We don't know each other's stories

The thing I love most about being a writer is the weaving and crafting of stories. I get to create currents, flickering with images. Conduits that flow, like electrons from the neural impulses of my brain into the minds of others. Forming pictures, characters, emotions that speak to them in unique ways.

In riding the charged currents of story-telling, I've come to realise the importance of our tales. Every person comes to work, goes to the grocery store or ventures out in life wrapped in the layers of their own story. It can be humourous, tragic, violent, funny or uplifting but frequently others have no idea as to the motivations and emotions that drive us as a result of our experiences. Ignoring a person's story is missing an opportunity to understand them.

I realised this many years ago when house-sitting for a friend. She'd been tasked with a last ditch intervention for her alcoholic sibling Her tale at the time was tragic but full of love and poignant memories of a younger version of the sister she'd been sent half way around the world to rescue. She required a lot of support and would call me from overseas to talk and process the torrent of emotions that overwhelmed her every day of her assignment.

One day, shortly before Christmas, another friend of mine came to visit. She knocked on the door with her baby on her hip and a bright smile fastened tightly to her face. I was on the phone, listening carefully to my overseas friend and trying to provide what support I could.

I opened the door for my second friend. Through a series of pantomime-like gestures I indicated she should sit down and that I would be with her shortly.

As the minutes inched by, the smile slipped from the face of my visitor. Her son cried fretfully and she started to pick up her bags, issuing an unspoken warning.

After a few minutes more, she marched out the front door and off to her car, just as I was finally able to end my phone conversation.

Part of me was annoyed. Hadn't my string of gestures indicated I would be with her as soon as possible? Didn't she know our mutual friend was having a difficult time?

But another voice, something beyond petty ego spoke to me, "You don't know the story behind her reaction," it said. And it was true, I did not.

I ran to her car, apologised for the wait and coaxed her back inside. I'm so glad I did because, when given a little time and a piping hot cup of tea, her story emerged.

Her husband had gambled away the family Christmas money. He had a serious problem which had effected the family fortunes for months and she was bereft.

So often this is the case. We're not privy to the stories of others and so we come at their actions, their reactions to confounding events from a place of judgement.

In my own work I have seen bright, capable colleagues laid bare by the death or life-changing diagnosis of a child or spouse. And yet they must show up to work, be patient with others, think critically, continue sharing their expertise, all whilst bleeding inside.

I'm currently writing a series of stories on first blood and last blood experiences. What has become obvious through my research for this project is that many, many of the women going through the menopause experience symptoms that are painful, messy and frequently embarrassing. (I myself remember haemorrhaging onto laboratory chairs and trying to clean up the mess, hiding the constant pain I was in.) And yet this is seldom spoken about. Many women feel they must show up to work or life and suffer in silence.

This is one of the reasons I'm determined to chronicle such stories and see them performed; to provide a safe space where women can hear and understand each other's travails. We can shed light on that which we hide in an attempt to function in an increasingly demanding world.

I think the point of this blog is that, when I am given the immense privilege of hearing another's story, I am continually blown away by their strength and resilience and humbled by the difficulty of what they are experiencing.

It makes me realise, we don't know each other's stories until we are invited to hear them. And sometimes, due to the nature of our interaction, we may not be invited.

The young woman who fumbled giving us our change at the drive-through window might have had an argument with her boyfriend before coming into work, the distracted office worker may be worrying about his mother's latest chemotherapy treatment, that abrupt fifty-something colleague may be experiencing hot-flushes and emotional ups and downs she can barely cope with. In all those circumstances a little empathy, the understanding that we don't know another's story, goes a long way.