THE NARRATIVE ARC

A Little Story About Hope For When You’re Worn Out and Weary

I don’t want to carrot and stick my way through life, die with a belly full of regret

AI-generated image of a woman surrounded by monarch butterflies, photo licensed from vecteezy

There’s a place I go sometimes. Across the bridge, across the river, open the glass doors into yesterday. Fifties retro café with checkered floors, Formica topped tables, four foot photos of Marilyn and Elvis hanging on the walls.

I sit, look at the photo of Marilyn in a tutu. Soft filter makes her ethereal. Lordy, she was beautiful I think. Sitting here, can’t help but remember sitting here as a teenager. Bonnie, Audrey and me. Before we grew apart, before Bonnie got married, had a little boy who went blind at five.

Just teenage girls, whispering about boys, homework and school dances over giant plates of hand-cut fries and chocolate milkshakes served up in stainless steel cups still sweating from the milkshake machine. Thought we were so grown up, but we were so young. So innocent. Babies, really.

I can still see us, heads bent together. Laughing, whispering about dreams and tomorrows that were never going to happen but we didn’t know. Didn’t know how ugly Bonnie’s divorce would be, or mine, because we were young and imagined our tomorrows filled with more promise, less…