I love a good story

Well, who doesn't love a good story? Whether it's eavesdropping stealthily on the people behind me while I wait for Starbucks, a good read, or that trashy tv series I find myself catching up with online I love getting trapped in a good story. I say trapped because that is fully how I feel when reading a book, watching a movie, even listening to a friend's tale of a recent occurrence. Oftentimes, I will find myself emulating a certain character's plight- almost projecting their circumstance onto my life. Other times I am reduced to a type of addict, burning through page after page to get resolution.

There is a certain reassurance, though, in a story because no matter what genre it is or how suspenseful it is there is always some sort of predictability. Two characters so perfectly infatuated that they will clearly be together even if they are put through numerous trials to do so. A dictator that has ruled unfairly their whole life will eventually be overthrown. I find myself wishing on many an occasion that life could be more like the stories which I obsess over. That I could read the back cover and know that it would all turn out a certain way. Or when times were getting rough I could flip to the epilogue and have some idea of how things would end up. 

The problem I have with life is that I know exactly what I want from it. I'm sure many people have the exact opposite problem. It becomes a problem because I am a little bit of a perfectionist and push myself way too hard and freak out when I don't get better at something instantly. In other words a little reassurance that my life will end up near where I'd like it to would be amazing. Of course there's foreshadow like in any story, but a lot of times that can just be to add suspense, right? And there's always irony when something you are doing blows up in your face or goes exactly the way you don't want it to, but I have come to terms with that in recent days. . . 

Here is the second part of Mona Van Duyn's "Endings" I find her description of a story quite applicable to my present predicament. In her words:

 disabled in mind and feeling, I flail and shout,

"I can't bear it! I have to see how it comes out!"

For what is story if not relief from the pain

of the inconclusive, from dread of the meaningless?

Attached to this is a link to Mona Van Duyn reading both parts of this poem

Endings Part 2

Setting the V.C.R. when we go to bed
to record a night owl movie, some charmer we missed
we always allow, for unprogrammed unforeseen,
an extra half hour. (Night gods of the small screen 
are ruthless with watchers trapped in their piety.)
We watch next evening, and having slowly found
the start of the film, meet the minors and leads,
enter their time and place, their wills and needs,
hear in our chests the click of empathy's padlock,
watch the forces gather, unyielding world
against the unyielding heart, one longing's minefield
laid for another longing, which may yield.
Tears will salt the left-over salad I seize
during ads, or laughter slow my hurry to pee.
But as clot melts toward clearness a black fate
may fall on the screen; the movie started too late.
Torn from the backward-shining of an end
that lights up the meaning of the whole work,
disabled in mind and feeling, I flail and shout,
"I can't bear it! I have to see how it comes out!"
For what is story if not relief from the pain
of the inconclusive, from dread of the meaningless?
Minds in their silent blast-offs search through space--
how often I've followed yours!--for a resting-place.
And I'll follow, past each universe in its spangled
ballgown who waits for the slow-dance of life to start,
past vacancies of darkness whose vainglory
is endless as death's, to find the end of the story.