West Liberty University

by Ashton Wronikowski

Once upon a time, there was a girl who changed the world, a girl with raven -hair,
hazel eyes, and freckles. She came into view slightly, softly —– as if her body was
purposefully trying not to be too much. Soccer kept her slim, years of running for
hours on end making her athlete’s build lean and graceful rather than solid
and strong. Everything about her was graceful, and beautiful; the thickness of her
eyelashes looking down, either in bashful avoidance of a compliment or in sleep
as she so often did. Her neck, curving to meet her clavicle and drawing eyes to
the sharp contrast of her shoulders. Her hands, musician’s hands, promising
melodies and other softness from each delicate fingertip.

There’s always this bullshit expectation of women to be all-and-nothing,
containing controversies, simultaneously being two totally different things at once. It’s
bullshit, and problematic, and somehow, Claire was. She held herself with
careful strength, cradling her loss and her hurt openly —– hoping anyone who
needed would see themselves reflected in her hands. She was quick with smiles
and faster with laughs, offering every part of herself to complete strangers. The word
stranger really didn’t have the same meaning for her as others, because they
were simply friends she hadn’t yet met.

If you go to the local bar and look at the ceiling, there’s an Irish flag pinned
with a small signature scrawled in the bottom corner, Claire #12 to commemorate
the years spent on the pitch about a mile up the road. Pete, the bartender, always
races to meet her —– asking about one more game of pool or darts, as if it’s one
of the few reasons he opens his bar every night. Whenever we go there
together, I can’t help but smile up at the stripes, at the idea of seeing her name even
when she’s thousands of miles and various time zones away, and think
of the night we met.

__________

Two hours had never seemed so long. The drive back from the
hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlor had seemed ages longer than the drive there with the
added throbbing of our new piercings. It was finally one of our few full weekends off,
and this group of teammates had decided to join in some harmlessly
irresponsible behavior. We were already scheming, saying we just needed to
keep it from our parents until a respectable amount of time had passed.

“What’s the plan now? When are you guys going to get ready to go out?”

The most important questions of any weekend always started like these:
Where are we going before the party? What are you guys drinking? Who’s going
to be there? What are you wearing? If every minute of the night isn’t discussed
a good three hours before the function, we won’t be going.

My answer failed to pass from my lips as we walked towards our
apartments and found the tell-tale thumping of bass coming from what seemed
like the complex itself, the bricks doing a poor job of hiding the gathering
within. As only a sophomore in my spring semester, I was hesitant to open our
neighbor’s door —– that required senior-level boldness for sure —– but we pushed
our fear aside to sate our curiosity. Opening the door, we found most of the
women’s soccer team gathered around our neighbor’s back
window. The speaker keeping post in their kitchen was the culprit for the bass
reverberating through the apartments, and Nicki Minaj began
serenading the collective.

“You guys! Hi!” Kaelyn, our neighbor, pulled Nina, Mack, and me into a
warm hug. “You guys are coming to hang out, right?” Her expression suggested
that anything besides an enthusiastic affirmative would be rejected,
so we agreed hastily.

“What are y’all doing out here?” Curiosity was addicting, giving us all
a buzz before our first drink. Kaelyn took us around her teammates cluttering
the apartment and back outside, where an intense game of cup-pong was taking
place. There were heavily accented yells from this side of the door, with waving
hands and expressive language that led us all to let out a laugh. I knew Anna,
her boyfriend Mark, along with Millie, but there was a third girl I hadn’t
recognized, with dark hair and light eyes that followed the other members
of the game with clear mirth.

After a round of introductions led by Kaelyn, I learned her name was Claire,
and it was made blatantly obvious that she was one of the coolest people
I had met. Her Irish accent carried softly across the tables, and her choice outfit
of a flannel, ripped jeans, and backwards hat suggested an easy comfort with
herself that made it easy to be around. As we shook hands and I answered
the silent questioning in her light eyes, I had a warm feeling in my chest that
shook off the last bit of the late spring chill.

__________

The rest of that first night was spent quickly, in a bit of a blur, as we
grabbed filled cups to fill our hands. I kept bumping into Claire Kelly making
her rounds, dipping in and out of conversations like water, being welcomed by
anyone and everyone she turned to. My friends had noticed me noticing her,
and wasted no time in planning our wedding.

“Can you all just relax? We have no idea if she’s even gay!” I attempted to
dissuade their scheming behavior and was given nothing but deadpan stares
or eye rolls in response.

