Who Are You, REALLY?!

Be Brave + BREAK FREE!

Imagine you’re ten years old, playing with Play-doh at the kitchen table.

You hear the sound of keys turning in the door. Your father’s coming in through the garage. You can tell from the sound of his boots that he’s knocking them together, to keep the dust from coming in from the construction site. He hangs his keys and reflective vest on the hooks in the laundry room, and walks inside to take a peek at what you’re up to.

He expects you’re playing with the new trucks he got you last month, and seems surprised to find you sculpting small teacups and bowls using the blue and purple Play-doh that’s soft and squishy in your hands.

You invite him to sit down for a cup of tea, but he shakes his head wearily and walks away, to take a hot shower, without another word.

Months pass. It’s Christmas and you eagerly open the gift he places in your hands. It’s wrapped quite clumsily in bright red paper, and you know Dad wrapped this himself. You grin, but can’t seem to shake the feeling that you’ll be disappointed again, when you can already see your little sister’s got the big art kit you’ve been asking for, for weeks.

Your father clears his throat as he looks at you with palpable anticipation. You can already feel the weight of the wheels in the palms of your hands, and you can tell from the sharp angle of the paper that it’s got an extendable scooping arm.

“It moves, just like the real ones!” Dad exclaims, as you pull off the last piece of paper on the side of the Excavator. Like one of the many trucks and tools that Dad uses at his job every day.

That night, you walk by your sister’s room and see her painting a cat on the easel opposite her door. You know exactly how you would angle the head to show a bit of playfulness in the cat’s expression, to make it look more like your family’s 8-year-old tabby, Cotton Socks.

You sigh momentarily, when you remember what your dad had said earlier that night, when he’d found you looking a little too long at her art set. “Girls just love art, don’t they? They’re not into building,” he’d said with a chuckle, “not like us guys.”

At bedtime, you close the door to your room and pull the covers up over your chest and nestle in. As you turn to rest your head on the pillow, your gaze falls to the side table, and you see them there: the Play-doh teacups that you’d made months before. You’d left them out on purpose, to harden, so you could put them here, on display. You remember the feel of the soft supple clay as you’d rolled and carefully shaped them into a matching set of saucers and cups.

As your eyes grow heavy, you fall asleep, wondering, Didn’t Santa get my letter? Why didn’t he know what I wanted?

And you dream a wonderful dream, of a studio filled with your art.

A decade later, those dreams have faded.

You walk into your apartment after a long day at the work site, managed by the same company your dad’s worked for, all these years. Your hair’s damp with sweat and your legs ache, but you don’t feel that same sense of satisfaction your dad always seemed to enjoy.

Something’s missing.

It’s always there, that ache in your stomach. But you can’t quite pin down what it is.

All you know is you thought you’d be fine by now. When he’d told you in your late teens to join him at the same company, you’d looked in his excited eyes and told yourself, It’s okay. I can do construction. You’d figured, At least I won’t be in a cubicle.

But, seven years later, you’ve grown weary of the days spent moving materials. Constructing, yes, but not making, not creating excitedly with your hands, the way you remembered it.

And the loud noises — the jackhammering, the traffic rushing by the site, and the loud and boisterous banter of the workers that surrounds you endlessly, makes you wish you were anywhere but here. You’re part of the crew, yes, they’ve accepted you wholeheartedly as one of the guys, but you long for the solitude you remember, when you had the freedom to do art. You remember it fondly, that time when the minute hand of the clock seemed to stop, when all you felt was a miraculous state of Flow.

How long has it been since I’ve felt that free? When was it? you wonder. You walk to the fridge, crack open a beer, then another, chugging em down in quick successive gulps and start to drift off, your neck curved against the back of the couch. Your eyes close as your thoughts begin to fade. I think it was sometime when I was still young, in grade school…When I was …when….

You fall asleep never quite remembering.

It’s the part of you that you’ve forgotten. It’s the side of you, you’d intentionally blocked.

Days later, you’re at the new job downtown. On a break, you walk down the street to gain some respite from the noise and find yourself confronted. Stopped in your tracks.

It’s an art store.

You wonder, When was the last time I was in one? You can’t remember if it was a JoAnn’s Fabrics or a Michael’s your mom took you to, but you must’ve been around 12, when your sister’s class project required her to create a diorama made out of popsicle sticks, glitter, and those fuzzy twistable pipes that come in all those colors. You remember your mom and sis’ stopping in an aisle to pick some up, when you snuck away to check out the paints and clay.

There were so many types and colors. There were canvases, large and small. You ran your hand along the kits. You wished you could have them all. In the blink of an eye, you imagined the entire aisle was your very own art studio.

Suddenly, the jackhammering restarts and you’re whisked back to reality, looking through the window of Blick’s Art Supply.

In your reflection, you see the man you are, dressed in head to toe construction gear, hard hat still on, but you can barely see him. The memory of your imagined studio’s all you see through the glass, as if those paint sets are yours, as if those canvases are beckoning you to become one with your past — to return to that time — and you feel it suddenly, that long-forgotten urge to create.

The last four hours of your shift fly by. You go through the motions, but your mind is elsewhere, on how many canvases and sets of paints you want to buy, in what colors, and what to paint? You don’t know. You just know that’s where you’ll be before the day ends. Standing at that register. Hauling your goods home.

That night as you make multiple trips from your truck to your apartment, the living room floor’s covered with so many materials, you can barely see the carpet anymore.

It’s a blur. You toss the open pizza boxes off the table and onto the kitchen floor. You set up the easel and you start to paint feverishly. You feel like an animal unleashed. Like there’s some type of creative creature bursting out of you.

By 3 AM, you’ve painted five pastoral scenes. You don’t know these places. They’ve entered your vision from some magical place. You don’t know from where, but you know you’re not stopping. You don’t even realize what time it is until it’s 7 AM and your boss is calling you wondering where the hell you are. But you let it go to voicemail because there’s no stopping this. There’s just you, and the canvas, and the brush in your hand, and this wonderful limitless sense of expression.

It’s freedom!

In your body, you feel it, this unwavering confidence. That you’ve finally found him: the boy you’d long forgotten.

And you realize, this is who you actually are.

Who are you?

Are you the boy?

Or are you the man?

If you’re the man, which one are you?

The man lulled into a false sense of security, who thinks It’ll be alright to make concessions and bargain with your life?

Or, are you the man who’s determined to be FREE, to become who you are truly MEANT to be?

Today, I dare you…

To remember.

To be brave.

To BREAK FREE.

The Bravery in me honors & respects the Bravery in each of you,

Marisa