Time

Time is merely a concept. It’s just something humankind made up so that we don’t lose ourselves. Something we use to try to assess the endless length of our world and this universe. Something we believe in and measure our minutes, our days, our lives by.

The hours, days, weeks, months, that I spent working up to this point don’t actually mean much in the grand scheme of things. It all cost me so much, and I just have to ignore it.

You see, I’m an author. I write for a well-known newspaper called The Early Bird Journal, or the EBJ. It’s a wonderful company, with wonderful employees. I was twenty-two when I first went in for my job interview, and I met the most amazing man named Jeffrey. I was myself around him. He was thoroughly amused and impressed by me.

Later, I discovered Jeffrey was my boss and the mastermind behind the EBJ. He was creative yet serious. He could write deep but also be lighthearted. I’d admired him since I was just an eight-year-old, an innocent, naive child, writing up my crazy delusions full of dreams and fantasizing that they were going to make me famous.

That early on wasn't truly when my writing journey started. When I was in eighth grade, I started discovering things. More of the world flickered into the light, and I grew wise. Well, as wise as an eighth grader can be. My writing became more mature. I stopped writing fantasy and fell more into realistic fiction.

In high school, I started to become serious about writing. Reading the Early Bird Journal before school each day fueled me more. I spent at least an hour after school daily using a writing prompt and creating new worlds. My characters became me. Realistic fiction eventually transformed into essays, reviews, opinions, random vents about school.

That’s when I found my college. Seacoast University in Maine. Full of writing courses and creative opportunities. It specialized in journaling. 

I decided I wanted to go there. I decided I wanted to be a journalist. I decided I wanted to meet the guy who’d been my idol since I was eight. 

I decided I wanted to write for the Early Bird Journal.

Usually, the creative industry doesn’t pay too well. Usually, people fail over and over. Usually, those people who keep failing don’t ever succeed. When I told my family about what I wanted to do, a few weeks before my high school graduation, their reactions greatly varied. 

Dad approved of me at least trying. 

The rest of my family—?

Not so much.

My mother had always been so protective of me and my fragileness. She loved my creativity, and she loved that I could turn a hobby of mine into a job. But she didn’t want me in the writing business. She didn’t want me to taste that failure. She wanted me to be as happy as possible, and she wanted me to prosper in life. I don’t think she realizes that life is boring and easy without the taste of pain sometimes.

My sister Zadie, who is fourteen and oddly mature for her age, stared at me blankly when I told her. She then proceeded to list all the reasons why I would probably not make it.

She did come into my room later and say that she supported my dreams. She just thought that I was being oddly delusional.

Our youngest sister Linnea burst into tears. She’s ten, so of course she would cry if I told her I was going far away. Linni didn’t want me to leave her. She wanted me to stay with them and live in our basement. Like the people that life chewed up and spat out. The people who couldn’t hold themselves together, and just gave up because of it.

I was determined not to be one of those people.

I told them very firmly that if I was going to college at all, then I would be going to that one, and they eventually gave in and flew me all the way up to Maine.

Four years later, I rebelled against my mother’s wishes again, and asked for my parents to drive me up to my job interview at the EBJ.

Mom firmly said no. This time, she held her ground.

Dad was the one who, in the end, drove me to LA and told me to try my hardest. He was the one who gave me advice and told me I was worth something. He was the one who really supported my dream.

“Fame is like a wild horse, and you need to tame it yourself. It may run by you, but in the end, you will be the one to catch it. You seem like quite the experienced horse tamer, my little Stella, just quite unlucky. But it will come to you soon. It’s all in time,” he told me in front of the printing place of the EBJ, before I opened the car door.

I’m still waiting for that horse. In time, my father said.

Well, time captures you early on and holds you in its clutches.

I nearly gave up because of time. I doubted I was good enough because of a singular concept.

I’m supposed to write one piece a week for the EBJ newspaper. The deadline is each Sunday. Just last night, after a long Saturday out with friends, I stared at a blank google document for three hours and wondered why my brain wasn’t functioning properly.

I got nothing done. I probably got myself almost fired.

Almost.

I sort of did something. I did write twelve little words, words that I would've written as an eight-year-old child, that could save my career.

Right now, I’m creaking open the door to Jeffrey’s office, heart pounding, fist clenching a crumpled-up post-it note that could determine my fate and my future.

Everything I’ve worked for could perish in just these few minutes.

Time is destructive like that.

Jeffrey looks up from his computer. “Oh, Stella! Do you have your new piece ready for me?”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “No,” I murmur, letting the sticky note fall onto the desk. “Just this.”

Jeffrey stares at the neon pink square of paper for a few moments, his brow furrowed. I tugged the sleeve of my sweater down to cover my hand, like I used to do back in high school when my teachers would read my pieces. It gave me just the slightest bit of comfort in the presence of the thought of failing, of not being good enough.

“Stella—” Jeffrey starts, his tone serious.

“I’m sorry!” I blurted out quickly. “I know you want essays, or reviews, stuff like that, but this just…came out. And it’s from the heart. If that helps at all.”

“No, Stella,” Jeffrey says quietly. “I'm not mad. Don't be sorry. This is…beautiful.”

I pause for a moment, trying to process his reaction.

“Why haven’t you ever written more of this?” he murmurs, placing the sticky note on the table.

“I wanted to leave my childhood behind,” I whispered. “I—I didn’t think it was good enough. Mature enough.”

“Stella,” Jeffrey murmurs again. He must really be shocked. I think I only ever heard him say my name twice before tonight.

“You like it?” I ask tentatively.

He stares me down. “I want four more deep poems like this by two weeks from now.” 

I nod, trying to keep the excitement from bubbling up inside me. “Yes, sir.”

He nods and returns to his computer. I stand there in shock for a moment, staring at the pink post-it note, so out of place on Jeffrey’s wooden desk filled with white and black, gray and brown.

I think maybe, just maybe, I’ve caught my wild horse.

Yes, it took tons of hard work to write twelve little words. Yes, I probably could have done this earlier on. Yes, it did take me pretty much my whole life to find out that I was a poet and to experiment with that.

But time is truly nothing but a concept.

The real journey is life itself, nice and simple, fresh and pure.