Our lives are the stories we tell ourselves. The epics, the comedies, the tragedies, the nonfictions, the fantasies. 
We are a summation of perception and interpretation. 
How and what we see around us. 
And it is liberating. 

The story I tell myself is:
I am loved and I love. 
I am enough. 
And there are days when I do not believe it -- the narrative shifts and I am in a dark ocean with eyes instead of sharks, hungry and omnipresent. But there are some stories that are stronger than others; some stories that offer a life-jacket and point toward the shore. 
I am enough for this earth,
Capable of great, average, and low. 

I wear makeup in my pajamas because it makes me feel confident. I can pay more attention to my eyes instead of my broken skin. Both stories (my eyes and my skin) are part of me, they always will be. And sometimes it is okay to choose to pay attention to one more than the other. 

So while our lives are the stories we tell ourselves, we can still choose to pay attention or not. And there is power in both. 

Stories of the past can help us cope; they can transport us and make us feel the air as it once was. They remind us what it was like to look up at the stars above Bear Lake. The way the room smelled on the day of your Quinceañera. High school graduation. Pasta night on Valentine's. Crisp mornings before tennis practice. Your first Punk show. Your last concert. 

But stories are also like water. Drink too much and your body will no longer be able to process everything in time. You'll start to disconnect with the present and drown on dry land. The same goes for stories of the future. 

I believe stories are life-tools. Neither inherently good or bad. They are waves and we are the moon. They can raise nations, produce powerful machines, erode scars, reinforce existing love, destroy and create. 

The story I tell myself is --
And you?