Did you know that you can wake up to a new world within the one you’ve been living in for all of your life? That’s how I feel every day. Every day more of reality uncovers itself for me, exactly as it had been before it hid itself from me.
I suddenly see new things in the same spot where they were previously hidden, hear different things in the same songs I’ve been listening to on repeat, and feeling new feelings in the same body I tried to give away. It’s beautiful, but also sad. Beautiful because I get to experience it, sad because others don’t. That’s how it always goes for me, I want everyone to feel the same love that I do. Sad because you don’t realize how blind you are when you’re blind. You don’t understand what it means to see, because you have nothing to compare it to.
No, for me it was different. I had been able to see for all my life, so I was blind to blindness. I didn’t know what it meant to be blind, only what it meant to see. And then you take for granted how beautiful it is to see. Oh how beautiful it is to see, how beautiful it is to hear his voice again. It’s so easy to forget. But now I know what the darkness feels like when you’re not holding your fathers hand. It’s scary, anxious, hopeless. Y
ou get afraid, you feel alone, you feel tired. I thought I could do without my father. Like I could prove to him that I was the special one. That I don’t need to depend on him like the rest of the kids do, that I can take care of myself on my own, and that he would watch. That he would feel sorry for me, that he would regret creating me. He would regret having put me through what he put me through, that he’d sit and think that maybe he was too hard on me after all. But no, actually that’s not what happened. He let me scrape myself on the sidewalk, he let me bruise my knee falling off the swing, he let me burn my fingers when I played with fire. And I would get upset! Why didn’t you tell me the fire was hot! That swings are meant to be swung on! And that slides are meant to be slid down!
Hmm. Well, since then I have never touched a flame again, I’ve swung on my swings and slid down all my slides. But I’ve also crashed my cars and scored my skin. So who draws the line? Between parenting and punishing? Play and neglect? Teaching and torturing? Hmm. You know, I still don’t really know that one. I still don’t really know. I tried to know. I studied a lot, and I did come to a conclusion. Hmm. I guess I could begin to write all the clichés, I just never was one for clichés but I guess they exist for a reason. Well, it’s necessary.
It’s necessary to hurt. I couldn’t exactly tell you why, but I do know there is joy that follows. Who knows, maybe it’s the seeds of pain that bring a harvest of joy. All I know is that I’m done thinking so much. Done building lamps for dark paths that we’re never meant to light up. Done telling myself I need to do before I be.
Create before I enjoy. Make before I rest. Done hoping instead of helping, writing over reading, composing instead of singing. I want to walk the garden, play with the bees, and laugh at how silly they are.
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