Sharing our stories, finding our strengths

If you’re a real-life friend of mine, you know a lot about the bookstore (http://www.avidbookshop.com) I’m opening and a lot about the events I’ve been organizing. In late October of this year, the Unchained Tour of Georgia stopped in Athens, and I (as Avid Bookshop owner and event lover extraordinaire) tried really hard to make sure both of the tour events went well. And guess what? I didn’t have a migraine the day of the show or the day after. Miraculous for me, as I almost always have an attack on Very Big Days (namely family members’ or friends’ weddings, big parties, holidays).

But that’s not the point I wanted to make here. I wanted to tell you about this storytelling tour. Here’s an excerpt from what I submitted to a journalist who wrote an article about the tour:

In our increasingly technological world, it's easy to cut yourself off from face-to-face interaction; this leads to misinterpreting others and pigeonholing people who, like you, are intriguing and fascinating and hard to categorize. Sharing stories with each other is the best way to improve and enrich interpersonal relationships, which are the basis for our social and political systems.

Because of the tour, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the need we have to share our stories, the strength we can build in our relationships if we open up and let others know who we really are. The health blogging world is a place I can connect with others who really know what I’m going through as I deal with this disease; readers and writers alike can share stories and feel a little less alone. In this way, technology helps bring people together, and I’m eager to amend my quote above. Yes, technological advances can lead to our becoming less meaningfully connected—but in many cases (including this blog and Migraine.com), those of us who need each other finally have found a way to share stories. Thank you for being a part of my story and for sharing yours.