All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

Few things can entrance and enrapture me like a good story. Whether it be told through film, on pages, or in the lyrics of a song, I believe stories are the most powerful gifts we as human being possess. What I love most about a story is the arc that the character has to go through. It's not a straight line to the end. There are ups and downs along the way the prevent or stall the character from his or her goal. Any basic scriptwriting class will teach you that this element, a character not being able to achieve a goal, at least for a certain period of time, is the key to writing a successful screenplay. This dynamic of the story is what keeps us tuning in to our favorite television show or sitting on the edge of our seat during a movie. In a very poetic and cliche way, I like to view the course of my life as a story. New years and seasons as chapters, people as characters. I want my life to be a good story, one that I can reflect on fondly and that will be retold when I am gone. But every good story must have its ups and downs. So why am I always surprised when my idyllic plateau falls into some deep valley? That's the way of it, I shouldn't be so taken back. But I am. I think I'm just now accepting that this is the way of my story, of any story. It's funny too how quickly the ups are met with their decent. How a single email can ruin an otherwise lovely day. How you can meet a person and feel all kinds of excitement and emotion, and a few weeks later feel alone and confused. Up. Down. But what I am also learning is that sometimes the most beautiful moments in a movie or a book are those low points for the character. That's where the transformation takes place, or the lesson is learned, or the due is paid. This week I received a letter from someone who was part of my deepest descent, and I realized that even from that blackest of darkness, light can be found and beauty can come from the mire. Luckily there is no plateau, lest we ever be caught in a constant down. And at the end of even the longest valley road, there is another peak to climb. Such is any good story. So will be my story I suppose.