for what your heart wants, what will you trade?
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 at 11:18AM 
This is where the stories come in. Whenever things get tough, there they are.
You know them: all the stories you heard as a child about the trade you have to make for the thing your heart wants.
About what the hero does.
I'm thinking about this a lot on Day 13 of NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, this mad commitment I've made to write every single day of the month toward a prize of 50,000 words. And blog every day, too.
It ain't easy, but then there's the Little Mermaid.
Not the cartoon one, but Andersen's original, the one I read over and over again in the tattered picture book I still have. The original Little Mermaid trades her fish tail for legs. Every step on land is excruciating, every step as if walking on knives or broken glass. She gives up what she is — a mermaid — in pursuit of love. The cost is ultimately too high, not right. She doesn’t win the prince; she dies of a broken heart, neither mermaid nor princess.
The story is so hard and beautiful -- it contains an entire human lifetime: youth, sacrifice, pain, love, grief, death. It asks and answers essential questions. How much is enough? How much is too much? We wish for her that she'd stayed with her sisters, but she makes her choice.
She does as she must.
She pays the price.
I think about this as I get up, sleep-deprived again, and get to my desk. Sure, I'm not walking on glass, but for what my heart wants, there's a cost. And then I sit and do my duty by myself again, do my little hero's journey, follow the yellow brick road, light another match.
Grow my mermaid's tail.
Oh, it always comes back to the stories. The stories I heard growing up, the stories that shaped how I see the world. The stories I have inside, that itch to get them out in whatever form they choose to take. Sometimes I feel like I am telling always the same story, coming at it from a slightly different direction every time, but always, really, the same story.
And why not? Isn’t it inevitable that the story I’m here to tell, is the story of me? Isn’t it inevitable that the story you’re here to tell, is the story of you?
Those are some great stories. Stories I can’t wait to tell, and stories I can’t wait to hear.
Sure, there’s a price, but what about the prize? For what your heart wants, what will you trade?
Reader Comments (1)
That's one of life's tough questions. The contemporary adage is, when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. Powerful reminder to constantly weigh your priorities.