In stories we identify with characters whose motives make sense to us.  Odd to say, then, that the forces driving many of the heroes and heroines we meet are unknown to the characters themselves.   Their heroism itself is also often invisible to them.  

Our lives are not novels or movies, as far as we know, but they might as well be since we’re each the main character of our own life, as well as the narrator.  

I’m lucky in this:  the driving force in my life is clear to me.   In a nutshell, my parents were both raised by parents who broke their spirits.  My father was a prick (and sincerely regretful about this on his deathbed), my mother was a poet who never wrote, both were singers who never sang.   When I needed to be heard as a child I often got a deaf ear and eventually a lecture about attention-seeking and whining.  They were unable to give what they never got.

So my back story can be told very simply, and I understand it clearly.  And I’m lucky in this.   Parents who were hurt, doing better than their own parents did, but still not getting it right, raising two children with a lot to overcome.  The driving force of my life is doing better than they did, overcoming more than they overcame, giving what they were largely unable to give.  Becoming, in the overused phrase, the change I want to see in the world.  What is hurtful to you do not do to somebody else.

In the darkness here, where so many stumble cursing, I am blessed to see by the light of this dim candle, and I am lucky in this.   I have finally chosen a path that makes sense to me, using my skills to create a workshop where children are carefully listened to, allowed to imagine what they will and bring it into the light.  This path is straight up a steep and rocky hill, to be sure, but it makes sense and is motivated straight out of my life story.

I’m lucky in this.