In this episode you'll meet Mel Harper. Mel shares a true story as part of Sucker for Love — Story District's annual Valentine's Day tradition of showcasing true stories about the triumphs and challenges of romance and relationships. It has been so popular that it was selected and performed as part of Top Shelf, our showcase of the best stories of the year. This is one for the books.
In this episode you'll meet Mel Harper. Mel shares a true story as part of Sucker for Love — Story District's annual Valentine's Day tradition of showcasing true stories about the triumphs and challenges of romance and relationships. It has been so popular that it was selected and performed as part of Top Shelf, our showcase of the best stories of the year. This is one for the books.
In our third season of the podcast, we bring you I Did It for the Story as part of Story District Presents. All new episodes will feature true stories told live on the Story District stage and insights about storytelling from the host, Amy Saidman, Story District's Executive Director.
Take a few moments to fill out our podcast survey here: https://form.jotform.com/241225432709149
Check us out on all social media platforms: @storydistrict
Join our mailing list: https://www.storydistrict.org/newsletter
Visit us at www.Storydistrict.org
Subscribe via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This podcast is produced by Christopher Lee and Amy Saidman.
Music by Graceful Movement
Mel: So I'd like for you to begin to process. That what I'm hearing from you is an expression of a desire for revenge.
How does that strike you? And I said, that strikes me as accurate because
Amy: Welcome back to I Did It For The Story. In this episode, you'll meet Mel Harper. Mel shares a true story as part of Sucker for Love Story District's annual Valentine's Day tradition of showcasing true stories about the triumphs and challenges of romance and relationships. Sucker for love returns for the 16th year.
So if you're in the Washington DC area on February 10th, get your tickets at (https://storydistrict.org) and join us at the Lincoln Theater. I'm Amy Sedman, the Director of Story District, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to teaching and promoting the art of storytelling. In this podcast, we aim to showcase great storytelling.
And for those of you interested in telling your own story, stick around to the end for some educational takeaways. Because one of the things we do most at Story District and best is coach. We've coached thousands of people to tell their stories, and we work with companies as well. So we want you to be out there also telling great stories, because we believe that a well told story is powerful.
It can open hearts, change minds, and bridge divides. It reminds us of the hopes and challenges we share as humans. So let's get to our featured storyteller.
Mel: I never could have imagined that just a year after I met Tyrone, I'd be looking at engagement pictures. I never could have imagined because he was in the pictures with someone else. My boyfriend, Tyrone, was tagged in engagement pictures on Facebook with another woman. I found this out from Facebook's People You May Know section
while logged into a client's account because he had me blocked, of course. And this is also how I found out that his name was actually not Tyrone, but Martin. So, after a very stereotypical conversation with Tyrone Martin, where I called him, and he assured me that this was all a misunderstanding and he intended to leave his fiancée.
I cut him off and I never spoke to him again.
But don't get too excited because it is impossible to overstate the effect that this discovery had on me physically, mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually. I was just broken inside and asking myself, if someone can fake all of that, how can anything in life be real? In desperation, I called an old therapist who I had spoken to many years prior for grief counseling, Dr. Peters.
And when she heard the state that I was in, she started a session over the phone immediately and I told her everything that I had been feeling. And Dr. Peters said, so Mel, in the past, you've had trouble identifying and giving name to your needs and desires. So I'd like for you to begin to process that what I'm hearing from you is an expression of a desire for revenge.
How does that strike you? And I said, that strikes me as accurate because the moral, ethical, evolved response is to do what? Nothing? And Tyrone Martin gets to lie to me to take whatever he wants and then scrape me off like gum on the bottom of his shoe And then go off and stand up in front of his family and friends and be this community respectable man, hashtag black love And nobody knows what a fraudulent piece of shit he actually is Except him and me So yeah, that, that strikes me well.
Dr. Peters returned that same energy, she said Okay Mel, so, why don't you take some time, brainstorm, as an exercise, how you might take revenge, check in with friends, do some journaling, and I'll never forget this question in all my life. This is a direct quote. How might you use your creative gifts to exact swift revenge?
So I checked in with friends and there was a lot of talk of crowbars and destruction of property and things like that. But that really didn't sit right with me for one, because you can go to jail and I have things to lose. But more importantly, it felt really cheap compared to what I was feeling. I didn't want to lower myself into the gutter to exact revenge or do something that I would have to feel shame about.
