Publish your manuscript, OK?

Thumbing through Anita’s senior class yearbook, I was seeking a glimpse of who Anita was in high school. Yearbooks are not necessarily great gauges of a person – a few fuzzy pictures in some clubs you participated in, some not very deep comments from classmates who signed it.

I scanned through the hand written notes penned by those who spent the majority of time with her in the late 80s. What did her best friends say? What did her casual acquaintences say? Usually something about “can you belive we made it?” or “have fun this summer / at college”.

A few provide insights into how she touched kids in her school, even in adolescence. And one very nice letter ended with “Publish your manuscript, OK?” 

Hmmm. What manuscript could she be talking about? I didn’t find it unusual that I didn’t know about Anita’s writing or some “manuscript”. Anita rarely spoke of the past. But I was curious.

In the same box that contained her yearbooks, I found a thick manila file folder labeled “Anita Parker, Creative Writing, Period 6″. An the first thing inside was a five chapter essay entitled “PERFECTION: The Journey of Four Young People into the search for their Soulmate”.

Who was searching for their soulmate at 17 years old? Appearantly, four kids in her Journalism class that she wrote about. Or maybe just Anita via four fictional J-class students. Maybe it’s just me but I wasn’t thinking about a soulmate at 17. Or maybe it’s a guy/girl thing.

I flipped it open and started to read. I love reading her old writings. They are like hidden treasures, pieces of herself that she left us, oftentimes revealing some small aspect of her personality or life lesson she internalized.

So I read.

Chapter One
Perfection (The Definition)

I’m waiting
I’ve been waiting for a long while
Yet I do know know for whom
But I do know for what
He’s a man
A king, sweet, strong man
The man of my dreams
My soulmate
He will be perfect
Not perfect to unknowing eyes
But perfection is in the eye of the beholder
And I am the only beholder that really matters
I see our love portrayed in movies
Starry-eyes
Uncontrollable passions
Small spats soon resolved by soft kisses adn whispered apologies
These will soon be familiar to me
Me and my dream lover
So I watch
And I wait while others my age
Experience “love”
But it’s not the love I’m waiting for
Real love
If it ever comes
Only God and soft, familiar ballads keep me faithful
But time is ticking away
And my patience is wearing thin
As I sit
And I wait
I hope he comes soon
Because I’m getting tired
Of waiting
And I’d hate to be forced to settle for anything less than
Perfection.

I choked up. Writing as if speaking of the future me, the future us. A sappy teen story of true love. A love found. It was never perfect. 

But it was Perfection.