When the Castle Falls

I remember my first thought. It was something about light. If I squinted, the light looked like diamonds. I used to do that when I was a baby lying on my back. Later, I did it on benches in the underground while I waited for the train.

I remember a thought... like something that someone thinks before they're born, like a reverse ghost. I was promised a boy. And I wanted him. He wasn't one of my brothers or my daddy. I missed having the whole 'daddy issues' thing because I think I expected nothing from my father. Yet, I remember him potty training me and showing me how to tear off toilet paper. I'm not sure there is a bigger gift someone can give you than teaching you how to go in the potty.

I was awfully excited about clothes. My mom used to get mad at me for changing my clothes every five minutes. I was fascinated by buttons and tried to do mine up. I also liked looking at myself in the mirror. I would get up on a stepping stool in the bathroom and turn the two side mirrors of the medicine cabinet so I could see my face from three angles. I thought I was very cute, and I couldn't wait to see what I would look like when I became a woman instead of a little girl.

I was the type of little girl who wasn't good at anything. I was just pretty. It was such a relief when I discovered that I was supposed to be a writer. Not just any writer, but the kind who wrote book after book after book.

I had thousands of things in my head. Thousands of little bookshelves with thousands of little books. Thousands of ideas coming from everywhere. It seemed like I'd never run out. There were so many interesting things to write about: fashion, schemes, stars, money, numbers, velocity, and love. Love. Love. Love and more love.

It was such a shock to find my brain empty. To find all the shelves bare. I am like a princess racing through her castle, fast on her feet, and confused by her discovery.

All the books are gone.

I grab at the covers; the pages fall loose, blank. It's confusing. I had so many ideas. I grab at a cover with words on the front that I wrote. There's nothing inside. Empty boxes. Empty covers.

I don't understand. I thought I would be able to write forever. I thought the space in my mind would always be enough to formulate a novel. That there was enough room to lay out the maze and let the characters chase their way through it.

Nah. It's gone.

The castle is folding in on itself. The ceiling tiles are falling like blank pages so light, it doesn't even hurt when they fall on my head.

And I'm lost. How? I still have pretty hair. I may not be the maid with the nut brown hair, but someone has to look hard to see my grays. My glasses aren't even thick. I'm still wearing the same dress size. But what once worked doesn't anymore.

I'm thinking hard. Can I write about fashion? Can I write about light? Can I write about love?

Maybe... but it's not the same love that I once had, that I once knew... It's not the kind that anyone wants to read about. It's the kind you dream about before you go to sleep, before you take your last breath, before you shed the thing you were given when you were born. It feels like all you've ever known, but is it?

I knew one thing before I was born. I was promised a boy. I've been given my boy.

Was there anything else I needed to do, anything else I needed to grab before the castle in my mind falls? I rush out of the library. There's no one there anyway, only words.

I go to catch just one person, but like everyone, in the last second, the person you catch must be yourself, no matter who you wanted to catch instead. You run out, like someone caught in a disaster. You get to open your birthday present. It's the gift you gave yourself. It's what you became.

So, I was once a writer. The words come so slowly now. So slowly... I think they'll fade before I can get them out.

I guess I wanted love. I got it, and I didn't get it. Life is like that. Filled with two things: the things you got and the things you didn't get. The things you owned and the things you didn't own. The things you understood and the things you missed. The people you made room for and the people you turned away. The things you learned how to do and the things that were beyond you. How much you loved and how much you judged.

That's what life is like. You get your body, and then you get out of it.

What did you get out of your life?