The fairy-tale of internal narrative

My mind deals in stories. I don’t write them so much these days, who has the time? But I do like to imagine these stories, to make grand narratives in my head neatly explaining what the hell I’m doing with my life. I revise character arcs in my head like the post-production of key life decisions. Like the pretentious caption on an artwork made by a frenetic child prodigy, my life only makes sense when I put words to it. When I join the dots into some resemblance of meaning and, in doing so, justify my own actions. Maintain my integrity as a creator, in theory.

Somethings can seem so right. Splitting up can almost seem like destiny. Getting back together, even more so. Move abroad. Quit my job. Blaze every day. Get back together again. They’re choices I make and afterwards, to prevent cognitive dissonance, I assign a convincing narrative drive. Causes, both internal and external.

With time these narratives either cement as tellable stories or fade away when they’re no longer compatible with the frantic character arc that is me; my life. Like the pages of a book of short stories that are interconnected, each story feeding off the themes of the others and yet each a distinct, original piece. Complete plot lines in their own right. Perfectly true despite being contradicted on the next page.

I’d like to say my life is a movie, a novel even. Realistically, it’s more like a badly worded sitcom written by somebody with a penchant for pain and humiliation. Not much of a comedy. But if it were, most definitely a black one.

The characters in this one-woman sitcom have range, I’ll give them that. One is forgiving and altruistic to a fault, one is vulnerable, weak and lacking any semblance of discipline, another flip-flops between overly emotional train wreck and stoic logician at each timely entry into a scene. Perhaps it is a comedy. An absurdist one. Some characters come and go, others stick around riffing on ethics and life projections.

I recognise repeat characters and am comforted by them, like watching live action remakes of Disney classics. I root for the good characters and boo the bad. The bad always return, bad choices, bad reasons, bad characters with bad intentions. All me, all fighting against my conscience for a little contentment if not pleasure. But no matter the endless series potential, at some point the hero wins out, overcomes situations, fights for good causes, defeats evil, or, simply the story ends in a death, most likely. If this was Hollywood I’d get killed off for a younger model so she could continue the franchise. Possible.

I’m hoping for a resolution if not a happy ending; I know not to be so idealistic in a world of dystopian movies and tragic narratives. At the very least I’m hoping the stories are tied up without trailing off into chaos devoid of reason and truth. But I guess for that I’ll need a good character drive. A believable goal to see the story through to its end. For now, I’ll just hope for a good climax and perhaps a life lesson.

~ L