There was a time in my life when I lived inside thin stories — those half-truths we spin from a single moment, a single mistake that we then mistake for the whole of who we are. You know the ones.
I can’t.

I’m not ready.

People like me don’t…

I learned this from Dr. Lana Peterson through her program, Story XChange. She taught that the stories we claim — especially the smallest ones — start defining the limits of our lives. Unless we thicken them. Unless we challenge them. Unless we tell something new.

For years, I carried thin stories like second skin.
And let me tell you — layering one thin story on top of another does not magically turn them into truth. It just makes a tighter cage.

I started by telling folk tales to kids — old stories, well-worn stories, the kind that belong to everyone. But there was one story inside me that kept rumbling, insisting, “My turn.” I told myself for years I would perform it at the Kansas City Fringe Festival. Years passed. The story kept tapping its foot.

Then I met a storyteller whose work lit something in me. I asked for her guidance. And with her help, I finally told the story that had been waiting for me to become the one who could tell it.