Original Photo Credit: Pixabay Gosh, what even to say to you, you crazy, lovely child. You're... you're my first original chara...

Letter to My Character: Elliot Sharpe

Alexa Mintah

6 Comments

Original Photo Credit: Pixabay

Gosh, what even to say to you, you crazy, lovely child. You're... you're my first original character from when I started writing seriously. You mean so much to me, and you're what got me through some of those not-so-easy weeks of my early teens. You gave me something to focus on, something to do, a friend as lost as I was in this anxiety of growing up somewhere new. I loved you. I still love you. Your story's expanded and grown and changed a little bit, but the heart of it isn't any different, and your heart isn't any different. I've explored your backstory. Gotten to see you anew so many times, learn so much more about you, understand who you are, and why you came to me the way you did: that wonderful, beautiful, crazy, depressing, sarcastic, no-idea-how-much-he's-worth kid. You're mine, precious. And I will champion your story till the day I die.

What would I say to you if you were standing right here? One, I'm sorry. You've had a hard-knock life and it's semi-my-fault, but you also came into my head that way, so I refuse to take full responsibility. :p

Also, you're amazing. You don't believe it and I know why you don't believe it, so I don't hold it against you (too much), but you're amazing. I also know that you still don't believe me and you wouldn't believe me, even if you were real or I was fake and I was sitting right in front of you, giving you all my attention, looking you right in the eyes, and promising that you were amazing.

You'd try to hold my gaze so you wouldn't offend me, but in the end, you'd look away, too uncomfortable to see the earnestness so clearly in my eyes. Especially when you knew—or thought you knew—that I was wrong. Your thoughts... well, your thoughts would depend on how well I knew you. “Crazy” would come up no matter what. But the severity to which you thought I was crazy would be directly related to how well I knew you: less crazy if I didn't know you well, more crazy if I did.

You're smarter than you think. Sure, Algebra makes you wanna punch a wall till you break your fist, your grades aren't the highest, and you feel like you have to physically wrangle your brain into comprehension. But that makes you strong (which we'll get to later), and your smarts manifest themselves in other places. For instance, your unique way of seeing people: you're a little blind in assessing them, but you notice things that others don't. You're a brilliant artist, which takes something, if you won't admit it's smarts, something fantastic that most people don't have.

You're strong, stronger than you think (might as well just insert that Pooh Bear quote right here). And even when you pretend you don't care, even when you tell yourself you don't care, you love harder and deeper than most people would ever dare. You get sacrifice, like some kind of king in a fantasy story, rather than the 14-year-old contemporary kid you are. Your methods of showing your love and your tendency to over-deliver on your sacrifice may need a little shaping up, but your heart's always in the right place... Well, actually that's not true. But once you get it in the right place, it doesn't budge.

Again, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that life's been hard, awful, near horrific sometimes. I'm sorry for the parts that were my fault and even for the parts you just came into my head with. I do love you though. And I promise that even though you can't see it now, you are headed towards amazing things. Things almost as amazing as you. ;)

Speaking of, it's funny, how you make me see my faith in a new way. Like, all the stuff you're going through, it has a purpose. Every step you've taken, even the ones where you stepped on something or broke your toe or sprained an ankle or got a piece of glass through your foot and were basically crippled for a while—metaphorically speaking of course—all of them have mattered. They've been inserted to grow you, because it was the only road to get you to where you are now, which is the only road to get you to where you're going, which—recap—will be amazing. Both in your story and outside of it, in my world.

Because I want you to touch lives Elliot, I want your story to be realistic and relatable to others, and I want to make you deeper, better when it all comes out in the end. I made you because... well, I made you because I wanted to tell your story. Or, more accurately, you tiptoed into my head, silently insisting that you be written and written well. But one of the reasons I keep going, besides simply believing that you need to be heard, is that I want you to touch lives. I want you to make a change. I hope it's a big one, but maybe it'll be small, a ripple effect that keeps going and going and touching and touching, until it can't even be traced back to you, but you started it. In fact, I think you'd like it better that way, if it couldn't be traced back to you, so you didn't have to be uncomfortable being all famous and having the world stare at your life. But either way. I want you to make a difference, even if it seems small to some.

Anyways. I'm beginning to ramble—you do that a little bit, and yes, you got it from me—but I don't know how to close either. I guess with the words that you most need to hear even if you wouldn't listen to anyone who said them: remember, my dearest Elliot Andreas Sharpe, that you are loved and you are special and you are never, ever forgotten. May you be filled with hope, joy, belonging, and peace.

All my love and all my thanks for entrusting me with your story.

You may also like