A Redundant Letter

Dear Sun Goddess,

                What can I say other than you are on my mind today? It could be the lazy heat of the day or the warmth of the upcoming summer which has you walking in the halls of my mind. The days grow longer, and your light is holding me tightly more. I’m not sure I wish to be held by you anymore. I’m not sure I wish to have you on my mind anymore. I once read what is on your mind is still in your heart, but I don’t know if that is true. You left my life in a storm, and I was sure you were gone for good and yet, that is not the case; not because you sit in the memories of things we never did but because you are still in the lives of some of my friends. Now your name is on my lips and in my thoughts every time I am around them. I can’t say I know how to feel about it at all … other then you care little about it, and there is nothing I can do to change it.

                The light can easily burn I have come to understand.

                I recall when you left and what happens for those events to unfold as they did and the one thing I recall most is the feeling. I remember with ease the feeling of change coming on to my life like a raindrop being let go by a cloud or (I can use the old tried cliché here) like a storm coming down the mountain. The odd feeling was sitting in the bottom of my stomach let me know something was about to be different in my life forever. I remember how it made me feel so unsure about so much while at the same time, making me feel alive. It was as if every day could give me stories I would never forget. The days ahead, I felt at the time, would always be etched into the pages of my life.

                With you, I’m not sure I would want to relive those days … but I can say I don’t want to erase those pages either.

                I bring this up, and I bring you back to life because I have that feeling again. Every day the Sun is reborn into the world, and on this day, something sits at the bottom of my stomach telling me life is about to change. The plans which I am lying for the foreseeable future are very new to me. I am terrific and overjoy with what is to come. (A lot like the time I kissed you.)

                I do not wish to speak of my plans, for they do not matter to you. If we are honest here, this letter doesn’t matter to you either. You will never read it, and I can say that makes me feel grateful. I don’t wish your eyes to fall upon my words now. Not because of bitterness on my part, I know it sounds that way, but because you are no longer in my life and I no longer wish to have you here.

                Maybe, this letter is putting a nail in the coffin of your memory for good. I hope so.

                I think another reason the ghost of you walked into my mind today was that I recall when you set foot into my old studio. The word ‘studio’ might be a strong word here, it was my bedroom, but the walls were covered in my work. I had stacks of drawings and paintings everywhere making it hard to enter the room. I believe there were even a few pictures on my drawing table that I was still working on at the time and you told me how much I was a “real artist.”

                Some many times you heard people claim they were an artist but short from the work they were made to do in classes, they did nothing. I, on the other hand, worked constantly. I burned with passion when it came to my art. I worked like a demon devouring paintings a day. I never slowed, and I never stopped, and I knew why … I still know why.

                The root of this passion in me can be trace back to my earliest memories of me being in school. Then I couldn’t read or write and had to have help with spelling my name. This disability that the other kids seem not to have weakened the resolve in me. It gave birth to a deep thorn of being an outsider, of being dumb and always questioning myself. It would take years and a different school for me to learn how to read at a basic level, while writing and spelling were out of the question. I was never going to be a writer, and on bad days I could barely spell my name.

                It was a fact of life for me. It was so much a fact it became law to me. I built the law into who I was, but I still loved stories. I still wanted to tell stories. We all want to tell stories.

                I looked at books as a magic item which I could not unlock, and I had no idea what to do with them. And then one day in class, where the teacher would sit me in the back to draw, a lovely girl came up to me. A girl with a lovely smile, she still has the same smile to this day, although we are not friends anymore. She asked me to draw her a picture. I did with great joy, and she showed the drawing around the class, even to the teacher; who threw it away, but never-the-less I found a way not to be an outsider anymore.

                I could be the artist of the class. It was a title I earned and took up with great honor. It was a title which defines who I was. I was an artist and soon to become a “real artist.” I knew at that moment with that girl staring at me who I was going to be. Every day after I drew a picture for her I was going to dedicate myself to be an artist.

                Brigid (goddess of the arts) came to me as a child and took me by hand. She led me into the world which I could never leave. I walked willing into her arms. I let her change me into an artist. She blessed me with the passion and the skill to love her. I serenaded her with my great works. 

                With her tutoring, I found a great love for comic books. You see with comics I could know the story from the pictures. I learn how a narrative could be shaped by a visual language alone. I didn’t need to read the words in the boxes because the pictures told me so much. I found a way to tell my stories.

                I took the title “the artist” and wrapped it around me like armor. I wore like a hat. I made it who I was, and I bury the seed deep within me. The tree grew with roots digging into the very substance of me. I was an artist. I made sure everyone knew it. You could look at me and tell right away I was an artist. Everything I did was in service to Brigid.

                Sometimes, I even have forsaken relationships out of fear they would take away from my work.

                And as time went on my art changed but I never left the title behind. Then I picked up a pen at the request of a friend and started to write. I poured the same passion I had for my art into my writing, but I never let the title change. I wouldn’t let people call me a writer. I didn’t believe it to be the case. In fact, I believed it to be a joke. I guess it is a good thing I like to laugh.

                The more I learn how to write and read. The more I grew in my childish understanding of storytelling, the more I pulled away from Brigid. I did this in private of course, and only a very few people knew I was growing into a writer.

But the childhood fears came rushing back to me during the late nights. (They are still with me now.)

I, a writer? On bad days, I can barely spell my names. On good days, I ask other how to spell words. I couldn’t be a writer.

I felt like the kid sitting at the back of the class in awe of everyone else as they read books. I study them like a zoologist studying wild animals or a deaf man studying a singer. He longs to hear the words, and I longed to read. I felt like that scared kid in class when someone would ask me to read out loud. Or when I had to write in a yearbook, and the puzzle looked on people’s faces as they had no idea what I wrote. I was six or seven again.

I can’t be a writer.

In this moment of self-doubt, while I wept in the dark, Brigid took my hand. She led me deep into the woods to the altar creativity where the King of Kings stood behind it and on the side stood a new person. An archetype – no – a goddess cloaked in black with sweet lips and a piercing gaze waiting for me. I turn to Brigid not knowing what was going on and she kissed me on the forehead like a child and told to go to my true love; to cast away the title, the armor, and the mask of who I was and became who I was meant to be. To give all my love that I had for my art to my new craft and never look back.

I stood beside this goddess and took her by the hand in front God and gave my life to Him and her. I was going to spend every day, every moment becoming a better writer. I let lose my armor and picked my pen. I became someone I thought I would never become … I became a writer. It is a title I welcome.

And as you read this, you might be thinking to yourself I already knew that. I already knew you were a writer. But it doesn’t matter what you know; it matters what I become. I am freely welcoming the title now. I’m letting it become a part of me while letting you go. I have changed. I am changing and with changes a cast away old memories. I’m letting me let go of you.

You have understood what this means to me. I build my life with one single purpose, to be a “real artist” and now I’m tossing all that to the side. I am rebuilding my life to be someone else. I am rebuilding myself to be a writer. Do you understand what that means?

If all you had was one identity that gave you strength and you realize it no longer worked for you, leaving you to change everything, can’t you see how terrifying that is?

The only thing I was ever good at was art. The only thing I found to make me live was art. I painted because I had no other choice and now I am changing it. I’m seeing I fell back on art because it was easy for me. Now I am going to fight every day to be a writer. I don’t believe I’ll be a good one but I know I’ll never stop trying.

I am a writer.

A writer