The story we tell about our own life is not the same as the life itself — it is a selection, a narrative shape imposed on material that was messier and more contradictory than any story can hold. This is not dishonesty; it is the nature of narrative. The honest autobiographer holds the simplifications lightly, knowing that any account is partial, and that the value of the telling is in what it illuminates, not in its claim to completeness.
Each step builds on the last.