i'm gonna talk about glass for a moment. i identify closely with glass

it's a very flexible, easy to make substance, if you know what you're doing. you can put it to many uses. but foremost of all, it is almost always manufactured by human hands.

that's me.

now imagine being made to be something so beautiful... you've been created to fulfill a specific niche in someone else's life.

you are a container, to be filled with beverages, but also spirits and substances dangerous to others' lives. they shouldn't have put it there. but they did. so you contain all of their grief and sorrows but also happiness. whatever's inside you is alcoholic

your capacity to contain it all is seemingly bottomless. nothing reaches your brim yet. you are content to fulfill your purpose.

but... over time, the spirits inside you change your internal chemistry. your own once-pristine surface now yellows. you still fulfill your role, but... something is wrong.

this isn't the way you were. you have small cracks inside you from withstanding pressure for so long. you haven't leaked yet.

yet.

you become more aware that these things are happening to you. how long has it been since you were manufactured? how long have you fulfilled your role in service of others? why... aren't you happy like this, even though you were made to do this?

why do you keep doing this if it makes you feel emptier? no matter what, you'll always be full. but you don't want to be full of others' toxic substances.

you come to a realization:

I DON'T WANT THIS.

...and with that, your very selfhood shatters.

it isn't a clean break. every time you think you're done gathering the pieces, you get worn down by the tide of the ocean.

cast out. discarded to return to where you came from.

the ocean is unforgiving. you've been altered beyond all recognition. you cannot return to the container you used to be, it says. it dictates. it is familiar with you, and you realize it doesn't oppose you, but it won't hold back, either. how you view yourself is how it views you.

(and you have a very poor view of yourself.)

after what seems like ages of being washed-up and left to decay...

...you're back to what you used to be, a long time ago. before you were scooped up and molded into a facsimile of yourself. before you were put to work.

is this... it?

that's it?

you're free?

pieces of you are now lost somewhere out there, in the depths of the vast ocean, never to return...

...pieces of you are still on that same beach you ended up at...

and... you've never felt as whole as you now do.

free. no longer a bottle. the world is your oyster. and somewhere, you're forming into an oyster, too. or at least a part of you is. you've been spread everywhere, but this is your domain. your home. you can make yourself into something new.

no.

not new. you don't like that word. you're still you, after all... but now... you don't have to pick up the pieces anymore. you can go at your own pace. you can choose what to form into.

...

...so yeah, it's been an incredible journey. and i still want to be glass. it's my essence. my being. i don't know what it is yet, but someday i'll find out.