I love stories. They give us a chance to… to look into another soul. To see that we just might not be alone in the world. Not alone in our struggles, not alone in our dreams, … not in our hopes, or our fears. Our joys, our tears. Our lives. A story gives us a window to see through the eyes in another. The thing about stories, though, well, they must end. You get just a window, into this soul, and for a time, you become friends. You can learn together, experience the great joys of life, grow up together, and even grow old together. But in the end, you must always, always, go your separate ways. You won’t forget your friend, not really, although particulars may slide away; faces, and even names, fade, into the back of our minds. We can take what we’ve learned, we can grow, we can even become smaller, if only for a time, but we must part. It’s for the better, really. If we did just live in stories all our lives, there would be no point. What’s the use of learning, and growing, if you don’t use it. And if you do not live your life, can you even relate to a story at all? But it is very hard to go through life without living, if even just a little bit. So we can relate, we can see through these windows, to hopes and dreams. When the story ends, especially a long story, or a series, I often miss these friends, for a bit anyway. I wish that I could hear one more story about them, one more adventure of Winnie the Pooh. And in some cases, such as the dear friends of Christopher Robin, a parent is more than willing to provide for the entertainment of their own. But once we are all grown up, who tells stories to us? We must look for them in the gold mines of the libraries. Books often bore us, and we often feel that they have no significance, especially when forced to analyze this, and close read that. But when one remembers how to just take simple joy in a story, there develops a hunger for more stories once again, and we find ourselves as children, in bliss, even if for just one more before bedtime.