I had already been diminished enough by what Tyrone Martin had done to me because by using a fake name and a fake relationship status Tyrone Martin created this divide between Martin, the respectable engaged family man, and Tyrone, who he entered into my life and used it as some type of sick simulation game before just seamlessly integrating back into his life as Martin with no trace of what happened on the other side of the divide.
And so, I decided this needed to be more than a brainstorming exercise. And that to exact my revenge, I would attend the wedding.
Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold up, hold up. Please understand I had no intention of causing a scene or stopping the wedding or even making my presence known at all to anybody but Tyrone Martin and Tyrone Martin himself. This would be a sniper shot.
And the only ones who would know that it happened would be him and me. I woke up on the day of the wedding and I employed all of the tips that I found while googling how to crash a wedding because I've never done this before, okay? But I'll tell y'all, tip one, wear a nondescript outfit because you don't want anyone asking who's that in the all red with the crystals or whatever.
I wore a black nondescript outfit, kind of like what you would wear to a job interview, you know, you try to blend in. Tip two, carry a card, you know, you want to bring a celebratory vibe, like you're there to actually attend a wedding. And tip three, sit in the fifth row. If you sit in the back, when the wedding party enters, that's where everyone's looking and you want to reduce the amount of eyes on you.
If you sit closer than the fifth row, the family expects to know who you are. The fifth row is a nice co worker y row. Perfect for strangers like me. I pulled up to the wedding venue a little before 6 when the wedding was intended to start, and I honestly, at that moment, had no idea if I was actually going to enter the wedding.
For one, I'm from Baltimore, so I had already thought through the worst case scenario, the entire wedding party beats my ass. Because they done pay a lot of money for this wedding.
I'm being very real. I thought about that many times. The time crept by to 6:15, and I said out loud to myself alone in the car, Aight bitch, it's now or never. Immediately, I started to feel a fight or flight feeling. My heart rate was elevated and I could hear my breathing very loudly. I forced myself out of the car and I began striding purposefully toward the door of the venue.
And this was the scariest moment because I had no idea what I was about to encounter inside at all. I opened the door and there was a huge lobby with a black and white checkered tile floor. It was empty except for two people. An usher Who was standing right by where the ceremony was about to take place and poking out of a adjacent groom suite was Tyrone Martin himself.
I had on a mask, thank you COVID, but he, he recognized me immediately. His face shattered. Like a vase thrown to the ground. It was a face crack of the century. And in that moment, I felt a seismic shift in our power dynamic. And the shift was so obvious. It was as if the earth itself had moved under our feet.
And now I was really high looking down at Tyrone Martin. And he was really low, pretty much buried in the ground looking up at me. Because, here I was, a character from his simulation game. Somehow crossed over into his real life. And he had no idea how I had even gotten there, or what I was there to do.
And whatever happened next was completely my call. I ignored him. I trotted up to the usher. You know that trot when you like pretend that it's making you move faster, but it's not. But you're just like, oh, here I come faster. I trot, I trot. I trotted up to the usher. And she said, bride side or grooms? I said, grooms.
And she started doing an orientation speech. And in my peripheral vision, I could see Tyrone Martin still hanging out at the groom suite. Staring at me with his jaw dropped and his eyes pretty much bulging out and he was staring at me so hard It was like this side of my face started to feel really hot It was a feeling kind of like if you've ever had a picnic on like a perfect day and the sun is just shining on Your face and you're like, mmm, that's nice.
That is how his horrified gaze felt That day so I entered the ceremony hall and I sat Fifth row, that's right. And I waited for the wedding to begin. First up, the family began to get escorted in. I was following along on my program eagerly. And next up was Tyrone Martin escorting his mother in. The other guests and I were all looking to the back.
And the doorway remained empty. And empty. And minutes ticked by and people began whispering, What's going on with the processional? Where's Martin? What's happening? And then the usher, who I had spoken to before, came walking in with her heels click clacking on the tile floor, right on up to the fifth row, and she said, Excuse me, miss, could you come with me?
I said, Certainly! And I grabbed my program, because I wasn't going to lose that!
And as we walked, she said, I'm so sorry, but I've been informed that you weren't invited to the wedding. And I said, Oh, really? Oh, I know what happened. And I was a last minute invitation. Martin invited me. So maybe I didn't make it onto the guest list. And she said, oh that makes perfect sense, I'll go check with him, I'll be right back.
