The Cowardice of a Maytr

I've never been able to imagine a normal life. Never been able to imagine myself growing old. Every time I try, I imagine a group of friends, acquaintances who reveare me without truly knowing me. I've never been able to imagine myself in love.

I grew up on a diet of fantasy stories. Tales of heros who were able to defeat grand opposition and make something of themself. But I never had that great opposition, no enemies or rivals. So I created it. I created a perfectionism that stretched so deep into my soul I couldn't move without triggering it. I suffered anxiety and a hollow emptiness, because I thought it would make me stronger but all it did was made me better and better at isolating myself from the real world.

Stories can't sustain you.

Nothing in this world is perfect. Nothing is simple and things are rarely grand. Perhaps thats what makes it so beautiful. Not every sunset will inspire some great work, but that doesn't mean it's not worthy of existing.

The worst crime I've commited was one of self restraint. I have so many ideas. Concepts that when created can touch a soul, but I never made them. I had this terrible idea that I would somehow sully the essence of the concept. I never made any of those masterworks I dreamed of because if I didn't do them exactly how I imagined them, they would be worthless. So I've done nothing. Never developed the skills to complete one of those great ideas and so they've faded away. Like a cat that wanders away when it doesn't get pet or fed.

I was always able to live through books. To experience triumph and greatness that was never mine, that was never real. I got so scared of not being perfect I never tried. I wanted to be percieved as some epic hero so I never got close enough to anyone to show them who I was. Because I wasn't that hero.

I dreamed of dying or disappearing in some unforgetable way because then my life would matter, have an impact strong enough to change someone forever.

I just never figured out the perfect way.

But I sit here now. Sixteen but feeling like my time has run out when I know it's only just begun, and I watch the Ponderoas sway in the wind. There was a windstorm today. It was raw and primal. The type of wind that screams not howls.

I think it's time to move on from that crazy dream.

To move on from perfect.

It's time to stop hiding behind other's stories, and to make my own. It's going to be quite the adventure. I want to see how to world changes as I get older. I've always found it ironic that younger people with their sharp vison can be so blind, but as your eyes worsen with age you can see clearer. Nothing I make will ever be perfect.

So why bother waiting for something that'll never happen.