A water child is born,
quiet and thoughtful,
a princess of the creeks and rivers and seas.
The prophecies tell that
she will be a gently firm ruler,
gracefully shepherding her people.
She grows and learns,
silently observing,
seeing the hurt, the damage
caused by indifferent and
thoughtless beings, people who don’t
look back to see the trail of
wreckage they drag behind them.
She feels and empathizes,
agonized by the cruel world
of people thrown together in
a mass of violence and
self-absorption, and yearns
to heal the pain, to cure
the sickness of hate.
She travels and stumbles,
trudging through a life filled
with the vicarious sufferings
of others and sprinklings of
joy in between,
distancing herself from mankind,
and their harmful ways.
She hardens and draws in,
realizing they don’t care,
thinking they won’t ever care,
that they are incapable of change.
The prophecies were wrong.
She is a harshly strict monarch,
ruling her new arctic kingdom
with an iron grip and
acquiring a grisly reputation.
She is doomed to an
existence as a
well-dressed hermit, a stone-
hearted recluse, a fiery glacier,
an ice queen.
Background:
I wrote this piece in 2010, and then just a few years later in 2013 when Disney’s Frozen was released, I really related to Elsa, then thought back to this poem and thought, “Wait a minute…”
The groundwater of this poem is poisoned by fear. Like somebody watching a wreck in slow motion, wishing they could change it but feeling powerless, I saw myself descending into patterns of despair and self-isolation.
Adults had praised me growing up - I was a quiet, “gifted” rule follower - but I struggled with relating to my peers. I usually felt out of sync with my classmates, and only seemed to be heard if I was saying something funny or “deep.” I learned to talk quickly in an attempt to avoid being spoken over, but that often didn’t work.
The difficulty increased as I continued to observe people, children and adults alike, and felt like I was drowning in a flood of petty unkindness, contempt, selfishness, and, frankly, foolishness. (Though younger me probably would’ve said “stupidity.”)
I had my own flaws in abundance (pride, cowardice, self-righteousness) and desperately wanted someone to trust and look up to (outside my parents). I wanted to grow as person, I hated my flaws, but I wondered how any peers could help me when I saw how they treated each other. I highly doubted I could help them, either.
So, in high school, I did make partial attempts to make friends but kept my distance. I locked down my feelings so no one could read me easily and use my emotions against me. I barely ever went over to peoples’ houses. I started choosing to eat lunch alone most days, weighed down by tension the entire meal. People sometimes attempted to sit with me and I would usually feel a simmering anger, a wordless “just leave me alone” probably written over my intentionally blank face.
I wasn’t a one-sided cactus - I was increasingly prickly toward myself. My inner monologue became vicious, telling me I was ugly, useless, pathetic, unworthy of friendship. a burden, and might as well just die. For years, one of the most common thoughts in my head was probably, “what’s the point?”
When I wrote this poem, I think I saw this descent beginning and feared it, but didn’t know what I could do to stop it.
I wish I would have reached out sooner than I did. I wish I would have had more faith in God and in people. I wish I would have been more open to the handful of classmates who did reach out to me. I wish I would have taken the risk to be an encouragement to others, even though they did often treat each other poorly.
If you are in this kind of painful state of mind, I’m not going to tell you that what you see isn’t real - it probably is. People around you are probably falling short all the time. So are you, and if you’re aware of it, you probably hate it.
There are plenty of reasons we can use as justification for despair.
What I can tell you from my own experience is that the only things that helped throw me a lifeline were:
1) Studying God’s character
This led me to love Him and trust Him enough to let Him tell me who I am instead of just listening to what I was telling myself. This was not a quick process, but several years later, I finally had a morning when I woke up, looked in the mirror, told myself, “I love you,” and meant it. More authentically and fully than I had in a long, long time.
2) Reaching out to people who love God and telling them some of what was happening in my heart
I can remember my anxiety and panic attacks reaching such a level and frequency that I was on the cusp of being put on medication. However, around the same time, my parents scheduled a time for me to meet with one of our gentlest elders at our home congregation. I only talked to him once, but that single instance of counsel was one of the most impactful and light-bringing moments in this dark period. He understood - he shared that he had experienced similar anxiety for similar reasons earlier in his own life. He didn’t pretend my feelings away - he listened and he shared. He spoke to my soul, to my faith and my hope. I remember my mental health beginning an upward climb after that conversation - that one moment was a major turning point.
If you do reach out and don’t get a helpful response, please try again. Feel the disappointment, that’s fair, but gather up your courage again. I know it’s hard. I know. But please never give up on yourself. God hasn’t.
Don’t give up on the rest of us, either. There are children of God who will persist in believing in you and in God’s plan for who you’re meant to be. Seek and you will find. There’s no guarantee when or where or how, but you will. And you might just find yourself becoming the kind of person others can reach out to, as well.
Wishing you goodness without end,
Jess