Who I Was Born to Be
Some time ago, before it opened again, the University of Kalimdor led a trip to the Dark Portal. My eye sight was poor, and when we stood on a hill, at a safe distance away, I could only barely make it out. I could see blue fog in a frame of grey stone, but that was all.
Then one of the orcs passed around some spyglasses, and we took turns getting a closer look. Inside the fog was dark space and stars. The stone, of course, was not a simple frame, but carved into dark-hooded figures holding resting swords. For one moment, everything was sharp and clear. When I passed the spyglass on, I could not longer see those features, but my view of the portal was still changed.
I have spent so much time looking at my life, and seeing just the generalities. The things that happened to me were awful, and I was the result of those awful things. I've been trying so hard to change that, in one way or another. Get over it, forget, accept, move on, everything aimed at making myself who I think I'd be if the pain were magically erased.
For one moment, that theoretical magic became a very real possibility, and everything came into focus. I could see the details I was blind to before.
It isn't just that my past has made me, it is that those events were necessary to make me. Change anyone of them, and while the pain would be gone, so would I.
The Keepers of Time prevent little things from being altered for personal benefit. This isn't quite like stopping a foolish mage from winning the lottery, but that one moment caused a broken-hearted hunter to die for the horde, and led a lost woman to haunt a fallen kingdom. It's nothing in the scope of the world, but is at the centre of everything we are now.
I found with some surprise, I like who I am. And this mixed up, jigsaw puzzle of a person would not exist without every second of pain and sorrow. It was all required. There is no need to spend so much energy trying to change that.
I am who I was meant to be.
Then one of the orcs passed around some spyglasses, and we took turns getting a closer look. Inside the fog was dark space and stars. The stone, of course, was not a simple frame, but carved into dark-hooded figures holding resting swords. For one moment, everything was sharp and clear. When I passed the spyglass on, I could not longer see those features, but my view of the portal was still changed.
I have spent so much time looking at my life, and seeing just the generalities. The things that happened to me were awful, and I was the result of those awful things. I've been trying so hard to change that, in one way or another. Get over it, forget, accept, move on, everything aimed at making myself who I think I'd be if the pain were magically erased.
For one moment, that theoretical magic became a very real possibility, and everything came into focus. I could see the details I was blind to before.
It isn't just that my past has made me, it is that those events were necessary to make me. Change anyone of them, and while the pain would be gone, so would I.
The Keepers of Time prevent little things from being altered for personal benefit. This isn't quite like stopping a foolish mage from winning the lottery, but that one moment caused a broken-hearted hunter to die for the horde, and led a lost woman to haunt a fallen kingdom. It's nothing in the scope of the world, but is at the centre of everything we are now.
I found with some surprise, I like who I am. And this mixed up, jigsaw puzzle of a person would not exist without every second of pain and sorrow. It was all required. There is no need to spend so much energy trying to change that.
I am who I was meant to be.