To Idolize Someone

A letter to someone I idolize, whom I will not mention. They will almost definitely know who they are immediately, but the slight possibility that it might not be them I’m writing about will hopefully keep them from pitying and pestering me.

I don’t want your pity; I don’t want your messages. The pain I experience is nothing more than what comes from idolization, pain that I continually inflict on myself knowing that it will hurt and doing so anyways.

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Your stories are like liquid magic on parchment, you stand so high above me, shining like the brightest star in the night sky while I am nothing more than a star so small and frail, it is masked by all the others lest you have a telescope powerful enough to notice that the extra length on that dull star’s sparkle, is actually a second star hiding behind it.

Yet you don’t even notice how effortlessly you shine; you have an idea and you go for it, and it comes out like magic, every word with meaning, every letter placed intentionally. I love everything you’ve created, some moreso than others and all for a different reason. If I was a bolder woman, I’d say I love you, too. But to tell someone who shines so boldly something like that is the equivalent of being that creep in the corner of the bar who tries to undress you with his mind. It’s unwanted, it’s uncomfortable, it’s not reciprocated, and it’s pathetic. How can you feel so strongly about someone you’ve never met?

My own writings have made me happy, made me proud. They’ve done the same for several others, but I know for you, they don’t elicit those same feelings. Your worst works are still better than some of my best.

The things you created as a “flash of inspiration” were shocking, refreshing, new. And what I created as a flash of inspiration were hollow imitations of things I’ve seen work before which utilize bad tropes.

The works that I’m proudest of are the stories you helped me write, effortlessly shedding some of your shine to what I’d done, and never losing a single lumen of yours.

More and more, your fanbase grows, there becomes more people like me, and I become overshadowed. I know the likelihood is uncannily high that the distance between us becomes so great that you no longer know or remember me; as I watch your success, I am excited, proud, humbled, and unnecessarily sad. Each time you praise others or put down your own work, I am reminded again, like a slap in the face, how apart we stand.

Though my writings are like the dirt beneath your boot, you read so many of them, you give each a heart even if you don’t read it or like it. And the bittersweet fruit it bears always stings; I see that notification and I smile, my heart like a butterfly… and then I frown, because I know you were not excited to read it.

Someday, I would love to stand beside you as equals. I would love to write those books we talked about, and to create something so good that even you love and adore it. But it’s difficult, because I continuously compare our works, though somewhere in the back of my mind I know it’s like comparing apples to oranges and there is no simple comparison that can be drawn, as if all forms of writing are linear and can be ranked along that single line. And I know in my heart that so long as I idolize you, we cannot stand as equals.

The thing about idolization is so long as I idolize you, I will never be idolized in return. You have your own idols, your own authors that you adore and strive to be like. And I will never be one of them. To idolize me would be like talking to that creepy guy at the bar; it would feel wrong, uncomfortable, it would make your skin crawl with every second you spent in that headspace.

I suppose I want to tell you, above all, not to worry about those of us who look up to you. We will find our own way, without holding you down here with us. You needn’t spend time reading things you don’t like, for reading often can affect how we write. That includes what I write.

After all, if your shine can rub off on me, my lack thereof may also blemish you.

I want to stand as your equal, but at the level I’m at… how dare I even think of it.

Such is the pain of idolizing someone, and the isolation that follows from the one-sided relationship.

Idolation, if you will. The bittersweet feeling of adoring someone who will never feel the same.