“Oh yeah,” said Nina, dripping sarcasm on Kaelyn’s kitchen
floor. “She’s only wearing the lesbian’s uniform of Docs, a loose flannel, and a
backwards hat. If that girl is straight, I’ll go on the record for having a
shit gay-dar and never expect you to trust my advice again.”

To save myself from responding, I said I needed air, and I wound my way
around the room, dipping in and out of laughing conversations to finally
find solace outside. Leaning against the brick wall of our apartments,
I let a long breath out, watching the condensate travel off into the dark.

“Long night?”

I jumped a bit at Claire walking around the corner to sit against the wall,
gesturing for me to take my place next to her. That warmth I felt earlier in the
night was back, making it all too easy to sit in the grass next to her. She
offered me her cup, and laughed loudly at my subsequent wince. She told me
she drank Jägerbombs, and that they were popular in Ireland.

The minutes stretched languidly as the other topics came and went. We
discussed politics, foods, religion, family, sports, and school. First kisses, last meetings,
loves and hates. I don’t know how long we sat there, or when we finally
stopped talking and laughing to look at each other. That same look in her eye
from earlier litght a fire somewhere between my heart and my stomach. The possibility
of this seemed out of reach —–  that she’d rather be sitting in dewy grass
against the scratchy brick of my apartment than inside with her teammates
wasn’t real. She wasn’t tossing her glossy hair over her shoulder, wasn’t fiddling
with her hat nervously in her hands. I couldn’t be making her nervous, not when
it feltels like my own nerves wereare trying to crawl out of my skin. She touched
my hand, bringing my eyes back to hers.

Her eyes were ice in color alone, a slate gradient that made the dark
rings in her outer iris seem warm, heated, as we looked. We asked —– aloud or silently,
I don’t remember. We kissed.

__________

          When things end for no reason —– when it’s not the wrong person, or even
the right person, but just a good person —– that hurts the worst. You feel like
it’s your fault. It’s not. You guys are two pieces in the same puzzle, but you
just don’t fit with each other.

I heard those words last week on a barstool next to Claire, and it made me
think of the past two years. It went by so quickly. In that time, some mythic qualities
had faded. We had tried, for months —– she went back to Ireland that summer,
and we realized just how far the ocean is across. We blamed that at first,
needing there to be some reason that our pieces didn’t fit. There were
arguments and weeks of silence, but they never lasted. Even when we finally
chose others, moving away slowly from each other, we still smiled.
Just a little sadly.

Two weeks ago, we were gathered around the TV with my teammates,
glasses of wine in our hands. It’s called Someone Great, and I was crying, as was
expected of me at our movie nights. The main character was writing on the subway,
saying goodbye to a love of hers. She ends her letter to him, writing.

When something breaks, and the pieces are big enough, you can fix it.
I guess sometimes things don’t break, they shatter, but when you let the light in,
shattered glass will glitter. And in those moments, when the pieces catch the sun,
I’ll remember just how beautiful it was. Just how beautiful it will always be,
because it was us, and we are magic, forever.

I couldn’t help but look at her. Even if we aren’t in love, she taught me what
it meant to love. To listen first. To pick up sweets at the store just so it’ll make their
day better. To appreciate silence, the simplicity of it. To break it immediately
with a joke, because laughter is all the better. To check in, often, because,
often —, life is hard. To always have tea handy —– Barry’s if you can —– it fixes
everything, from stomachaches, to headaches, to heartaches.

She looked over and smiled, knowing, as she had the habit of doing.
Coming to sit next to me, she held my hand as if to say, don’t worry, we’ll be
okay. And she’s right. We will.

She’s dating someone now —– even if she won’t call it “dating” —– and
I’m so, so happy for her. I know the wonderfully kind, intelligent, caring, lovely,
brave woman this girl gets to hold close, and I only feel incredibly lucky and
grateful to have been a stop on her way.

A teammate said we were soulmates, and in a way she’s right. Claire
keeps a special place in all the hearts that she’s touched, and to have had the
chance to do the same is one I hold close. For cliché’s sake, we aren’t the happy
ending to the story. We don’t get an epilogue. But our chapter was one of my favorites.

by Dani Lewis

Back then, I could ride around on my bike for hours without feeling bile in the back of
my throat and inevitably throwing up. Imagining me, my brother, my twin sister, and our
neighbor peddling the loops that formed one big, mostly-paved figure -eight in our
neighborhood now just makes my head dizzy and my lungs burn.

