Grow up! Daydream through the pain!
I am daydreaming of all the possibilities I have missed. I am still calling myself worth it, even when nobody is here to hold me still to walk. I am still here. Look, world! Look how far I would walk!
Dear friends,
It’s been so long since I last wrote a letter to you. I feel like some things have shifted since I last wrote to you at a constant pace.
Isn’t it odd? It starts to feel like your body is trying to pull it out of you, telling you to: GROW UP! in such a short period of time. I wanted to stop growing. I wanted to stay here and feel good enough. Sometimes, I’d even like to shrink as little as I could. Because look at how small this body is, and how big of a heart I have just to notice how small I am to the world with its endless suffering. I’d say to the whole world: this is my way of growing up. This is the real way of growing up. In the midst of this pain, I am something the world cannot even offer me; I am daydreaming of all the possibilities I have missed. I am still calling myself worth it, even when nobody is here to hold me still to walk. I am still here. Look, world! Look how far I would walk!
My friends,
Do you remember the first time you crawled into your final destination, which was just a few steps away? You could even look at it and feel content with how willingly you have tried. You’d even laugh when you tremble and fall. We are silly when we think we can conquer it all. Look how tiny these fingernails are. Look at how many feet away you have left before the day ends again, and you are told to rest quietly through the night.
Scream as loud as you can with your pillow on your face right now. You are too old to be stomping around quietly. Do it: let the rage guide you to where you are supposed to cry. You are allowed to stop in the middle of a long highway just to run off the beach and craft names on the sands, making sure you are a part of it all. Making sure the love of your life would do something as childish as this. You are allowed to dream. You are permitted to call out for someone to play on the swings with and to laugh aloud so that the neighbour hears and follows suit. You are allowed to make silly decisions every now and then; go pull your car out of the garage and drive off to a quiet place to witness the sky when everything seems clearer when we are all quiet. Go buy yourself a cup of Oreo McFlurry at McDonald's and consume the love while you sob.
Friends,
There is nothing more you could possibly do. For the sake of your own, if you don’t dream it big, while you suffer, you will lose it all. You are still allowed to hope, and pretend that pain could just be moving further away from where you should be heading.
With my deepest love,
Valencia Wilianto, @PoetryOfHvaw