I said good. And I waited. And so then the usher came back, but now she looked a little bit more panicked. And she ran up to me and she's like, I'm so sorry miss, Martin says that that's not true, he didn't invite you. And I said, well, did he say why he disinvited me? And she said, no, he just said you're not supposed to be here.
And I said, that's okay, I'll just go. And I started walking back through that huge entrance lobby with my heels clacking on the floor. And as I passed the groom suite, I could see that there was a minister standing at the door to the groom suite now. And as I walked straight by, I overheard him say, son, are you sure you're all right?
You sweating more than I am in these robes. But I just kept walking because I had done what I had set out to do. I breached that divide from lies to truth. And now, on every anniversary, every congratulations that was given to him, every picture he was tagged in on Facebook, and the wedding, he would have to remember who he really was.
But, as satisfying as that is, I do not want to become this person who whenever someone does something to me, I'm trying to figure out how to get them back. And so tonight I am using my creative gifts to share my experience with each of you. To close this chapter of revenge in my life and enter back into a place of abundance. But with one big difference because the power surge that I felt in the lobby outside of the wedding has never left me I can feel it right now And I know what I'm capable of. Thank you.
Amy: This story absolutely killed. She first told it at Sucker for Love in 2023 in front of an audience of like 850 people. And I mean, it's just been one of our most popular stories. And then she was picked. We do a show every year called Top Shelf and we pick our top eight stories of the year. Usually there's like at least 100 Stories that have been told on the story district stage, we pick our top eight and then we remount those stories and so we she was in, um, top shelf at the end of 2023… also killed.
And, um, I was just talking to Mel the other day, and we were talking about how, you know, this was really devastating for her I mean she turns out and she makes it funny. She's able to really reclaim this story as her own. Like, something that's actually something so powerful about storytelling. Not so much for the listener, but for the teller.
Which is, you can take a story that might have been extremely painful, but you turn it into something that not only is… the way she described it is now, she was able to make herself the protagonist in this story. In this story where she did not feel, you know, like the hero. Like the, you know, like she had any control.
But then when you get to tell it you kind of get to reclaim these things that were out of your hands. And you also get to attach it to something positive. So now she's had this incredible experience by being on stage, which is super fun. By working through this story with us as coaches and with peers and having so much validation.
And I mean, so you take this terrible experience and it becomes something very positive. And we've heard that over and over again. I've had other people have that experience. So that's one really incredible power of storytelling.
I mean, we were talking about how, I mean, I started day I've been with my person for eight years now, but it took like a solid year before I was like, well, I don't know I don't know if you have a second family. I don't know if you're for real I had like been listening… since this is a podcast maybe some of you out there listen to Dirty John. I think that was one of the podcasts… I had listened to multiple podcasts about people faking who they were and them being really good at covering it up.
And so, yeah, you gotta be careful. You don't know. You gotta take your time and, uh, figure out who people are before you know, um, for sure that they're on the up and up. If you're new to the podcast, one of the things I like to do at the end is find something that is a teachable moment about storytelling, um, about like what it takes to tell a great story.
So I would say with this story, I want to focus on point of view because what you absolutely need in a story is you need the audience to buy into your point of view. And to be honest, in this story, Mel takes the risk of being the villain, right? I mean, she's choosing to take revenge. And she's choosing to put someone else in an uncomfortable position.
Uh, so she needs us to buy into her point of view. She needs us to be rooting for her. And the way she does that is by making sure we understand where she's coming from. If she had started this story without also telling us how, how she had been hurt. And how she was, you know, struggling to deal with what had happened and that this came out through therapy and also her thinking through how she wanted to handle this in a way that would help her without creating too much harm.
There’s a lot of things she put in there, which would help us identify with the choices she made and what she was going through. So keep that in mind when you're telling stories. That it is very important that you not only establish your point of view, but you get us to buy into it.
Well, that's it for this episode. I hope it's getting you to think about your own stories and telling your own stories. And if you're interested. Check us out. We have so much going on. Go to (https://storydistrict.org), follow us on Instagram, and find out more about our live shows. We have classes in person. We'll be adding more virtual classes.
We've got, we work with companies, um, both in person and virtually, and we customize what we do depending on what your needs are. So keep listening, tell a friend, write a review, all that stuff really helps. Subscribe to the podcast, but also check us out at (https://storydistrict.org). And that's it till next time I'm Amy Saidman, and this is, I did it for the story.