That was in early middle school, before any childish heartbreak really happened and
mattered. No one put all their energy into messaging a boyfriend half-hearted reassurances on
the hour or convincing a parent to drive them into town to see their girlfriend on the weekend.
We just worried about peddling too quickly and accidentally popping our greasy bike chains off
the gears.

I stressed over taking enough ibuprofen to stop the aching induced by my braces as
they ripped a new path in my gums. My wildly crooked, overlapping teeth were already
adjusting, shifting downward, forward, and backward, but no orthodontist could tame my
energy. The dust yearned for someone to kick it into a cloud behind them, and I needed just
one more reason to avoid my basic biology homework.

The fear of a bike wobbling and sending me skidding across loose gravel at the bottom
of our hill had been temporarily dispelled. Instead, there was the fear that I would be the last
one to cross an invisible finish line in an unspoken race. Our quad wondered if we were the
only kids in the neighborhood and who else we could recruit for our next game of “Ghost in
the Graveyard” before the sun fell. We weren’t worried about cars coming around turns too
quickly or the dimming light forcing us to squint around in the night.

Now, that same children’s bike with the greasy chain and loose handlebars is simply
gone. Whether it was given to another child or finds itself rusting away, metallic pink paint
chipping and mixing into the dirt of some trash heap, I don’t know. I had traded it in for an
untouched mountain bike of the same color and heartbreak I never thought I’d be foolish
enough to face.

Instead of being oblivious, I stress about collisions with a fist, a wall, or the pavement
and how many paychecks it would take to replace a straight tooth my parents paid so much for
in the fifth grade. I come home to an empty house in an empty neighborhood and wonder if
I’ve simply gotten too old to spot any kids forgetting about schoolwork by slinking around
under the streetlights. I slam on my car’s brakes at any sign of movement alongside the road,
nauseous at the thought of ruining someone else’s life by not paying enough attention to mine.

Pink and black rubber bands held a wire in place across a child’s teeth, forcing them to
fall back in line with what would soon be the rest of life’s rigid expectations. I could be clueless
then and dread hearing my father shout from the front porch for me to come back inside to
shower, but now I wish I could go back to a time when parental concern tinged his voice at all.

by Ashton Wronikowski

My parents first found out I could read in church. The sun was streaming
through the stained -glass, and in one of his less remarkable miracles, my tiny finger
was following along with the sermon in our missalette. At four years old, I thought
God was my grandfather with a beard, but I know better now. Church was a checklist,
demanding regular attendance and just enough attention to be able to write biblical
verses on protest signs. It was always about the performance, and even back then
it wasn’t mine to give. My faith didn’t matter —– we went in order for my family
to be seen doing what they were supposed to be doing on a Sunday morning.
The morning mass was our half an hour of idle time that we worked to earn back
on our chore day. My salvation was earned not by study in the word or hours of
service, but by Jesus seeing me seated in the fourth pew back, nestled between
my grandparents, with holy water still dampening my forehead. My grandfather
used that water as a mirror to see his own faith reflected upon my mind, and I was
eager to oblige, my small spine bending to hold up standards and beliefs that were
hidden between hymnal pages and dry communal wafers.

He’s the one who first introduced God to me with the medallion I still
wear against my throat. It’s cool to the touch, the thick chain weighty around my neck,
and the clasp in the back is tangled in the thin hairs at the back of my
head. It’s my nervous habit, grasping it like this —– the metal biting into my thumb
and forefinger just enough to leave a bit of an impression without being too noticeable.
Feeling the front of the medal, my fingers trace the lines that I know label the
figure of St. Jude, the patron saint of the lost.  Before this necklace was mine,
I remember it on my grandfather, cussing and praying around the house while
he looked for misplaced keys and forgotten coffee mugs. The medal around my
neck belonged to another chain, one that was finer and lighter with a smaller
clasp —– I broke it last summer. The new chain is a bit smoother, contrasting
against the rough curves and lines of the medal. The added weight around my
neck isn’t from a new chain, but the world itself without a god to hold it
up —– even if I didn’t ever notice him there in the first place.

With the added weight, it’s somehow still comfortable hanging just
below my breasts, almost at the base of my sternum. It reminds me of the rides
to church in the morning. The sun wasn’t awake yet, but we were; the mist rolling
up over fields —– corn, beans, cabbage —– and the cool summer air crawled in
through the window and raised the hair on my arms. There was soft music playing
on the radio, but I’d rather listen to Grandpa talk about his dreams from the night
before and tell him mine. In the middle of my story, he interrupted and asked
me if I saw the hippopotamus hiding among the oak trees we passed. I knew
I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help but whip around and face his
laughter at my gullibility.

