Sorry that I have failed to live up to your expectations.
Sorry that despite your efforts in molding me and scolding me and guiding me and deriding me, the projection of your energies have been in vain.
Sorry that at the age of 24, going on 25, I have yet to attain what you seek of me.
I won’t pretend to be the dream you sought when you made me in an act of love. I am not a personification of perfection. I am not a divine creation. I am not Galatea. And you are not Pygmalion.*
I am not a building you can tear down and rebuild from scratch. I am not an immaculate statue given life. I am here; I have been born, and I have been made. Now it is time for me to make myself.
In the process of that remaking, I may be scratched and scarred; knocked down and showed up; played out and pushed in. I may thrive or fail. I may find an easy path. Or learn the hard way.
What can I say? I was not born complete. I was born of flesh and blood and intention. Or perhaps inattention. Perhaps an accident. Either way, I was born of you.
I came forth with your flaws, and to make things more interesting, I brought my own.
I am a wanderer finding my way.
I am a dreamer finding my dream.
I am flawed despite your efforts.
I am a work in progress, and I do not know when the work will be done.
Perhaps it never will.
*Galatea was an ivory statue made by the sculptor Pygmalion, and given life through his prayer to the gods. He built her as an ideal woman, one who would rise above all others – a paragon of perfection. In many ways, that is how we make children. We create them in an act of love and believe with all our hearts that they are just as we dreamt. But even dreams take time to come true. And sometimes they never do.
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