life should be bright, honey scented and sweet

Dear Obie,

I think I’ll just focus on being happy from now on. I know that might look or feel like failure sometimes, especially to you. (We always were our harshest critic.) And I’m grateful. Because you worked SO hard, that I could probably never work hard again and no one would ever question my intelligence. But I’ve seen both sides of the coin now, and you know I’m older than you, so despite how much life’s difficulties may have eroded that genius IQ, I’m still wiser. To work the way you did, is exhausting and unsustainable. All the things we loved turned into chores - used and abused as a vehicle on a road with one unreachable destination: perfection. The viola and the piano and the guitar and drawing and painting and algebra and calculus and physics and biology and english and literature and sprinting and jumping and tennis and basketball and spanish and french and mandarin and brush lettering and makeup and fashion and youtube and singing and writing and finance and statistics and prayer and dreaming of the day it would all be quiet and no one would ask a single thing of me. Grateful for everything yet wanting for nothing. Then the nothing came and nearly swallowed us whole. 18 years lit up by a roaring fire, fueling every moment - a battery perpetually charged. Maybe on that day the wind blew the wrong direction. Instead of fanning the flame it snuffed it right out. Snuffed us right out. Skipping the years worth of darker details, Obie, I’m happy to let you know the fire’s back. Actually fire’s too strong a word for the much softer life we now lead. The powers that be have bestowed upon us a candle. Bright, honey scented and sweet. Because life should be sweet. So? I think I’ll focus on keeping it that way.