The drive to church was longer than the service. Grandpa liked it that way,
said Father Fritz was efficient with his sweaty hands and beady eyes. We anointed
ourselves with holy water on the way in and would be stepping back into the
morning sun before it had fully dried. Each melodic hymn seemed to be timed,
with each scripture chosen for its brevity. The homily would be some softer
rendition of what I now know as fire and brimstone theology, with a well-timed
quip about how warm it was in hell. Jesus stared down from his cross into
my wide eyes to question if I had remembered to tell every sin at my last
confession.  My grandfather’s medallion glinted in the sun as we finished with
the Lord’s prayer, the rhythm of our voices ringing through the
sanctuary like bells.

My grandpa and I would end up driving home before my grandmother
had even woken up, and we’d tiptoe into the house with matching grins. I was on
coffee duty while he cooked breakfast —– she took hers black, with a splash of
water from the sink; he, with cream and two spoons of sugar. I used to take mine
with more cream than coffee, and my mug next to theirs looked full of the milk
we used for our pancakes. As years passed and my hands got steadier,
he started letting me help by the stove —– and I started letting Grandpa make
my coffee. He would cast magic on the mug and make the spoon stand straight
up among the steam. Now that he’s gone I take mine black, without the water,
and I’ve figured out how to stand the spoon up.

***

Going to church continued on as normally as possible, even after
grandpa left us and cancelled our dream recountings and coffee
makings. Routine was important after a loss, and for a while, part of me didn’t
mind —– the Latin in our hymnal was familiar, like a lullaby, even if it still lacked
any meaning. After our mourning period, however, we realized we were still
searching for something outside those four walls. Through another friend,
our family found a Christian church, and we slunk out of Catholicism unceremoniously
like thieves in the night, hoping the congregation wouldn’t notice our
absence. Things were different here —– there were no books to follow along with,
they had live bands to lead us in “worship,”, and hands were raised instead
of clasped. Though these additions were aesthetic only, we told ourselves the
lights and the music were God coming back to us, as though he was a relative
we’d finally made the trip to go see. It seemed perfect, and there was another
addition to this church family that motivated my faithfulness, even
if my parents weren’t aware: Gavin.

Gavin Schade was many things indeed, but HOT was all my
16-year-old brain could scream at full volume when he got within a
20-foot radius. A year older, the youth group leader had a head full of brown curls,
that seemed to —– for lack of a better term —– flop perfectly on his forehead
and just hit the tops of his slate-gray eyes. Depending on what he was wearing,
they appeared bluermore blue, and sometimes even green. His lanky form was so
different from my own, muscular already from years of competition,
but I couldn’t help but stare in wonder at him in the parking lot on
his skateboard. Hidden deep down, I felt guilty for my main reasoning
to be at church: this boy, who barely noticed I was breathing. Even at 16,
I was mastering my deflection, asking what better motivation to immerse
myself in a community with Godly people? Wasn’t that what He wanted?
To enter into relationships with other believers? Something along
those lines, I was quick to tell myself.

It was a thought reinforced at our youth group’s annual Christian
conference, before our first session. A sudden rumble among the crowd of
students distracted me from examining Gavin’s face that afternoon. I had to
make sure my internal scream stayed internal when he grabbed my hand,
and he yelled, “Stay together!” The doors finally opened after what seemed like hours,
and we were carried through by the storm. The room was dark, with low
lighting pitching shadows across the auditorium —– and we were hurtling along
the aisles, politely pushing our way past other groups, scrambling to find a row
we could claim. The boys and girls we competed with were surprisingly
ruthless. Having no concern for their remaining group members, they were
content to throw coats and with insincere smiles, say, “Oh I’m so sorry,
I don’t think you saw —– we have this whole row.” I raised my eyebrows
at Gavin and the others, who shrugged with an implied, I told you so.

We had just settled into our seats when the band took to the
stage. Everyone seemed to know who they were, screaming lyrics to songs
I had never heard. I made sure to bounce with them all, closing my eyes
and raising my hands in supplication. I didn’t have a reason, but I learned
very quickly —– people really respected those sharing private moments with
God in the open for everyone to notice. There were five or six songs played,
and all I recognized was Gavin’s cologne as he was leaning in close to
whisper to me, “Don’t worry about not knowing the words; you’ll pick them
up soon.” My knees were weak as the pastor came to relieve the musicians
from the stage, opening up the conference’s first group session in the
Indiana Wesleyan’s auditorium.

