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I think that one day, if I create something good enough, I might suddenly become a fully realized human being.
I imagine a world where this fantasy comes true. Where somehow, I have managed to craft a story so impactful, a drawing so beautiful, that I, the creator, am able to share in its wholeness. Somehow, I have built something incredible, and hoisted myself alongside it like a mountain climber, finally able to see over the tops of the trees that don't seem to obscure anyone's vision but mine. My creation is so glorious that just looking at it carves away the dirty and broken parts of me, filling in the cracks with gold, transforming me into a beautiful kintsugi sculpture.
So I try. I scribble and I doodle and I look up wrist stretches after giving myself tendonitis for the third time and I create.
When my creation is done, I scour it. I examine every letter or line, searching, seeking out signs that I have become something more than I was.
I see improvement. I see a sharpening of skill, of ability. I am a better artist and writer than I was last year, same as I was better then than the year before that.
But I don't find what I'm looking for. That mark of humanity, of completeness. I'm not sure I even know what I'm looking for. Would I know it if I saw it?
Perhaps a philosopher would tell me that my journey, my search for humanity, is the thing that proves I had it all along. That I have always been complete, because if I wasn't, why would I be so desperate to find the missing parts?
But I am not complete. Others, people born in one piece, can tell. They look at me and they see the missing parts, the scuffed and broken edges, and they know I am not yet human.
So I keep going.
I keep writing.
I keep drawing.
And as the world turns, the spring sun begins to shine in through the window, and my creations come aglow with the light of our closest star.
This piece was written for a class. The prompt was to "write the thing that you will be sad or disappointed to have not written in this class".