The Neverending Story by Deannalynn Arzola

The Neverending Story~
By Deannalynn Arzola

Stories. We've all heard them, read them, told them. Stories take the beauty of language and paint a picture. Stories take us out of our own reality forcing us to pay attention to them instead of our own drama. Stories are magic, the illusionary kind. Stories are the words we write in novels and biographies and tell around campfires. Some stories are told better by some than others. They are usually authors, the paid kind. 
I have books that tell one story from cover to cover and I have books that consist of several separate stories. I have found that it is good to have both kinds of books on my shelf, depending on my mood, or my time. Many a fine story has been told in a tavern that only lasted forty-five seconds, as if any second longer would guarantee certain doom. And many a classic has taken eight months to read. 
When telling my own stories (and I choose to use the plural), I have wondered if the way we write our book is as subjective as the way a story is told, or heard. The book I speak of in this context is our book, our own personal biography. Most biographies tell one story in three acts. One of my favorite biographies, however,"Profiles in Courage" by Senator John Kennedy, comprises several different biographical stories into one Pulitzer prize winning book. I think I like it because this is the way I would write my biography.
It seems I have always lived my life in spurts. The people in my biography are more like temporary players that appear, affect, then exit stage left. From the very beginning of my life, people have come and gone this way. My mother was only in my life for nine years. My father for only about thirteen or so. There is a monster in my book, but, she, too was only around for a few years. Once I left high school, my best friends fell to the wayside, as well. To this day, I have no old college pals I still chat up. I even made certain this pattern would continue with the father of my child. Once our story ended, I scooped her up and, poof, just like magic, made him disappear. I was married for a majority of my biography, however, when we said goodbye, the husband and I, it was for good. I was the one who walked my daughter down the aisle. I haven't spoken to any of these aforementioned "characters" in years.
I find myself, yet again, at the precipice of the third act. In the first act, we find our protagonist, a woman freshly untethered to much of anything, including her home. New in town, she garners most of her friends from her place of work. She is happy and clear and free. She has made a pact with herself and her gods that she will first learn to love and live with herself, before looking for someone to share herself with, her freshly untethered self. This is a promise she intends to keep. Enter our antagonist. He is familiar. He appears strong, intelligent, confident. He is both put upon and unencumbered. He is both calm and frantic. He is both charming and tragic. And now, their paths have crossed.
Ms. Protagonist is a confident, intelligent woman. She has experienced both the best and worst in people and has deduced all of her rules to just one; trust actions, not words. She is a perpetual student of human behaviour. Mr. Antagonist is a perpetual manipulator of it. His behaviour was perplexing to her from their very first encounter. He was risky. He was passionate. His desire dripped desperation from his fingertips. Ms. P was duplicitously swept away in blind faith and cautious in ambivalence. Mr. A was beguiling and Machiavellian; aspects of their personalities that would lead them both through unchartered territory. 
(Act II) The next year would be quite a life changing experience for Mr. A and Ms. P. These changes would bring them to another level of understanding in regards to life and love and magic. Sobering change. The kind of change that literally changes your personality, thus your behaviour. Wicked, noticeable change. Ms. P blossomed like a December annual, opening wide, petals extended to the Universe, bursting through the cold, winter's ice, seeking light in the darkness. Mr. A's aforementioned bilateral practice of being both put upon and unencumbered, concurrently, and it's subsequence, was only exponentialized. Ms. P burgeoned in the face of reality stripping her illusions away like a too-soon-removed band-aid. She learned that illusions, just like anything that gives you temporary respite from pain, are addictive. As, so, she let go of a few of hers. In doing so, she found that the love was more than enough. Even better than the illusion. Mr. A reconciled actual love for the first time in his life. In his awe, he was able to understand why so many people espoused an emotion he had previously seen as weak as a strength, a gift. They had both certainly grown...
And they were both the same two people they had always been. They still are, only enlightened. Ms. P would do as she always had, enlightened or not, and while she felt she knew Mr. A better, her knowing him better only made her question his behaviour more. So she would move on, as she had done, so many times before, and thusly close the third act. Mr. A would do as he had done before, too; his reticence being his go to tool. Was he angry that she was leaving, or did Prince Machiavelli simply not care?
How does a writer tell the end of a story she doesn't want to end? What if it's a story with a promise, a neverending story? I can't simply write this chapter in three acts and the third being, well, I'm  finished telling this story. The End...
I almost feel as if there's a biographical thread running through every chapter that includes my antagonist. It seems like he's always been there, and it seems like he's never there, as well. 
Well, this I know, as an author, the as of yet unpaid kind; I know that when I sit down to write a story, I see the basic outline in my head, but the story unfolds as I write it. Perhaps this writer should learn from her writing style rather than simply writing what she knows...