At a wedding reception, Gary and I were sitting with several couples who had completed their journeys with their children’s home education. As we were talking at the table, one of the women said, “I loved every bit of homeschooling. I’d do it all over again and this time I’d know what I’m doing!”
I had to tilt my head and reply,
“I think the whole point of the journey is the not knowing, not the knowing.”
–Mary Gunther
Unlike the movie, “Groundhog Day” there is no real reliving an entire day or any portion of our life. We don’t relive and apply the lessons until we get it “right”. In fact, We can’t learn any lessons until we go on our way and make our mistakes. It seems obvious but we don’t know how to do something the first time we do it.
While we can’t live a do-over we can actually imagine one. With the power of story, we can reimagine events especially those tinged by regret. We can use the do-over to remap our brains as one way to learn from our travels.
Recently I shared a blog post about getting angry with my youngest over not following through on a medical appointment. As I play that story over in my mind, it can be tempting to focus on what I had done and bury myself with shame and blame for not doing better. A do-over story focuses more on the do-over part. How I would have wanted my best self to show up in the story.
Here is how I imagine my better story, my do-over. I imagine that instead of asking my husband to check in on my daughter. I check in on her. I sit next to her. Maybe I even put my arm around her shoulder as I help her upload the patient portal. I sit with her the whole time while teaching her the independent skill of checking her medical record. I give her some accountability deadlines. I can feel in my body the power of choosing a better next time even though I don’t know when it will come.
The double power of this do-over story is that not only does it serve as a new path of choices and a redemptive rewrite but it also serves as an effective picture to share with my daughter that can help repair the old story. This do-over story can influence genuine change in both of our minds. In this way, storytelling becomes a path for better relationships.
We can’t relive a day but we can retell our stories. What do-over stories would you want to tell?