I Have Evidence. And When They Have Kids, I'm Using It.

Before my youngest could walk, she had already figured out the door.

My youngest learned to run before she could run. We always knew she was full of energy. And it was clearest whenever I was about to leave the house with her sister. She would kick very hard in her bouncy.

I couldn't wait to bring her with me on "adventures," which is what I call going with my daughters to run errands.

Now I think I could've waited a little longer.

The moment I decided they were both old enough to take to the park by myself — no Justine, no backup, just me and my two daughters and what I can only describe as my pervasive sense of overconfidence — was the moment I was reminded of something about my kids.

We were leaving the park. One hand on the stroller, the other reaching for a bag, my attention split the way it always is — across three things at once, fully present for none of them.

They bolted.

I think that if they had gone in similar directions, it would have been easier to handle. I would've taken after them and banged both of their heads together.

But they didn't.

They ran in opposite directions, and I froze at first.

This is not the response I would have predicted for myself.

I had imagined, in the abstract way you imagine crises before they happen, that I would be calm and decisive.

I was neither.

I yelled. Then I ran after the closest one, grabbed her, swung her over my shoulder, and took off after the other one.

We all made it home. Nobody was lost.

Barely.

But I was not okay for the rest of the afternoon.

I wrote about it the next morning.

Not because it was funny — it wasn't funny yet, it takes time for these things to become funny — but because I knew it was the kind of story that disappears if you don't catch it.

The chaos of those early years has a way of blurring together. One wild afternoon folds into the next, and suddenly you can't remember which came first, how small they were, or the exact expression on your youngest's face when she realized she had made it three steps before you caught her.

Writing catches it.

That's the evidence.

A record. Proof of who they were before they became who they are going to be. And when they have kids of their own — when they are standing frozen in the middle of a park path watching two small people sprint away from them in opposite directions — I will pull out that essay and read it to them.

That is what I mean when I say the story you think you are writing is never the story you are actually writing.

The surface story is two kids running in opposite directions. The real story is why you wrote it down. Not the chaos. The keeping.

This is what editing for theme asks you to do. Look past what happened and ask what it means.

Go back into something you've written. Ask: What is this actually about?

Happy telling!

- Carlos

P.S. I just updated my Story Frame cheat sheet — the full structure, the drafting sequence, and a prompt you can paste directly into any writing session. Reply letting me know you want a copy, and I'll send it to you.