comes a time

There comes a time when we feel compelled to tell our stories, tell what we’ve learned. Life is just so darned full of experiences, all of which have weight in forming us.

I used to think this was territory owned by old people (or maybe just older than me people, the line keeps moving as I age).   Today it came to me – first – that I’ve always wanted to tell what I’ve learned.  Close on the heels of that thought came a myriad of images of children just so full of that new thing that they can’t contain themselves in a still body.  They bounce and hop and jiggle and shout the wonder of what they just now discovered.

Then came the images of the teenagers, so crammed with new thoughts and feelings that they can’t possibly find ways to express or explain or just plain put it out there, dammit, like all the adults are demanding they do.

There are the reflections of old people, on experiences and events, the outer manifestations of the integration, the attempt to relive something that happened, and in doing so, be here, be real, be noticed.  Be special.  When someone has been on the planet for a long time, do you have any idea of the richness they carry inside?

The  people with stories to tell are all of us, the stories themselves, infinite.  Every minute we breathe brings something new and wondrous, disturbing, epic, mundane, and the yearning to offer them as a way to connect, to make them real, is overwhelming.

We try to tell, and mostly we are trained to the socially accepted vehicles.  ‘Use your words’.  ‘Indoor voice’.  ‘Paint belongs on paper, not on walls’.   It is unbearable to imagine what happens when our stories are constrained by social conventions or the inability to speak.

I’m not sure why this message came to me today. This isn’t an acupuncture story, except that every patient does me the honor of sharing some of their stories with me.  I might have an opinion on the story – I often do – but the wonder of it all takes my breath away.

There sure doesn’t feel like a nice, tidy way to wrap this up.   Maybe I’m thinking I need to listen more.  Listen respectfully and with wonder, with a sense of having all the time in the world.  Because?  Because when comes your time  to share your story I might find the wonder of a resonance with it, or a blinding new insight into my own.