Sea Shanty

For most of my life I have been telling myself quieting stories.

I really don't need all that much. It's fine. Everything is fine.

I can just be grateful for whatever is there. Something more would be nice, I suppose, but don't trouble yourself over it - I know I'm not.

When your dad doesn't introduce you while he's bragging about all the good things your siblings have accomplished and how beautiful they all are, you tell yourself that you're just a background character in this story. Your book must be on someone else's shelf. This particular storyteller is kind of a jackass anyway, so why would you care that he doesn't want you in the foreground?

When you grow up hungry you learn not to admit you want something.

There is nothing in the fridge, so you drink some cold water and you fill your belly with a story instead. 

When your middle name is a story that something better is coming, you cling to that for dear life. You become numb to the idea that right now could have ever felt safe. 

You write songs about someday and tomorrow and you live off celebrating everyone else's today. 

You cook meals for your children so they never expect a growling stomach.

You skip them when there isn't enough to go around and tell everyone you're just not feeling particularly hungry that day. 

Or the next

Or the one after that

There's a hormone called Ghrelin that tells the brain when the stomach is empty. At the height of the pro-ana tumblr phase of life I learned to reframe the noise it made as a signifier of success. It meant I was shrinking, learning to take up less space. When a glass of water or a single bite of this or that made it easier to control... that meant I was choosing this. That meant I was not just a forgotten passenger on the ship anymore. I became the captain.

But then other ships passed in the night and they knew. The Ghrelin made itself so loud that people outside of me could hear it and they could board my ship and turn the wheel whichever way they chose. They fed the Ghrelin just enough to keep it docile. The moment always came when I would wake from a nap and see that my ship was pointed towards the old docks again. I'd be led right off the gangway into a little boathouse and watch as every piece of my ship was sold for parts to enrich the new captain. He'd rearrange it all to his liking and I would tell myself the story that I am just a background character again. 

This is still not my book, maybe that was never my ship. I don't need a book. I don't need a ship. I was not born to be a story. I am a plot device, I am someone else's galley. 

Until one day, the thought of my daughter not fully believing that she is in fact the best story that has ever been able to write itself woke the Ghrelin. That hunger drove me out of the boathouse and I built a raft. I fed the beast, I believed the promise of a middle name. I started writing a story and a whole host of characters showed themselves. 

I met a wizard. You had your own beast. You didn't even want a ship (wizards don't need ships), but you'd be happy to help me build mine. When the raft crashed you cut down trees and we made a little dinghy. We turned it into a skiff. We gave it a sail. We named it Hope and we were getting somewhere. One day you even asked if it could be our ship. Make it official. You wanted a ship now, but only with me. You wanted to write a book with us as the main characters.

I still told this little story that surviving was plenty and I never needed to be full. Your wizard's keep kept calling you back and I would sit on the deck waiting for your return. You would, but you were tired from the journey. You got mean, you got suspicious, you wanted to go back to your keep. I got sad, I got anxious, I wondered if I had believed the ending of a rough draft too soon. 

The stories are bullshit, babe. I am hungry.

I want a ship. 

I want flowers in the galley. 

I want birthdays. 

I want plans that carry through. 

I want careful tending and celebration. 

I want to be fought for. 

I want to be pursued. 

I want to be someone's nonnegotiable.
I want to be more than convenience or charity.

I shouldn't keep settling for being an afterthought in the background.

I am not a plot device.

I have to stop shrinking.

And I have to stop doing it just so someday my daughter will not think that's an expectation.

I have to write a new story. I am terrified of it. I might never have a co-captain, and I have to learn to be ok with that. But I'm gonna have a ship, damn it, and if I sink with it... maybe my daughter sings my sea shanty on her ship.