A January Creation

January has been, for a number of years, a heavy month for me. I know this is true for many, and the stories of many Januarys compel me to tell my own.

Seven years ago this January, when I was 16 years old, I was admitted to the hospital for suicidal ideation. Six years ago, also in January, when I was 17 years old, I was in the hospital once again for the same reason. Seven years ago, I remember being in an emergency room holding space for three days. It was a large space with heavy, locked doors. It didn’t have much privacy, I could never be alone. And every person who came to the hospital with a mental health crisis was brought there.

I remember a nurse walking up to me as I was lying in my bed, as I was in a distress that I couldn’t yet name or understand. I remember her telling me that this would one day just be a dot in my story. It would be just a brief moment, despite the very real gravity of the situation and the fear I faced- despite the way, at the time, my whole body locked itself, unsure of what danger might lie ahead.

If only I could go back and thank that nurse from Middlesex Hospital.

If only I could speak to that terrified boy now and tell him what lie within him- what curiosity and courage and love was there- working to make its way through.

And why should I act like I can’t? That boy is inside me right now, so I’ll go ahead and address this to him. (As for the nurse, these things have a funny way of being heard by the ones who need to hear them, and at the right time, too. I trust she will know how invaluable her words were.)

So. Here goes:

Dear sweet, 16-year-old Andrew,

Sweet boy, I believe creativity is intimately involved in leading us from death to life to death to life again.

I am not interested in writing to you, my friend, about how it all gets better. Of course, healing will happen, but I think your healing involves realization and insight far more beautiful and nuanced than the betterment of your station in life. You will still suffer at times, and you will suffer with more strength. I am interested in writing to you, instead, in regards to the radical gift of creativity and imagination. It is a gift being given, available even where you are.

I am writing to you as a 23-year-old living in New York City. Up to this day, this dot, January 27, 2020, you indeed survive your worst days, and your worst fears have not yet overcome you. I would love to take the credit, as if it were grit or willpower. I wish I could point you to some person who will make your story make sense. Many will try and will give brilliant attempts. They will nudge you in certain directions. They will hold you and cherish you and remind you of what it means to love. And yet, one day, you will recognize what you’ve known all along- that there is something bigger at play: a genuine, brilliant, and warm creativity inside of you.

Before I continue, I would like to side track and tell you about some of my goals as a 23-year-old: I want to do great work as an actor, performing at the intersection of my best ability and the world’s most real need. I want to write a novel. I want to actively work to reconcile communities of faith and the LGBTQ+ community.

But most importantly, and most immediately, I want to tell you that creativity will care for the death in you and the life in you.

Creativity can bear the pain you are feeling and the tension you hold between living and dying. I can’t wait for you to read A Little Life and Hamlet and Rilke.

Creativity will paint the color red on the wings of a bird in snow to tell you that your grandmother is alive in you, even when she won’t be anywhere else for you to see.

Creativity will hold you close to a kind boy on the top of a hill in Los Angeles to dream of a life, and then walk you down the hill to keep you company when the dreams become, once again, nightmares of a past life.

Creativity will remind you that you’re still a swimmer and an athlete, years after competing, and that there are more stories in need of actors, hundreds of rejections later.

Creativity will call the part of you that wants it all to end an Old Friend- searching and desperate, but a soldier carrying on a mission, in need of new orders.

Creativity will ask you to tell stories and then ask you to let them go. They were only on the stage for that one moment.

Creativity will give you a letter to write seven years from now.

Creativity will wake you up tomorrow.

And as time goes, you will notice it rush in more quickly, fill you up more fully, and release you from the certainty night brings.

I told you my goals because I want you to know something: my creativity only belongs to those goals insomuch as my creativity belong to you. Creativity is not just for a dream to be on Broadway or to be in film, but it is for the very dear gentle being that is you, vulnerable and strong. For you don’t know the sacred soil you are tilling where you are, resting in that locked and terrifying holding space, as you decide to keep breathing. You do not know it is sacred water that nurse brought you, as many will after her, and you do not know the sacred seeds being sown by something far greater than yourself.

My friend, never believe that creativity is gone, even if it looks stuck in the past. Perhaps, that is exactly where it needs to be, until you come and visit, as I am visiting you now.

Creativity will cost, and it will ask you to risk much, only when you are ready. No need to step ahead of it, or fear it won’t guide you. Creativity will allow to see the beautiful things in horrible loss. Creativity will stubbornly not give up on the specificity of hope in the color of blooming tulip, or in the return of hope as the sun rises on Lafayette Street or in the Abilene skyline. Creativity will lead you back to the horrific places and dare to call them hallowed ground, anointed, and life-breathing. Creativity will require the truth. It will require your queerness and acknowledgement of your whiteness, your maleness. It will require that wrestling with God you’re doing. It will require you to open up about those terrifying and beautiful spaces you call home. It will require your courage, and it will require your solitude.

For now, Andrew, rest. Be at peace and know that Creativity is Moses leading you to exodus and Moses coming down the mountain with truth in hand. Know that Creativity will ask you to move away from safety, but only with a safe hand to hold. There will be models before you. There are many who love you. And the nurse is right, you are experiencing but a dot in the storyline, and you are carrying the terrible fullness nobly.

Breathe on, sweet one. After all, you turn 17 in a few days, do you not?

With love and a warm heart,

You, seven years and a moment away.