I am equal parts blood and ink. Perhaps in the novels my mother wrote, the imagination my father instilled in me and the tales I spun in my head like straw into gold, I first began to see myself. I began to discover the extraordinary in the mundane.
I am a story, though I may not be a worthy protagonist. As often as I am clever, benevolent, hopeful and heroic, I’m idiotic, self-serving, pessimistic and reliant. Sometimes I fear I fall more into the latter category. But I rest my case. I am a story. Or, more accurately, I am a library, a culmination of thousands of stories that make me who I am.
As I mentioned, my mom is a storyteller. When I was in elementary school, she wrote me into her books: a precocious imp of a girl with a dirty-blonde bob and a penchant for cracking cases. As much as my mom wanted her character to live up to me, I wanted to live up to the tales she wrote, to be worthy of one of my own.
From then on, I spent as much time in imaginary worlds as I did in reality. That’s how I became Nancy Drew, finding clues where there were none with my trusty flashlight in hand. Next was Hermione Granger. Then Ella of “Ella Enchanted”.
Though the stories I read have changed, I haven’t. On some days, I’m Elizabeth Bennet, witty, bold and unapologetic. Other times I’m Scheherazade, telling wild tales to entertain myself and others, and occasionally doing so to weasel my way out of trouble. But, most of the time, I’m me: a combination of everything I’ve read, experienced, felt and done. I’m the quiet bookworm in the corner, the dreamer who lives in memories and future fantasies.
I may not be a worthy protagonist, but I’m a protagonist all the same. I’m stuck seeing the world through my lens, tainted as it is, and, at the end of a long and arduous day, I reach for my notebook and twist my ordinary experiences into fantastical ones. Maybe my fallibility isn’t a curse; maybe it’s a blessing. Aren’t flawed heroines much more interesting?
