ONCE UPON A TIME

Lua Nova, 5 de Dezembro de 2010


"Once upon a time there was a little girl.
This little girl was like many others... Had family, friends and dreams.
This little girl lived happily through every day.
One day, she grew up.
One day, everything changed."
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"Yeah, yeah..." She said not too sure what she answered to. Lazily, she got upstairs and locked herself in her room. The dim light reflected her figure on the mirror across the room. It looks like I'm looking to a stranger. The hard truth was she was no longer a little girl and people had expectations. Too high, for my liking. Her parents have expectations.
She walked to her bed and sat down... Being eighteen is too much of a pain in the ass. As she glanced to the pile of homework to do and notes to study, she decided to leave it to the next day. She lied down and intently watched the ceiling: it was full of the drawings she had done through the years... Why the ceiling? Well, the walls were filled by the age of 10. Now they're empty... Though she replaced some of the old drawings by newer ones, all of them were now in a box under her bed, next to some texts she used to write too but never showed anyone. Well... At least ALMOST all of them...

Two years ago... When "it" happened, she couldn't save a couple of them... They were shattered in front of her tearful eyes. She cleaned a lonely tear that prickled her way down her cheek and tried to ignore the knot on her throat.
When she was younger, her parents would keep all the drawings she made for them and encouraged her passion. Some years after, they only complimented them, but no longer cared so much about them. Then, she started to do it only for herself... Everything had to have doodles, sketches or drawings on them, even in school... And that, that was her biggest mistake.

One of teachers complained about her constantly drawing after and sometimes during tests and other moments of evaluation. When they got home a handful of the drawings on the walls were ripped off and turned into nothing but garbage. "Life is not made of this trash..." She whispered to herself not remembering of ever hearing more offensive words. She cried the rest of the afternoon that day and the next one she didn't show any sign of weakness, grieve, pain or anything to her parents. Not then, nor ever since then.
She turned into the best student in her class. All the time she used to spend talking and bonding with family were changed to study... Her mother often asked her to join them in the living room, but she always had to study something, read some literature or had homework to do.

Her parents felt happy now. She was fully committed to studies and in having grades. She was finally a great woman and would be a very important person in the future.
Now, she was unhappy. She felt hollow. She was empty.
At first, it was difficult. All the emotions and stories she wanted to put in paper whirled inside her head making it so harder to stop herself from put her pencil on the paper and let it all flow. Even when her hand, absent-mindedly, started to draw, she would erase it as fast as possible. This was so painful that her own soul was shred to pieces along the way.
She didn't want to feel this way. She always dreamt with her happy ending. How can I have a happy ending, if the rest of the story isn't happy at all?

Silently, she got up and moved to the drawer with her old pencils, rubbers, markers and blank paper. She dared to take one sheet of paper and grab a pencil. Turned on the light bulb over her desk and asked herself What if... ?
Would it be worth the trying? Everything she worked for to block these feelings would be thrown to waste; all it took was allowing the pencil in her hand touch the paper in front of her.
Anticipation rushed over her and she did it.

How many time went by since she started, she didn't knew. The dawn was breaking into the sky when she finally stopped, put down the pencil and lifted the paper in order to admire what her mind intended to show her all this time. What her heart had been crying out loud this past years. When she did she cried.
She didn't try to stop those tears... She didn't want to.
The image... It's me. She sobbed louder. She'd drawn a younger self, as she remembered herself to be; Not what the mirror showed her. She'd drawn her drawing and smiling... The last time she had truly been happy.
Some teardrops smudge parts of the lines. She didn't feel empty for the first time in many years. She was happy.
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"One day, she learned to listen to anyone but herself.
One day, she started to live again.
Now, the shreds of her soul are fixed.
All it took was a drawing on a brand new sheet of paper and a turn of a new page of her life."