My mom likes to send me items from my childhood from time to time. Partly for my sake and, I think, partly for hers (it can’t be easy holding onto 18 years worth of momentos from your two daughters’ childhoods when they’ve been out in the world on their own for nearly as long.) Recently she sent me a journal from around the time I was about 11 years old. It was the time of “free websites” in the form of angelfire, expages, geocities, etc. Many online games existed still half within the imagination of humankind. Role playing games (or “RPG”s) might just consist of a moderated collection of message boards with a theme – where one might choose to be a dragon killer or a mermaid or a race horse tycoon, to their own precise description, and interact with others “wearing” similar guises. My best friend and I LIVED for these games, as both of us felt like the real world didn’t fully reflect the magical realms in which we were meant to dwell (i’m not sure actually why I put this in past tense, as the latter certainly still holds true today).
To know me at that age was to know me as a small, skinny, and unkempt-looking but extremely imaginative entrepreneur. I had a million ideas and they were not to be waylaid by the “what ifs” and the “i’m nots” that stand in front of so many “adults” that I know (cough – me – cough). This is so hilarious in hindsight as my resources now, at the age of almost 35, are quite a bit more expansive than they were at the ripe old age of 11 – AND YET even the smallest “what if” or “I’m not” is capable of waylaying me these days. But I’m getting ahead of myself… back to the journal. This journal was filled with complex and detailed plans for my own online game website. The website of my horse girl dreams. Everyone who joined got to create their own imaginary stable and were allotted a certain amount of money to start with. There were auctions where you could bid on horses to have in said stables (I used online photos of horses I could only dream of owning one day). There was a town hall and a bank and fair grounds to hold horse shows and exhibitions upon. Heck there was even an airport and a marine port for some reason. I remember planning this all out SO vividly. We were taking an overnight train from Charleston, SC to Tampa, FL so that we could then transfer to a cruise ship. My sister, who was a full blown teenager at that point, HATED this portion of the trip. I, on the other hand, could not have been more thrilled. For one, I have always loved traveling by train, even adoring the idea of it before my first experience. Secondly, it gave me uninterrupted free time to plan my horse game. I remember lying on the bunk in my cabin writing for what felt like a full twelve hours with such exhilaration and tirelessness. There is a spark inside my body that feels like it contains eternity, and at that point in my life I always knew where it was. Finding it was no issue, and it could be fanned into a raging inferno by the slightest of actions towards the goal or idea. Sitting and writing inexhaustibly and obsessively for hours and hours on that train is the best and most tangible memory I have of this access to that passion, that inexhaustible energy source. These days the idea of sitting and writing for twelve hours sounds utterly foreign and unattainable to me.
As life moves along, we add trauma and experiences that make us doubt ourselves. We add layer upon layer of expectations from not only our ego, but from those around us – our families and friends, significant others, business partners, coworkers and bosses, and even those we don’t, and will never, know at all. I know that spark still exists inside of me, because I feel it from time to time. Something will trigger that feeling, which I associate so strongly with childhood, and I will feel the eternity of every possibility. I feel that exhilaration and passion and drive simmering somewhere under the powerful tides of my life experiences and my societal conditioning. So far down in the unknowable depths that it’s unable to take possession of my incredibly capable body and mind. My entire being aches with the yearning to grasp it, to fall into that abyss and soak up all of the power and energy that resides inside of that tiny little spark. The minuscule universe inside of me that contains everything there ever was or could be. It’s the strangest thing to sense it, to know it’s there, but to feel as if I’m seeing it through a very solid pane of glass. I can see it so perfectly, and yet there is solid resistance when I try to reach out and touch it. I can’t get the blazing inferno started with so much incombustible crap in the way.
That journal is such a beautiful and incredible miracle to me. Holding it, even just thinking about it, gives me the most direct line of access to that sacred spark. I wish I could end this missive by declaring that I had found the answer. That the inferno was once again raging within me. But instead, I end it on a note of hope, which I believe to be an incredibly powerful ingredient (one might even say invaluable) to the healthy human psyche. I truly believe that almost anything is possible through practice and repetition. I have been gentle with myself these past few years after a period of what, for me, was extreme trauma. Patience is something that I have never had in excessive amounts, but through healing, I have been adding a bit more of that greatest of virtues to my arsenal every day. So with new found patience and hope, I will savor those glimpses of the spark. I will close my eyes and hold that precious journal in my hands and practice accessing that which used to be easily accessed. I will practice until it once again becomes second nature, the way it is supposed to be. The form in which I was created to exist.
And one day, in the hopefully-not-too-far-future (I told you I’m still learning patience!), I know that the glass will shatter and the inferno will rage again once more.
