What is your story?

Several years ago, there was a reporter with one of the networks on one of the news shows.  This is starting out really specific, isn't it?

He would do this feature where he'd simply open the phone book and put his finger on a name.  He'd then call them and explain who he was and offer to come out to interview them.

Inevitably, they all would initially say something like, "Really?  Nothing special about me.  I'm just working, living my life, doing my thing."

Being a great journalist, he would manage to persuade them. He'd head out to their town and learn about them.  And what do you know?  They did all have stories.  Often, amazing ones.  Ones where, watching it, you'd find yourself thinking, "How in the world has no one told this story before?!"

Where am I going with this?  My story.

I spend my professional life telling other people's stories.  I don't use the phone book to find them, but the idea is the same.  And just like the reporter, most people, when I first talk to them, don't see their story as remarkable.  It's just their life.  And my job is to see past that.  To see past the routine and the process to get to a nugget.

It's hard to describe your story when you are living it.

In some ways, having a blog has given me the opportunity to do that.  But I am willing to bet that if I asked each of you reading this what you think my story is, I'd get as many different answers as there were people.


But it can be hard to see the forest through the trees sometimes.

My story?  I'm a wife, a mother, a friend, a full-time worker, a Minnesotan, a blogger.

But really, my story is a story of finding perspective. 

Of laughing more than yelling.  Of smiling more than frowning.  Of letting go of the control which I so seek, and never find.  Of letting go of stuff and finding the goodness underneath.

But I am still figuring my story out.  And so far, no one has put their finger on my name in the phone book to come and tell it for me.  And so I keep writing.  Reflecting.  Engaging.  And living.

Knowing that, eventually, "my story" will become clear.

Note: This post serves as me tossing my name into Project Mom Casting, a TV concept that is being explored, in part, at BlogHer.  I have gone back and forth about 400 times over the past week about whether or not to post about it, thereby throwing my name in that proverbial hat.  Why would I want to do something that is all about having a story when I am still finding mine?  Why would people want to talk to me?  But then I re-read this post and reminded myself that I promised to be willing to skin a few more knees.  So bring it knees.  Here we go.