The sermon given was a look at Jesus’ interaction with a poor woman
at a well in a part of the desert. This area was traveled by Gentiles, and
He wasn’t welcomed. She was known to be living in sin —– finding another
partner outside an abusive relationship was frowned upon —– and Jesus was
kind to her. He told her that he knew her and loved her anyway;, all her flaws
and imperfections were more than welcomed by him. He forgave and let her
on her way to gather water from the well safely and to share the good news:
she was loved. As the opening pastor shut his Bbible, he seemed to stretch
his gaze to meet every pair of eyes in the auditorium.

“This woman had six men in her life. Six previous husbands who came
and left, who abandoned the poor woman. She wasn’t enough on
her own. She was lonely, she had a hole in her heart needing filled. Jesus is the
seventh. He takes in all, he patches the holes. He makes whole. He saves,
he cleans, he loves.”

My heart began to pull underneath my grandfather’s medallion I never
took off, feeling pressured in my chest. I knew I wasn’t like this
woman —– I hadn’t even had one man, let alone six. But there was a longing
to be chosen, to be picked regardless of the ugliness. To finally be enough,
even if it would never really be enough. The momentary cure for insecurity
had been found —– and there He was again. I was twelve again, timing my
Sunday mornings by the length of homilies and choral arrangements. My eyes welled,
and I could almost taste his apple pancakes. I heard sniffles around me,
and my eyes registered the bowing of heads, the raising of hands in my peripheral
vision. I looked over to Gavin, and saw him as the picture of faithfulness,
a soft smile across his lips as he saw the tears in my eyes. I brought in a
breath and felt a hand reach for mine, slightly sweaty but still delicate. There was a
lacing of fingers, and Gavin squeezed his grip around my hand, rooting me
in place. I finally felt what everyone had been talking about for
weeks —– the pit of the stomach assurance that something big was happening
not just physically, but spiritually. I felt God and my grandfather in that auditorium,
with Gavin Schade’s sweaty fingers sweetly grasping mine.

***

I gripped the backside of the medallion where the cross was carved into
it three weeks later in a tattoo shop. After my obsession with Gavin subsided and
the real world came calling I found myself adrift again, lacking someone to blame
when things went badly and someone to praise when the world made
sense. Even still, today my arm continues to read a Bbible verse, Romans 12:2,
and I remember imagining my grandfather reacting to the permanent rebellion I chose
to etch into my skin. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind. Disappointment, shame,
horror —– but resignation and acceptance of how his faith looked on me. The
mismatched medallion and chain pairs nicely with the ink of things that don’t
really belong —– a sort of “What’s Wrong with this Picture?” game, instead
reflecting another life, another person. The face of Saint Jude has worn since
my grandpa last had it —– reflecting use and desperation in each softened
ridge. The tangible reminder of his hand-me-down religion continued to both comfort
and unsettle me —– offering to take the weight off my shoulders for a few
minutes to save me from becoming Atlas. There are days when I want to find a
church in a quiet town and sit in the pew, to see the light bleeding from
glass-stained windows and hear the organs playing woefully from the
choir loft. I’d flip through the books and remember the psalms, the rhythm of each
song, and the cool comforting touch of holy watermarking my forehead on
all those Sunday mornings.

by Madison Cavicchia

I just want to get it over with.

My stomach is in knots the entire Sunday service. I rub my ten-year-old
fingers against the little indentations marking up the cool metal chair I sit in.
My legs dangle back and forth, swishing the long sparkling skirt I picked out the
night before, worn to impress Jesus and all the mothers peering from their seats.
Now — it’s time. I am instructed to change out of it so the water won’t ruin the fabric.
Instead, I walk toward the front of the congregation in an old pair of athletic shorts
and an oversized, grey t-shirt.

I climb the steps and enter the vat of water, warm from all of the ring lights
surrounding the pool. Right in front of the area is a large video camera projecting
this moment onto two large screens mounted on either side of the preacher’s grand
stage. All eyes in the building dart from screen to screen bearing witness to my
first intimate moment with God in HD. I face them in anticipation, waiting for
Him to wash over me with conviction, to flip some heavenly switch in my brain that
lets me revel in a sermon’s message, resonate with scripture.

          “Now, why wait any longer? Get up, be baptized, and wash your sins away,
trusting in him to save you” — Acts 22:16

The pastor starts praying over me. I hold my nose in preparation for what
is to come — temporary drowning. He stops praying and moves my arm
away. It is blocking the camera’s view of my face. He recites the prayer again, then
asks me, “Madison, do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

I paused. I don’t know.

