Unstoried

I have always experienced the world through stories. It's not something I've chosen to do on purpose, it's how I have always existed. I think stories are the most important thing there is and ever has been. It's not a way of distancing myself from reality, it's not a thing that dehumanizes or trivializes anyone or anything, it is simply how the world happens for me. The world happens differently for everyone. People with acute sensory sensitivities experience the world differently from people with compromised hearing, who experience the world differently from people who function by strict logic and pragmatism, who experience the world differently from people who see colors other people can't, who experience the world differently from people who are genuinely delusional, who experience the world differently from people who are driven entirely by emotions, etc etc etc; and so we get this whole amazing variety of minds like Van Gogh, Einstein, Helen Keller, Bach, Robin Williams, Elvis, Walt Disney, and all sorts. A lot of the time how people are perceived is based much more on how the one being perceived receives and processes the world, than anyone realizes. If that makes sense.

So, my intrinsic way of being is stories.

That is how I be.

Everyone reading this is at least one story to me. It's not a depersonalization or that I am somehow turning you into fiction. You are your own true story, you are also stories I've shared with you, stories that remind me of you, stories for which I'm greedily awaiting new chapters, stories you have made it known are important to you, blah blah blah, ad infinitum. Because stories *are* infinite.

Anyway. I felt I needed that disclaimer before I just jumped right into trying to verbalize the especially difficult time I'm having coping with the death of a friend, a former student, an amazing guy.

In comparing him to a story, I am not un-personing him, mythologizing him, trivializing his life or death, or glorifying something I only felt after the fact. It is just how I receive and perceive information about everything around me. Having known him for quite some time, and being privileged to glimpse just some of the incredible depths and complexities that stayed hidden from most people, I've got a lot of stories for him. Of him. From him. Whatever.

I feel as though (obviously) his story was too abruptly ended, far too early. But I think a lot of my heartbreak is because, for years, seeing him grow up from a kid, I knew his story would be epic. I knew it would be a bestseller, even. That *everyone* would get to see the triumph and talent and shining awesomeness, and would inevitably match his ever-developing true greatness with the admiration and joy it deserves.

But it got cut short.

I feel not only a personal, terrible loss, but also a feeling of grief for what the *whole world* will now miss out on. Like I am feeling the sadness that seven billion people would feel if they'd just been able to understand they'd lost a future thing they didn't yet know. And that's a lot to feel.

But the thing is, his main story, to me, has always been deeply entwined with young, pre-Camelot King Arthur. I saw this happy, eager, excited, joyful, pure golden youth and knew for certain his story would keep on track for someday being utterly legendary.

Now, imagine if Arthur, still learning amazing things from Merlin, still excited and truly, truly *good*, through and through, no clue that he is going to change worlds, but totally cool with who he is already...... Imagine that Arthur had already just kinda absentmindedly grabbed that kickass-looking sword out of that rock as he strolled by, and he's kinda just swinging it around, having a great old time, but nobody's really noticed yet... And they certainly haven't realized the potential that just got unleashed. And then Arthur's horse throws him.

The end.

No story. No King. No hero. No Camelot. The world didn't even notice they'd lost their future champion and missed out on being a part of one of the best best best stories that has ever been. A few very lucky and observant people notice that HOLY CRAP THAT KID HAD FRIGGIN' EXCALIBUR!!!!! DUDE, HE WAS THE KING OF THE ENTIRE REALM WHOA WHAT EVEN JUST HAPPENED??!!!

What COULD have happened????

But there's not a story anymore. There's no mention of this rad ancient king dude that saved all of the Britons in Geoffrey of Monmouth, no Malory translations, Tennyson didn't write any Idylls, no Once And Future King, no Sword In The Stone, no future-Dumbledore singing in Camelot, definitely no Monty Python & The Holy Grail lines to quote all the time, no Last Crusade for Indy. Hell, there probably isn't even Star Wars now. There are just Saxons running amok everywhere, everything sucks, but that's just how it is because the story never got finished.

Isn't that a horrible thought?

That's exactly how I'm feeling now. All this missed future, piled on top of my own humble little personal shock and grief.

I just needed to try getting that into words. Just because I suck in great gulps of the world through a baleen filter of story doesn't mean I can tell one properly. But I needed to try.