This article reports on a teacher-researcher's efforts to understand tensions and dilemmas encountered during a doctoral narrative inquiry research project with eight children in an urban, multidenominational primary school in the east of Ireland. Using a narrative inquiry framework and focusing on the teacher-researcher's experiences, this article makes visible how tensions and dilemmas shaped the teacher-researcher's ongoing identity formation, the inquiry and offers insight to others so they may learn from these experiences. This article conceptualises tension as the bumping of lives [Clandinin, D. Jean, and Michael F. Connelly. 2000. "Narrative Inquiry: Experience and Story in Qualitative Research." 1st ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers] and the irresolvable desire to have one's story told [Cavarero, Adriana. 2000. "Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood." Florence: Routledge. https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2102/10.4324/9781315824574]. The narratives contained in this article were gathered across several arts-based workshops and include dialogue vignettes between children and the teacher-researcher, segments from the teacher-researcher's fieldnotes and personal research journal. The article has implications for teachers who transition into doctoral studies and become teacher-researchers. Findings support the idea that problematic encounters faced while engaging in school-based research can be considered sites where new possibilities of understanding and knowing may emerge.