I don’t know what happens after I graduate fifth grade or what I will have for
lunch this afternoon. I don’t know how I will grow into the freckles on my face.
I don’t know when boys will start liking me back. I don’t know if my best friend
will always be my best friend. I don’t know if I could ever decide to replace my baby
blanket with the Lord as a means of comfort and peace. I don’t know how to receive
prayer’s invitation during math tests or in hospital rooms. I don’t know if I’ve ever
felt God’s omnipresent hand intertwining against my sparkling pink-painted fingertips.

          “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have
received it, and it will be yours” — Mark 11:24

I blink and stare at him, answering with a wide-eyed: “Yes.”

I just want to get it over with. I hold my nose shut again, as he
submerges me under the camera-lit water.

          “And that water is like baptism that now saves you — not the washing of
dirt from the body, but the promise made to God from a good conscience” — 1 Peter 3:21

When I reemerge, everyone cheers for me the same way they do for others
the first Sunday of each month — with their “hallelujahs!” and tears. The crowd
rejoices so loudly I can’t hear god. I look down at myself. I am not the same girl I was
before. Now, I am just sopping wet.

by Chris Nau

I take a long sigh of relief as I crash into my freshly made bed. School
was long today, and I have plenty of work to keep me busy for the whole day,
maybe longer. It’s times like these, when I am on the verge of collapse, that he
shows up, makes life a little more painful, and a little more interesting.
“What should we discuss today: morality, religion, or something more personal?
An idle mind can no longer learn.”
“I didn’t think you’d want to discuss something so early.” I lean back into the chair near my
room’s desk, “I don’t think I’m in the mood today, maybe later?”
“Oh c’mon it’ll be fun. We both know you aren’t gonna start the homework til tonight or
tomorrow, so let’s chat.”
I try to ignore him. “What is there to discuss? We pretty much went over all of my
problems and flaws I know of, yet am unable to change.”
“Because you don’t want to change.”
“No, because I don’t think I have to.”
“What’s the difference? Saying “I think” or “I don’t know” doesn’t make you wise,
and if anything is a non-statement, it means nothing.”
I’m starting to get emotional. Stay focused, he’ll only leave or give
up on his terms. “I said that because, despite how I view myself, I am content
with who I am.”
“That’s a load of bullshit. You should only be content with yourself
when you are truly happy, and you, my friend, are not happy. You are numb at best,
and depressed at worst. The weight of your own self doubt, anxiety, and fear
threatens to smother you, yet you do nothing. If anything you are content to not change.”
He’s right, but that was kind of out of line. I feel on fire, and I snap
back, “If I try to change, I could fail to do so and become worse than I was
before. This version of me is fine, not much room to change into something better,
only something worse.”
“Why do you consider changing as a negative? Only because there is a
risk of becoming worse?”
“”Well, yeah.”
“So, let’s say, hypothetically, that everytime you did change yourself,
it was for the better. That regardless of what you did, it was always “good”.
Would you be happy?”
“Of course.” I realize that my guide here is trying to lead me
somewhere. While I don’t fully feel like following him around today, he
seems very keen to direct my attention to something, here, in the world of
knowledge he resides in.

“And would you say that, eventually, you would change into someone
who might be “perfect”? That is to say, that if you changed for the better all
the time, then eventually you would change into the perfect being, as that
would always be better than not being the perfect being.
” I’ll play along, following the sheep into the wolf’s den and see what
hides within. “Logically, yes. Changing for the better means that I’m getting
better. What’s wrong with being perfect? Isn’t that what drives us?”
“Yes, the pursuit of perfection is something we share, but we should
never aim to truly be perfect.”
And like a skyscraper crashing down, what I thought I knew
about myself is destroyed and the debris begins falling into place, creating
something greater and stronger than before.
Being perfect
“implies there is no more room to grow, not more room to improve”
no more potential, no flaws
“no ambitions”, no ‘me’. “We can’t be perfect”, because it doesn’t exist.
We should aim to be the best version of ourselves, ever-changing,
failing, and trying again.
Because we aren’t perfect, we have infinite room to grow. We can
be good at an infinite amount of skills, and with that we have an infinite amount
of tries, “until our time runs out.”
Yes, until our time runs out. Which is why we can’t be afraid
of change, since we don’t have the time to do so.
I am imperfect.
That’s what makes us perfect.