The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Essays

Jul 20

I’ve been watching a lot of Below Deck as my back heals, and the strangest thing keeps happening. I keep telling myself I could do those jobs. If you knew me at all, you would know how preposterous this is. I have absolutely zero boating skills or interest, but my thoughts persist. It got me thinking about the stories we tell ourselves.

When you get to 55, stories become a confluence of reality, fading memory, and highlights. You rarely know which part is which. I tell all of these stories about my life, but which ones have taken on a life of their own? It’s not like my stories have become enhanced, but storytellers know how to make subtle changes to please the audience. Do we do this in our lives? Yes.

I once rubbed poison ivy all over my body at summer day camp because the girl I liked said the plant in question was not poison ivy. She was smart, and I showed up the next day with Calamine lotion all over my body. Side note: I love the smell of Calamine lotion. I once slept over at her house, in a bunk bed, when I was less than ten. I can see the room. I have a photo of her and me on the beach. It’s sweet. I believe this story to be accurate, but I worry about what happens when it fades.

I have a photographic memory of sorts, but I am also getting older. I can literally see my second-grade teacher whom I was in love with, but some days I forget an obvious word. Barbara Brady, I still love you. The story I told myself at six years old was that one day Barbara Brady and I would be together. We don’t only tell stories from the past, but also from our future.

A couple of years ago, I got back in touch with my college girlfriend. We were together for three years, from college into law school for me, and that remains the longest relationship I've ever had besides my six-year marriage, almost twenty years ago. We saw each other a few times, and then something happened while we were walking up a hill. I still have no idea what happened, but we never spoke after that day. Something happened when we were both riding in our cars, separately, from lunch to the mountain, but the stories each of us would tell would be different. I don’t even know what the story is.

When I moved to California from Brooklyn, I also left all of my camp friends because they (except for one - Hi, Beej) all lived in New York. I made friends quickly, but I was lonely for the same kind of connection I had with my camp friends. It’s almost immeasurable to compare. At camp, you live in a bubble. Everything is simple, even when it’s not. When I moved to California, I was forced into a new reality where I was not as cool as I was at camp. It was strange.

So, I would write letters to my best friends every day. And I started to tell a story about a cheerleader I was in love with. That part was true, but the story I told my friends was not. Something in my 55-year-old mind tells me they knew that, but I don’t know. In my letters, Jennifer Schneider and I were together. In reality, she said one word to me once, and I almost pissed myself. I can still see her 11th-grade face; it was perfect.