I can recall the first time I saw this little sign. It made me stop and laugh. Later, I found it again in the form of a card that I purchased for a friend who found herself at the end of one story line, headed into the land of uncertain things. It has become our “battle cry” of sorts. We use it just as one might use a “get out of jail free” card in monopoly.
The truth is, almost everyone I know is living in their own “plot twist” in one way or another. Matter of fact I cannot think of anyone I know whose life has been script perfect. Which of course doesn’t mean that they are living a secondary life, often times it is actually bigger and better than the original dream.. Sometimes, it isn’t. But even in those incidences life, love and contentment and fulfillment have been found in the strangest of places.
Years ago when I set out to be a writer, my dream was to share the stories of those I met down the back roads of life. It is where I find the most contentment in my life. I suspect that the initial quest was to prove to myself that people are innately “good.” Having come from a past where that wasn’t always clear to me; where judging one by their looks or deeds didn’t necessarily mean that they could be trusted with matters of the heart…
The back-roads have introduced me to some amazing people. Talented, funny, complex, masterful, complicated people and what I have learned on the journey is that we are all complicated. We all are the accumulation of the stories we are told and the stories we tell ourselves. And our degrees of brokenness come only from what we choose to believe inside those stories.
I can recall a conversation I had with my long time friend Bev Schauble.. and she telling me, “its all a story…..whatever it is that you are telling yourself that keeps you stuck or moves you forward.. it is all just a story… if you don’t like the way its going.. write a new story. ”
It is really true. I’ve gotten more comfortable with the concept of yelling PLOT TWIST….I’ve taken a lot of the woulda -shoulda- coulda’s out of my story lines. I’ve gotten past the toxic emotions of what others should have done , or could have done that would have made my story better. I’ve stopped believing that somehow other peoples lives would have been better if I had just been different… said less, said more…
I’ve also learned, just recently that sometimes a plot twist can take you right back to where you originally started…. the detour needed to “clean the palette of sorts” to work out some of the “stuff” holding you back from seeing the stories clearly.
So once again I am yelling PLOT TWIST and getting back to sharing stories of those I meet down the dust roads of life.
A Cowgirl Called 