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Oyster

July 2004



Why does this always happen? I'm in such a a good mood after jamming to Madonna and Bon Jovi with Varun (we were downloading songs for my 21st birthday party on July 30). It's hard to imagine that I even know the girl who just a few hours ago was lying in bed blubbing to herself.

I wish that I could lock myself into the part of me that is bright and happy and brimming with good ideas, that makes the people around me laugh. Because it's true - I am happy. Very much so. With the sunlight, the summer, and my new friend Ashni down the hall. I smile and am sarcastic and it is not a front, but when I stop to ask myself what I really want, what I would sacrifice for, then I start to cry. Because I want to be like Jesus, yes, but like Lauren and Suzanne and Darci Kistler too.

I want to dance but I don't have the body for it, I want to sing but I don't have the voice for it, and maybe I can write but that's not really what I would have wanted to do if I had had the choice. And I know I'm not terribly pretty, which shouldn't matter except sometimes I think I'd like to be gorgeous, as a sort of consolation prize, as long as I haven't a medium to share the true sense of beauty that I do see and feel inside.

Why do I want to be the best at something, when there is such magic here already, in my room where no one sees and we are dancing our hearts out to songs on mp3? Why do I want to convey beauty and feeling to a lot of people and not just to someone special who will fall in love with me? I think, Esther you are greedy. One person is not enough. You want the whole world to fall in love with you. You want to touch everyone deeply, for everyone to see you and to see through you and past you, and of course that isn't possible. I can't make everyone see through my eyes. I can only try to be the best I can be and make the most of whatever gift I've been given.

I really have been very happy this summer. It's just - the dream doesn't go away, and the insecurities too. I want to forget all that. I want to find someone who believes in God, in me... but then I think, if I weren't me I would absolutely refuse to put up with myself and with the recurring dark. What is the analogy? - of artists being like oysters who are irritated by a great many things, but who manage to transform the pain into luminous pearls. Well, okay, but why would anyone want to sit in a tank and keep the oyster company while it slowly roosts on its grain of sand? I'd go away and do something else and then come back to harvest the pearl, that's what a sensible person would do.

- esther-emmanuel