not all of what I learn about myself, shockingly enough, is great news. But awareness of where, and how I am right now, grants me permission to try another way next time. I refuse to be stuck in the ‘Triggering Action – Inevitable Reaction’ loop.

Meditation has helped. Endless hours of sitting and watching my mind leaping and jumping like a skittering chicken has made me well aware of what a work-in-progress I am.

Writing too, has helped me find out what I think. In the process of laying down the words, and then by rearranging, removing, and rewriting, I often find the path leading me somewhere wholly unexpected.

I want to be open to new possibilities. I don’t want to be forever stuck in some B-grade series doomed to play on reruns. I prefer the walk-on parts, the joy of improv, the fluidity of the space between action and reaction.

So if you hear me say, “That’s just my luck.” I want you to know I mean it in a different way from the usual mutterings. I mean that I truly feel blessed and lucky. Lucky to have the health and opportunity to inhabit the world in the way I choose. Lucky, most especially, to have the space to choose my reaction.

I may not be in charge of what rolls my way, but I get to choose my lines.

And therein lies the freedom to create a new story.