august eighteenth

There was a time, when I considered myself younger than I do now, when I wrote the following.

I used to believe that I could become anything. A strangely half-glimmering hope. A hope that was so bright it somehow felt cliché. I was still too young to say that the hope had faded, but its color had become too dull to say that it still shone the same way. When I see a child who is only about waist-high to me, I hesitate to casually tell them, “You can do anything, and you can become anything.” Maybe it is because I have learned that while everyone has different talents, everyone also has different limitations. Now, I just want to tell you to do what you can. You do not have to limit yourself, but knowing what is difficult for you is also a kind of ability. Keep doing what you are best at and what you love most. What makes you happy. What makes you smile naturally.

Much later, there was a moment when I hesitated for a long time when someone asked me what I liked. That was when I felt that something had gone wrong. Maybe it was because I was embarrassed. Because, to me, I felt like a person who was endlessly shallow. Even though being shallow is not something to be ashamed of, I kept being ashamed of it. I kept saying that I would continue, but I could not move forward because I was afraid. I was ashamed of that.

Maybe I was also embarrassed to say that I liked creating things. That I loved everything that contained a story, in whatever form it took. But because I was obsessed with the idea that those stories had to be special, I spent so much time reading, listening to, and exploring other people’s stories, while I could not even begin my own.

Perhaps I had been endlessly waiting for a special story to begin. Perhaps I was afraid because the story already in progress did not feel special enough.

I thought that simply reading, watching, and listening was enough, but seeing that there was still a thirst inside me that would not go away makes me wonder if what I really wanted was to make something containing a part of myself, with my own hands. Something entirely mine, untouched by the traces of other people’s hands, my teachers’ hands, or the public’s hands. A reflection of myself, a part of me made tangible. A voice that would keep me remembered long after I was gone.

It is not as solemn as it sounds. My resolutions tend to have something rather bland about them, so after a grand beginning, I usually fail to prepare an ending impressive enough to live up to the anticipation that gradually builds. But I vaguely hope that there might be someone who will love an unimpressive story, too.

For today, I’m going to bed. Blandly.