I flit through people's lives for a season and never leave a very large footprint behind when they move on. It is what I've seen from the moment of my birth, through my childhood, through my adolescence and early adulthood. It is what I've become.
I like it that way. It is partially through design. Partially making a positive of what I was born. Some of it is because I was given a life expectancy of five years eight years ago. Some of it is a memory of my deceased father's voice telling me that I am meant to be seen and not heard... and only seen when I am wanted.
If I have a gift, it is to disappear while standing right in front of you.
I was counted absent several times when I was sitting right in front of the teacher because I wasn't ever one to demand the attention. If I have to demand it, to fight for it, then what is it worth to me? Someone else louder and more insistent would always win it away.
People say they are looking for intelligence. But, what do they mean? A guy named Gardner posits that there are ten different types, and his work is unassailable from everything I know and understand. Which intelligence is it that one means when they say they value it?
Is it intelligence for me to try to discuss the painting "The Scream?" To explain that it is not the figure in the center that is screaming, but his facial expression is a response to the outcry of nature?
Is it intelligence for me to fling math and physics puns in the air like confetti?
To discuss the emotive ramifications of physiological causes?
To discuss biochemistry or computer network engineering in one breath and poetry or music or art critique in the next?
Or is it only intelligence if it forms a confluence with the interests of the listener?
How many times has a woman I found attractive, whom I have told she is attractive, stood and lamented that she is unattractive? That no one would want her when I thought I'd made it clear that I do? That no one would value her when I'm standing right there, next to her, supporting her?
I am a ghost. I flit through a life in a mere season of it, perhaps no longer than an hour, perhaps a couple of months, perhaps as long as a year, even decades for a few, leaving barely a footprint behind to show my passage.
And that is to the good.
I am glad I am not physically attractive so that no one will want me only for my attractiveness.
I am glad I am smart enough to recognize that people will always be more interested in telling me what they think than hearing what I think.
I am glad I have no wealth to be coveted.
I am glad I have no charm, and only half the wit to impart so that I know that those who listen do so not to be entertained, but because they find some other worth.
I am a ghost. But, only to those who don't need me to be something else. Only to those who don't wish me to pause to leave more than a faint footprint in the grass to show my passage.
I absorb the pain of being left so that I do not cause the pain of leaving.
I accept being No One of Consequence to the many to free my attention for the truly interested, and thus worthy, few.
I am a ghost.
Except when I am not.
Then I am an angel of battle.
I am the hell her demons can use for a playground.
I am dragon.
I am wolf.
I am eagle.
I am "Walks with Thunder" and the earth trembles with the purpose of my shamanistic passage.
I am earth, air, fire, water, and spirit.
But, only when I choose to be. And only when she allows me to become reality.
Then, when the season is over, I am a ghost, a half-seen memory of a forgettable dream. Leaving barely a footprint behind on the dew laden grass to mark my passage. Unresponsible for what she has chosen to become beyond that I was privileged to witness her strength in becoming.
Or so I used to be.
I am a ghost, as ever I have been. As invisible as the air you breathe. And as fleeting as the puff let out under the lash. And few are the ones I allow to be haunted as I fade into history. Perhaps no other will ever be allowed to see me beyond a flicker out of the corner of their eye. Perhaps the thunder has stilled. Perhaps the storm has soothed away into a gentle rain, tears slipping from heaven to wash away even the fading imprint of the footprint in the lush grass behind me.
Yet... Are any of us really more than ghosts to anyone other than those we choose to be more to, who also do allow us to be more, despite feeling like the star of our own show?
