Allowing my self to exist....
So... graduation. It still doesn't really feel real, watching people get their results, getting my own, knowing that this is the culmination of all we've worked on for these three long years.... Three years that defined my life. Three years that made me who I am today, in a very real sense.
I was no one before I came to this school. Literally, not a person. I lived because the spark of the world told me to live and didn't tell me to die, and for no other reason. In these past three years, and in these past few months most noticeably, I've grown into a real person, someone who understands himself. And not just a person like any other, either, but my true self, who turned out to be a Mana.
Al-Revis Academy.... This place has done so much for me. It can do so much for so many people.... It can teach them to grow beyond what they are. But just as importantly, I think, it can teach them that it's okay to live as what they are, if what they are is something beyond the norm.
Flay was telling me last night... he was talking about how a lot of the kids at the school he went to on the mainland, the kids who he could tell really got alchemy, kept getting shot down by others for the way they acted... for wanting to be "special". But they didn't want to be special, they were special.... They did understand something those other people didn't get.
I didn't go to a school like that.... But still, when I thought I was human, I got the idea into my head that it was kinder, more polite to others, if I didn't try to stand out or be anything too amazing. So I tried to do the opposite... I tried to be quiet and not bother anyone, but people could still see I was different. It made me sad... I couldn't make those people happy because I couldn't stop being what I was enough, and I thought if I only tried harder... but it was not being what I was that was really the problem... what was making me unhappy, and what was making everyone around me unhappy....
In order to live as what I really am, I can't shy away from the fact that I'm different from humans. Even amongst alchemists... I'm special, because I'm a Mana. It's not something I want to lord over others. I don't want any kind of power for my own sake... I just want it to make other people happy. But it's something I have to be unshaken about, if I really want to embrace my power and what it can do. If I had tried to deny that I was anything special, I'd never have been able to come into myself in the first place. It was only by accepting that, in small stages, that I could become what I am today....
So I think an important thing that Al-Revis has taught me... is that it's okay if I'm special. And I guess what I hope others will take away from this is that, if they think they're special, too... they should search inside themselves, and not shy away, just to see if they really are... because you never know what might be hiding inside you, waiting to unfold, if you're only unafraid to believe that this really could be you....
I was no one before I came to this school. Literally, not a person. I lived because the spark of the world told me to live and didn't tell me to die, and for no other reason. In these past three years, and in these past few months most noticeably, I've grown into a real person, someone who understands himself. And not just a person like any other, either, but my true self, who turned out to be a Mana.
Al-Revis Academy.... This place has done so much for me. It can do so much for so many people.... It can teach them to grow beyond what they are. But just as importantly, I think, it can teach them that it's okay to live as what they are, if what they are is something beyond the norm.
Flay was telling me last night... he was talking about how a lot of the kids at the school he went to on the mainland, the kids who he could tell really got alchemy, kept getting shot down by others for the way they acted... for wanting to be "special". But they didn't want to be special, they were special.... They did understand something those other people didn't get.
I didn't go to a school like that.... But still, when I thought I was human, I got the idea into my head that it was kinder, more polite to others, if I didn't try to stand out or be anything too amazing. So I tried to do the opposite... I tried to be quiet and not bother anyone, but people could still see I was different. It made me sad... I couldn't make those people happy because I couldn't stop being what I was enough, and I thought if I only tried harder... but it was not being what I was that was really the problem... what was making me unhappy, and what was making everyone around me unhappy....
In order to live as what I really am, I can't shy away from the fact that I'm different from humans. Even amongst alchemists... I'm special, because I'm a Mana. It's not something I want to lord over others. I don't want any kind of power for my own sake... I just want it to make other people happy. But it's something I have to be unshaken about, if I really want to embrace my power and what it can do. If I had tried to deny that I was anything special, I'd never have been able to come into myself in the first place. It was only by accepting that, in small stages, that I could become what I am today....
So I think an important thing that Al-Revis has taught me... is that it's okay if I'm special. And I guess what I hope others will take away from this is that, if they think they're special, too... they should search inside themselves, and not shy away, just to see if they really are... because you never know what might be hiding inside you, waiting to unfold, if you're only unafraid to believe that this really could be you....