Lie No. 6 | 09.23.18

I learned something new today. In pinot noir winemaking, the primary vine is the only one tended to. Winemakers let the grapes on the secondary + tertiary vines fall to the ground. It’s basically the #selfcare of wine varietals. 💁🏼‍♀️ Kidding aside, it reminded me of character development. Every story has a main character, supported by secondary + tertiary characters. A storyteller never loses sight of the main character + yet, I did just that.
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I wrote a #LiesIveToldMyTherapist post a few weeks ago about how a secret becomes yours as soon as you answer its knock at the door. It barges right on in, uninvited + makes itself at home. Since I’m being honest here, there’s a part of this story I’ve never admitted: I sought out the secret that crushed me. My suspicions + I went looking for it in a high-stakes game of hide + seek. I won the game, but lost everything else. I’ve been wrestling with this revelation recently—I asked for what happened + everything that followed. But here’s the thing: this secret’s narrative was never my story. So, what is?
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I recently read that “when we own our stories, we avoid being trapped as characters in stories someone else is telling.” I trapped myself in this one thinking I could change its ending + always thought that’s where I failed. But it’s not. I DID change the ending. I made choices that determined the plot of a story that didn’t belong to me. I’ll never know if I chose the right adventure, which would be fine if it had been my adventure. That’s life, right? Instead, while I was laser-focused on narrating this other story, keeping its plot moving, I lost hold of my own story, the one I reactively put on autopilot 10 NYEs ago. In the eloquent words of Clay Davis, “Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeit.”
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So, you see? None of this is about that miserable secret I tried to save. It’s about my story; the one I totally lost somewhere along the way. It’s like when you drive somewhere then look up when you get there + haven’t a clue how you got there. I got so comfortable telling myself + others that story from a secondary POV to keep my distance. In the process, I totally forgot to focus on the primary vine.