A Different Blue

by Amy Harmon

What we believe affects our choices, our actions, and subsequently, our lives.

“The beauty of that poem is that everybody can relate, because we all feel like nobody. We all feel like we are on the outside, looking in. We all feel scattered. But I think it’s that self-awareness that actually makes us somebody. And you are definitely somebody, Blue. You may not be a work of art, but you are definitely a piece of work.”

It was not hard to figure out that she was trying to emulate me, but she looked ridiculous, and for the first time I wondered if maybe I did too.

She said, ‘Life is all we have, and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.’

Joan of Arc said sacrificing who you are and living without belief was a fate worse than death. I had lived on hope for three years. Hope that Jimmy would come back for me. That night, hope died, as did my sense of self. I didn’t sacrifice who I was, not exactly. It was ripped from me. Jimmy’s little blackbird died a slow and painful death. In her place I built a gaudy, colorful, blue bird. A loud, obnoxious peacock with bright feathers, who dressed to call attention to her beauty at every moment, and craved affection. But it was all just a bright disguise.

I had to keep pinching myself through the conversation, but when it was over, I was convinced that, in the struggle to become a different Blue, my fortunes were changing too.

Redemption hadn’t saved me from consequence.

Regret is just life’s aftertaste. No matter what you choose, you’re gonna wonder if you shoulda done things different. I didn’t necessarily choose wrong. I just chose. And I lived with my choice, aftertaste and all.

You’re wrong about one thing, though. Girls like me notice guys like you. We just don’t think we deserve them.”

It was easy to see how a boy like that could go to Africa for two years or shun a medical profession for something simpler and less glamorous. It was harder to see how a boy like that, so inspired by a saint, could be attracted to a sinner like me.

“Someone told me once that to create true art you must be willing to bleed and let others watch.”

I stopped, considering. I was scarred, but I was not broken. Beneath my wounds I was still whole. Beneath my insecurities, beneath my pain, beneath my struggle, beneath it all, I was still whole.