What's Your Story?

It started with a simple request. "Mommy, tell me a story about when you were a kid". And in that one moment Jeni had to dig deep into her childhood to find a story with enough action, drama, intrigue and everything else that a five year old needs to stay in the moment and hear you out. Jeni brought up some random happenings from her days at Kennedy Park during the summer months of her youth, but struggled to truly tell a story with her memories. When she brought what had happened while putting Abbie to bed, I too was at a loss as to what sort of story I would be able to tell.

Memories can come back with little cohesion between them, but often times they are little more than just scenes from your youth. What does it take to turn random thoughts and experiences into a true story? If someone came up to you and asked you to tell them a story, what would you come up with? Perhaps your first trip to a baseball game, or that time you went camping and told ghost stories, maybe even your first day at a new school. What thoughts and emotions would you hope to be able to convey? Were you nervous that first day of school, maybe you sat front row at the baseball game and were awed by seeing your heroes up close and in the flesh. Do you have what it takes to draw in those around you with an amazing tale of your daring expeditions as an eight year old?

I for one am a lousy story teller. I can usually manage to start off well enough, building tension and painting a pretty good picture of the scene to my listeners, only to get to the climax to blow it, I let my listener down by second guessing the events as I remember them, or most often leaving out a crucial piece of information, having to back pedal to fill in the newly formed gaps. I guess I need to polish my delivery before I too am confronted by a certain five year old at bedtime wanting to hear a story that is better crafted than those found in her bedtime books. When it comes time for me to deliver, will I have the goods necessary to hold her captivated, or will I fail miserably. Will the story I tell her have to have a deeper meaning behind it, perhaps a moral at the end of it all not unlike one of Aesop's. What sort of things would I tell her about myself unwittingly through a story about my youthful shenanigans. All I know is that whatever I tell her, chances are it will be repeated, verbatim, to those who should probably not hear it.

You may think that I am making more out of this than I should, and if you are then you probably don't have kids. To say that your kids are your greatest audience, while at the same time being your biggest critic would be the understatement of the year. You at that moment have the power to mold them with your words, mold them into something you would like them to be, or turn them away from something which you don't. You have the ability to turn yourself into a superhero before their eyes, or dash their hopes with a misspoken tale of cowardice. As a parent, I hope that I have the ability to captivate my children with even the most mundane of events simply because I am their father. I want to be the one that they brag about during recess to all of their friends because of the one time that I...

So what's your story? And be sure to make it a good one.