Dear Spirit,
I’m not sure where you went, and why you chose to leave. Like a love you think will be yours for always, your departure makes me wonder if I ever had you at all. Always has definition – it means always, or forever, never ending, indefinite … at least reliably there. But now you’re reliably not there, and with your absence, neither is my energy, my motivation, my enthusiastic state of mind. What remains – reliably – is the constant state of “dis” – dissatisfaction and discontentment that I wish would do that other dis, like the one with “appear” added to the end of it.
Dear Spirit, I knew we were best friends because even now, I fail to remember when we first became friends. Was it when I built tree forts in my backyard in first grade, or between the library stacks in middle school? Maybe you joined my side when my first boyfriend dumped me in the 10th grade, or gave me the confidence to decide and ultimately follow what at the time I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
And maybe, spirit, that’s why you left me. Is it because you’ve done your job, and like a mentor who guides his subject in his formative years, you’ve led me to on the right path and decided I am now well enough alone? Or did I do you wrong; did I take advantage of your services too often and denied them from helping more deserving pupils?
Our conversations were silent and satisfying. Our understanding was mutual. I knew you in ways you never told me; and you knew me in ways I never even knew about myself. You weren’t my best friend, or my lover, or my parent. You were practically me.
But wait – is that it? Have I mistaken your true identity, assumed you were some tangible force which can come and go, when all this time you, spirit, were truly me?
Dear Spirit, if you are me – if you are none other than Samantha Marie Davis, who mistook her own internal worth for something tangible and externally promising – then let me, tell myself, than I’m alright. Spirit, let myself know thyself without fear of uncertainty. Because when we are uncertain of our spirits, we are uncertain of ourselves.
Signed,
Sammy Davis
