What is your story? 

We have often heard the phrase over the past couple of years “own your story”. For a while, I thought this meant owning what’s happened to us in our lives. You know those labels we come up with for ourselves? Single Mom. Wife. Mother. Father. Cancer Survivor. Scholar. Doctor. Lawyer. Gay. Straight. Teacher. Homeowner. You get the picture…

I suppose owning your story *does* mean those things, but it’s so much more than that.

What it means to own your story…

Our stories aren’t only the things that happen to us or the decisions we make. Rather, our stories are woven into the daily lives we live, the relationships we build, the laughter we experience, the tears we shed, the experiences we have.

I was fortunate to have just attended a family reunion with my Winkle family. Listening to my family share stories really got me thinking.

My personal lessons from a family reunion

At this reunion, we had a HUGE variety of ages. We had a 6 month old baby boy as the youngest and our oldest family member in attendance was 86. As I listened to my family members talk and reminisce, there was very little mention of our work lives. We do have a basic understanding of  what each of us do or did for work, but typically that isn’t the focus of the conversations. We talked about experiences, memories, travels, family members and shared time together. Stories were told, memories shared, and lots of laughter ensued! Here is a group photo.

Time with all of these lovely peoplel got me thinking. In my own life, I can get pretty focused on what I’m doing and lose focus on who I am. I can let the goals and the next project become what I think about most. I can sometimes lose sight of the concept the adage that the journey is the destination.

A new focus

Seeing my fairly large extended family was incredibly soul filling. Spending time with this amazing, smart, talented and loving group of people who represent multiple faiths, creeds, nationalities, ethnicities, and ways of loving and finding partnerships made me realize I want more. I want to see these people more. Sharing more memories with those I love is a renewed goal.

In fact, I decided yesterday that a rather large (3000 mile) road trip is in order to reconnect to people we love is in order. I’m going to go spend time with people I love and with people I haven’t seen in a long time. The richness of life comes from our stories. Do we want our story to be about how hard we worked? How much we loved? The difference we make? Well, in reality, the answer is probably…. Yes, yes, and yes.

Come with me!!

I’m going to talk you with me on my travels. These posts will be much more personal…I’ll just let you know what we are up to. I’ll be posting from my iPad…the photos won’t be edited, the posts won’t be consistent time-wise, but you’ll get to see our journey. We plan to start with a mother/daughter vacation to the Lake Tahoe area, spend time in Salt Lake City, visit family and friends in Nebraska, spend a few days with family and friends in Wisconsin, spend time with family in Chicago, visit family in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, see friends in the Black Hills (where I used to live!), visit Jackson, Wyoming and then come home.

I’ll go live on Facebook once in a while so if you haven’t followed me on Facebook, I invite you to do that. Here is the link to my Facebook page. 

What do you want for your story?

As you go about your day, I invite you to consider what you want your day to be. Do you want to build connection? Maybe your goal is to find a way to be more peaceful or intentional. Perhaps the goal for your story today is to be kinder to yourself or take better care of yourself. What do you want your story to be?

What is your goal for YOUR STORY?

All my love,

Brenda

xoxo