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Two Sides, And The Rest
When I created this blog twenty months ago, I was looking for an excuse to write creatively. I pictured myself telling funny stories and sharing odd thoughts.
But a funny thing happened on the road to witty ditties. I found the cathartic power of nonfiction.
As I tell the stories that are my life, I realize I'm only telling one side. I'm telling my side. But I'm not foolish enough to assume there isn't another. I also know there's a lot more to the story than what I'm writing. That's true of any story regardless of who's telling it.
Let's take the story of my mother kidnapping me when I was eleven. You can read it here. Basically, my parents divorced when I was a baby. I lived with my mother during the custody battles. When I was eight, I left to live with my father. A month after he killed himself, my mother drove five states south and snatched me while I was in the church playground. My stepmother was inside, practicing with the folk group singers before mass. Before she even knew I was missing, it was too late.
OK, I know you're thinking it... Just say it.
"That's pretty fucked up."
Indeed, it is. But the part of the story I never told is how it all worked out in the end. Who was my biggest supporter six years later when I said I wanted to be a foreign exchange student?
My mother.
I came home from high school one day with a crazy idea about studying abroad... and she was the one who said "Oh yeah! You could do that!" She never doubted me, and her support is the key reason I ended up actually doing it.
I am a better man today because of the opportunity that came as a direct result of her support.
And THAT, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.
Sometimes I wonder if I am a liar through omission. Does not telling both sides of a story make the side told any less true?
The answer is no. An apple is still an apple, even if you've never seen an orange. I just think that eating an orange makes me appreciate apples that much more.
Especially when the orange in question is a gift from Trader Joe's.
...it's a Satsuma Orange.
::::: | Filed under: the past
::::: | Posted Tuesday, Nov 22 2005 at 9:13 PM
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