I’m sick of my stories.

I’m a storyteller.

I love telling stories.

I’m stuck.

Yet I’m not stuck.

Because I’m at a place where I often think before I speak.

What story do I want to tell?

What’s my aim?

Who do I want to be?

I want to be positive, full of light while sharing the dark.

I want to illuminate change without seeming annoying.

I strive. I strive too much.

I’m no better than anyone else.

My life has been mine.

When I compare it to others, I fail to hear my story, to make enough meaning

Enough meaning to propel myself out of bed to live another day.

I tell stories for a living. I’m a writer who loves words.

I’m sick of my stories, yet I know that’s not the right phrase.

I’m not sick of my stories, I’m just evolving as a storyteller

And as a human.

Who do you want to be?

What story do you want to tell?

Do I want to talk about my senior year, the crisis of faith in myself?

Or do I want to say it was a chemical imbalance in my brain?

How do I make sense of it and how do I tell it?

In other words, who is my audience?

What did that year really mean?

The meaning changes.

The story changes.

We change.

I’m in the middle of change, my kids moving on up

Until they eventually leave

And then come back

And leave.

Who am I now?

I’m someone who is good at making faces at babies.

I captivate them by sliding my lips into funny shapes.

It’s an easy trick.

I perfected it as a child while sitting in church pews.

While sitting in church pews I counted the rafters and the lights in the ceiling.

I looked at the boys I had crushes on.

I lived a whole life while sitting in those church pews.

And I became someone who could engage with babies.

That’s the story I’ll tell you today.

I’m not sick of engaging with babies.

I slide my lips into funny shapes.

Sometimes I talk to the baby’s caregiver.

Mostly I’m glad to talk to someone (the baby) who wants no words from me.

Just my attention.

I have much attention to give to the world.

That’s my story.