“I’m a minor player in my own life story.”

– Tony Wilson, English radio personality and journalist for the BBC

“And then,” said Giselle, “I stood up, and I yelled, ‘That’s enough!’”

I turned to my buddy sitting next to me. “That’s not quite how I remember it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Her stories should have a disclaimer: loosely based on actual events.”

Giselle practised a style of storytelling I call reconstructing the past – changing the people, places and events to make them more in keeping with what she wished had happened. It did make for entertaining storytelling, and perhaps for Giselle, it also made the past less painful.

We all love a well-told st...

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