I Will Write the Rest

The earliest memory I have from my childhood is of my father dropping me. I can't recall his face. I don't know whether my mother was there or how old I was or what I was wearing. I can only remember the pure joy of looking out of the huge window, over the city lights, as he held me high above his head and as he laughed with me. He wanted me to see this sight whose beauty he knew I would not understand until much later. But he hoped I would store it up and think about it when I needed reminding that the world is a good place. He wanted me to feel his happiness, if only for a moment, fleeting like his own. And I did. Until his arms, unsteady from all he'd had to drink so that he could forget these foreign thoughts, faltered. And his hands shook. And he let me fall right through them.

And I think that was the last time I felt joy without also knowing fear.

My awe at these man-made stars below me shifted into terror as they turned into streaky blurs. And I hit the ground before his hands could catch me.

I cried.

I cried for myself and my own pain, not the physical hurt, but at the loss of my joy. At the loss of the light. I cried for him and the guilt and shame he had about stealing something so precious away from me. And I cried because it was this way, because it had to be. I mourned this loss for all of us. But I never did understand it. I know so much more now, but that is something that I don't think I'll ever be able to explain.

The thing is, I'm not sure if that story is actually true.

I don't know whether it's just a story that I've made up in my mind, maybe as a way to explain his brokenness. Maybe as a way to explain my own. I've thought about it from time to time over the years and I always question the reality of it.

Maybe I spent much of my life trying to help men recapture that feeling of fleeting happiness my father felt, one so vast he'd want to share it with me alone. But maybe I just made that up.

If I had a family, any one to go home to, I could probably ask about it. I could get someone to verify my story...or confirm my insanity. But I cannot. There is no one who can answer this for me. Anyone who could have has long since gone.

So, the truth of the matter is this: it doesn't really matter whether this series of events happened or whether it did not. What matters is the story that's written on my heart. It may already have some of the characters and the scenes etched upon it, this is true enough. But there is still so much space that I will fill up with my own words. I'll feel what's there and use it to get me started, but I...I will write the rest.

…

I know now that it was that same fear, or whatever it was rooted in, that made me afraid of love, despite it being my only desire. It caused me to think that, whenever the time came that I found it truly, that I would inevitably lose it. And because that’s what I was afraid would happen… it did. Over and over. And over, again.

Until I remembered what I am. I remembered that I'm the author and I can choose what happens to me and all my characters. I can brandish my pen- just like a sword-to carve out my own world. To make the life I was always supposed to lead.

And when I remembered this, nothing was the same. Because that’s how I decided it would be.