Kimberly Emerson

Every day that we live, we tell stories. I got a reminder of this on Sunday, listening to my friend Lyda’s sermon. Not made-up tales, but the stories of our lives. “I cook using all organic ingredients.” “I practice Buddhism.” “I enjoy vacations in the mountains.”

Sometimes, Lyda pointed out, we get so caught up in the story and so used to telling it a certain way that we keep telling it even after it stops being true.

It isn’t lying, exactly. Maybe it was true, at one time. Maybe I used to enjoy vacations in the mountains, at one time, but it’s been ten years since I took one. Or maybe I still go there every year, but the actual pleasure I get from it doesn’t justify the exorbitant cost anymore. In any case, Lyda points out, clinging to the fiction can actually get in the way of making change in our lives. If I’m always insisting how much I love the mountains, friends are less likely to tell me they’ve got a cabin at the beach I could use. If I make it sound like I go regularly, people might refrain from asking me if I want to join the group they’re organizing, since they’ll figure I’ve just been. Trying to force a narrative into existence could prevent the true story from manifesting.

Like many writers, I talk a lot about how stubborn my characters get. There are times when a scene simply will not go the way I planned. It’s as if the character stands in front of me, arms crossed, and says, “I can’t believe you wanted to write that. It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

I was struck this week by the fact that in this way, the characters in my head live more authentic lives than the one I actually experience. It’s not that they don’t lie, evade, manipulate and capitulate, but they do so for their own reasons. If something really offers them no reward, they won’t do it.

It turns out, these characters are not as feisty as I thought. They’re just remarkably human.

When I started talking to a therapist, she asked me what I wanted to get out of the sessions. I said I wanted to find a balance between being a giving, compassionate person and taking care of myself. She gave me a paper with a cost-benefit analysis of saying “No” to people. Fascinating stuff. It turns out, all those times I’ve agreed to things when I wanted to decline, I did it for a reason, too. Or, as my therapist says, “a perceived benefit.” Saying yes all the time has some rewards. You get to feel like a saint for tending to everyone else’s needs. You don’t have to get involved in confrontations, which I hate. People like you, or at least seem to, because you reinforce what they want to hear. Sounds good, right?

Unfortunately, it comes back to that “perceived benefit” thing. I might feel like a saint, but I’m actually not. I find myself resenting people for asking me to do things I didn’t want to do. I don’t confront them, but then I hate myself for not sticking up for my own needs. And then there’s the fact that what they like may not actually be me, but just my habit of accommodating them.

This past fall, I had two family members in the hospital and a house full of bugs delivering on average five new bug bites a day, which itched like all hell. Add in some money issues, the car in the shop and a stolen ATM card number. Each day I texted my family for health updates and  did laundry, stacking every washable thing in my house (plus some that were never meant to go in a washing machine) in double-knotted plastic bags in the living room, trying to de-louse my whole life. I slept on the living room futon – the bugs preferred my bedroom, so I let them have it – and washed the sheets and blankets every night. I ran the pillows in the dryer for half an hour, just in case. I was drowning.

Most people in my life didn’t notice.

How could they? Every time they asked, I said, “I’m fine.” Okay, maybe I told them some of what was going on, but I stressed that I was coping, that so many people had it worse. I told them the story I wanted to believe, rather than the one actually unfolding in front of my eyes, because that one would have depressed people, or God forbid, made me look needy. Can’t have that. Super Kimberly can handle it. She knows better than to wear a cape and get sucked into the vortex. She is completely self-sufficient.

Apparently God didn’t like the line I was selling, because more stuff went wrong. My grandmother’s health went steadily down hill, until words like “hospice care” came into use. A relationship I truly enjoyed came unraveled, and I still don’t know how to put the friendship back together, or if I even can. Oh, and the car went back into the shop.

At this point, I had no choice. People saw the need. It was the only way I survived. Erika listened to tearful phone calls. Jynae gave me hugs and whispered into my ear, “I’d make it all better if I could.” Diana made call after call and sent email after email, saying, “Just checking in. Are you okay?” Deirdre made sure I ate lunch every day.

I told my therapist that I guessed maybe once in a while, I was allowed to be needy. “Or just have needs,” she said. Interesting difference there.

These days, finding a tiny bit of stability at last, I’ve taken to examining my life and my behavior. I have to. Super Kimberly’s outfit is in tatters. Turns out you can get sucked into the vortex, even without a cape. Normal Human Kimberly is all I have left. Everyone else is going to have to adjust.

Who is Normal Human Kimberly? Well, for one part at least, she’s a person unmoved by Thai food. It’s not that I hate it. It’s fine, but it’s never going to replace Italian food in my heart. If I’m having Thai food, probably someone else suggested it and I went along for the ride. Not a bad thing. We all compromise some times, and that is normal and healthy. Trouble is, I’ve done it enough that some of my friends think it’s my preference. Somewhere in there, someone started to put “Kimberly loves Thai food” in the story, and instead of correcting them, I tried to force myself to believe it. Now that part of the story is a lie.

Little things matter, in literature and in life. The characters in my head know this. They might eat Thai food, but if they did it out of charity rather than desire, I’d mention it. They’d throw a fit and refuse to speak if I didn’t. At the very least, I’d have to promise to mention it later, and keep my promise. Yes, it matters. I think that’s Emmaline talking, one of my more recent protagonists. For the love of God, have as much respect for your real story as you do for the ones you make up.

What story are you telling, with your life and your pen? Is it real, or the one you think the world wants to hear? Please, for the love of all that is holy, tell us your real story. Because it is holy. You have truth to tell the world, and this world is in desperate need of truth. Even truth spoken by people you make up.

I hope someday other people learn as much from the stories in my head as I do. I am going to make some changes in my behavior, and not everyone will love them. I still want to embrace compassion, but the word WELCOME will be removed from my back if I have to do it with battery acid. If I don’t want Thai food, I’m not eating Thai food.

Somewhere in my head, my characters – especially Emmaline – are saying, “About damn time.”

Kimberly does get to tell her characters what to do, once in a while. Just not much.

Tags: art imitates life, characters, lies, stories