The Untold Story

I was lying in bed last night and thought of something that I really thought would be neat to share with you today. I was going to get up and make sure I put all my thoughts directly on paper. It was such a great idea that when I told myself that I should really get up and write it down so I wouldn't forget, I thought to myself " you wont forget this, its just to damn good!"

I forgot. But, I swear it was great! It was funny and deep. It was cute but not mushy, it was perfect. Doesn't matter much now, because its long gone.

Ive been writing on and off as long as I can remember. I also remember that I loved my creative writing class in high school yet flunked the class. It wasn't that I sucked at what I wrote; its just that I didn't write about what I was supposed to. I have notebooks full of morbid poems and short stories of romance. I enjoy reading over the teacher comments in the side margins and reading the the compliments yet seeing that the grade was very poor. You wonder why the grade was poor if the comments were so praising? Because I was supposed to write about a leaf and I wrote about the death of my then boyfriends mother.

I could never conform back then. Maybe it was my age, maybe I was just stubborn. I think I was just a little of both. I really think the problem was that I didn't feel anything for that leaf yet I was supposed to write about it. As a teenager all you do is feel things. You feel your first crush, kiss and breakup. You feel the thrill of driving and of breaking rules. What I didn't feel is how the leaf was affecting my life. And since the leaf held no importance in my very self-centered teenage existence, how was I supposed to write about it?

I could write about it now. Ive grown up enough to realize almost everything has a story. Whether it is that leaf or the person down the street I don't know. I feel things different and can now put into words the thoughts that run through my head all day. What I couldn't write about then I can write about now because I have experienced the things in life that I needed to get to this place.

Sometimes when its quiet and I'm trying to fall asleep words will tumble through my head so fast that I find it impossible to relax. I will think back over my day and put the whole memory in story form. Sometimes the people and situations will change till I get the story to come to a conclusion that I feel is appropriate. I will change things I have said during the day and try to figure out a different way to say the things I shouldn't have. In my head I will say the perfect comeback to someones rude comment when hours before I was speechless.

But now in my head as I'm drifting off to sleep I have the timing just right and for once they are without words. It doesn't matter that it took me until midnight to think of it or that nobody will hear it but me.

I always told my mother that when I got older I wanted to write a book. I really thought that was what you were supposed to do if your passion was writing. So over the years I have started and stopped numerous stories. I have tried to write about things that really had no major interest to me, but stuff that I thought would have commercial value. Obviously that didn't work when I was seventeen and it still doesn't. Sure I could write about that leaf if I had to, but there wouldn't be much passion in it. Unless the leaf had landed on my lap as I was doing something else of interest, maybe then I could write about it.

I think we all have a story in our minds. I think we think up great discoveries, cures and answer some of life's biggest questions as we are drifting off to sleep. I think as I'm writing this I could probably think of a few more things to write about as soon as I'm finished. But the crazy thing is, the more I try to remember what I was thinking about last night as I was falling asleep the more it alludes me.

I think its sort of like that leaf in high school that helped me achieve that failing grade. There is a time for everything. There is a reason why I can think of the perfect comeback while I'm falling asleep and not during a time of confrontation. Maybe its a sign that I was better off keeping my mouth shut. Maybe that perfect little story that was running through my head last night will be better off being told many years from now. Its not that it wasn't important its just not its time to be told.

I suppose after twenty years it was about time I did that creative writing project that I was assigned. Now was the time for the little leaf to have its story told. That leaf held little importance to me long ago but now I have a reason to write about it that holds meaning to me. It wasn't so much a story about a leaf, but how that leaf helped me tell a story.