Every Day in May (grand prize winner) ✔

May 6th

I laughed when I saw today's question—so simple and nonthreatening. It will be nice to get through this letter without crying or feeling an overwhelming urge to throw things. It's a good question, too—one I might have asked myself if I were in your place. 

The answer is no.  I have worked countless jobs, most of them at school, but I have never been employed by your parents.

My work life consists mainly of laundry folding and vegetable peeling. I feel it would be uninteresting to describe it at any length.  Unlike me, you've never had to work for your bread, but I have it on good authority that you've envisioned yourself in a career of sorts.

As a child, you wanted to be a ship's captain, sailing down the river and out into the open sea.  The world would be set before you, nothing standing between you and the unknown, save for the endless horizon and the sea which floats out to meet it. As a little boy, you dreamed of this escape.  Could you have had the ambition to break free if you hadn't already known, even at that tender age, that you were trapped?

Later, as the gleam of unblemished childhood transformed itself into a dull despondency, you commanded fewer and fewer imaginary voyages to uncharted lands.  Finally, one day, you beached your boat and left it there to rot upon the sand. 

You knew you'd never command a vessel, but you would command a nation. That was to be your life. One day, your name would be spoken aloud for all to hear, and then, not a single person would forget it.

That thought sustained you for a while, no doubt. To go from a small handful of people knowing you exist to every last person in the world—it had to be appealing. 

Yet, you still dream now and then of a boat blanched by the sun as it lies upon the shore and the places it could take you. 

So do I.   

I dream that one day you will follow, not the temptation of power, but the pull of adventure. You will find the rocky path leading away from the Tower and take it all the way until it meets the sea—and I will be there, standing on the prow of your ship. Together we will make it seaworthy again. 

We will sail beyond the horizon to make the unknown lands known and if no one recognizes your name but me, you won't feel your life was any less than full because of it.