Discovering Connection Through Storytelling
It’s safe to say that without finding an online diary platform, I wouldn’t have started blogging or writing personal essays when I did. I wouldn’t have gained a better understanding of who I am, how I wanted to show up for others, and how I wanted others to show up for me.
I love to tell a story, whether it’s on a stage, in a workshop, or over a long catch-up phone call with a friend. Even with following along bits and pieces of people’s lives on social media, there’s still nothing like hearing what has happened straight from the source.
I want a beginning, middle, and end. Give me an epilogue and footnotes if you can.
Sure, it helps that I am a talker. (If you know, you know.) Not everyone enjoys talking, especially about themselves. But everyone has a story. Not the stories you’re expected to share in diversity statements. You know, the ones that remind us how living is painful, scary, and unpredictable.
Those stories matter, I’ve written a lot of them. Same with ones about overcoming personal and systemic barriers. There’s also plenty of room for stories that are funny as hell. They remind us how to laugh even when life really sucks. Stories of grief and mourning. Stories of learning how to hope again. We need all of it.
What I’m getting at is, any story that helps us understand ourselves and each other better is worthwhile.
For me, I find solace in stories of resistance. I also enjoy reading mundane details about other people’s lives.
My days of sharing online started in sixth grade when I joined Caleida. Not only did I meet lifelong friends, I learned that there’s still something to learn in the mundane. The small details that I shared about my life and daily experiences were enough to craft a story for each post (and without making my life out to be something it wasn't)—a big contrast to came of social media in the following years.
It’s safe to say that without finding an online diary platform, I wouldn’t have started blogging or writing personal essays when I did. I wouldn’t have gained a better understanding of who I am, how I wanted to show up for others, and how I wanted others to show up for me. And I certainly wouldn’t have learned how storytelling can bring us closer together.
Others may feel more comfortable sharing a story about a loved one, say their parents or grandparents, instead of focusing on themselves. Sure, the storytellers get to have a bit of distance by telling this story. For me, the fact that they see significance and value in that story reveals something about them. And every time they share that story, they have the opportunity to process how it informs their own. The storyteller never fully gets away from crafting their own personal narrative.
As a workshop facilitator, I’ve always enjoyed threading together participants’ stories and highlighting the ways they connected to a common interest or goal, or connected to broader systemic issues.
As a human being, I’ve always enjoyed knowing that I am not alone. It doesn’t matter what’s happening in my life, I am going to search for a poem or essay that helps me understand what is happening, could happen, or shouldn’t happen next. In recent years, I’ve grown comfortable with the fact that we may live unique lives but we don’t have unique experiences.
Stories help us imagine new possibilities. And I think most of us seek stories to give us answers or encourage new questions. Whether it’s through a search (which might have led you to this post) on Google, YouTube, Reddit, or Instagram, podcast, books, art—we’re looking for a story that helps provide or change a narrative.
What’s the last story that you’ve enjoyed? Or one that recently challenged your perspective about something?
By the way, some of my favorite storytellers include Ashley C. Ford on What It Means to Take a Risk and in Somebody’s Daughter, Megan Stielstra in Once I Was Cool, bell hooks in Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life, Zeba Blay in her Carefree Black Girl newsletter (you should also pick up her book of the same title).