I didn’t even know who I was.
I didn’t know if I was allowed to be.
Am I allowed to go outside?
Am I allowed to have an opinion?
Am I allowed to read what I want?
To talk to whomever I want?
It must be a trap.
A test.
Unfortunately, I quickly realized that Art School didn’t offer me the opportunity I hoped for. I had to follow the same rigid rules but also be creative, expressive, unique, myself.
The block was complete. Life shifted to autopilot. I wasn’t living; I was surviving, existing in two mutually exclusive universes. The fracture was internal. No one could see the battles I fought daily.
At home, I had to endure to avoid rejection. At school, I had to endure, because failing there meant rejection at home. At some point, I gave up trying to exist at home. I didn’t know how to be; nothing I did was right. I was even rejected for being a student at Art School, which added a special layer of absurdity, given that it wasn’t my decision to go there in the first place.
Gradually, I started to malfunction. To mimic creativity without truly being. It began to smell of burnout.
A shadow.
All I know is the shadow.
The comfort zone traced the shadow’s outline. I didn’t dare imagine there was anything outside of it. Everything else was cold. Hidden. Buried. Snow only melts where it’s supposed to.
I waited to be saved by someone. Someone HAD to see all this. Surely, someone was already on their way to me. I just needed a little more patience.
In reality, I no longer knew how deep I was. Was I at the bottom, or was I close to emerging into the light?
Who? Me? Which me?
There’s no one here.
Sometimes I felt like there were eyes everywhere.
Other times, it seemed like no one was watching, that no one cared. That the absurd rules were just negligence. It’s easier to say NO, because YES comes with the obligation to get involved—as a parent.
I felt everything was deeply unfair, and I hoped there were other adults who could see this injustice and intervene already!
I hoped there were other suns, greater than this one dictating my shadow. And that they would make it see its own shadow. And start noticing.
The injustice.
And that I exist.
That I, too, exist.
And that I’m malfunctioning.
Inside, I screamed for help daily.
While outwardly, I kept following the rules to be validated, to finally be allowed to exist, too.
The road from the village doesn’t lead to another house but to a tree.
The sun has fallen asleep in the sky, and night has come.
What’s the point of optimism, in the end?
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