Dear... Down to Earth
I knew you once, in that weird way that you can 'know' someone online while still remaining completely anonymous. We frequented the same forum. I don't know how I had found it, but something about the sunset pink and purple UI of that little unknown anime board just drew me in and kept me there. My then-love of all things Magical Girls probably helped in that.
I found the art sub board before long. I was at the point in my life where I was sure I'd be an artist after high school, majoring in animation like everyone I followed on Tumblr, but like many high schoolers raised on Tumblr, I was too anxious to share much of what I'd created. The art thread ended up being full of that same type of young artist as me, so after a while of lurking, I finally began to post. I was happy to be in that circle as we all posted our art with self deprecating comments, while everyone else responded with nothing but love and support. It may not have been the most constructive environment and I knew it, but even still, I treasured the interactions.
Whenever I saw your art, though, I didn't know why you still hung around all of us. You were clearly leaps and bounds above us all in technical ability. Your digital painting floored me and everyone else whenever you posted. Even now, looking at what few pieces still exist in a Google search, I'm still completely in love with the way you were able to blend colors into one another. The character expressions were not clearly anime, nor western, or any 'popular style' like I had tried to latch onto. You had done human studies. You had done painting studies. Both of those are pretty clear. I couldn't believe the effort you were able to put into your art, and how much you already had learned. And still you stayed with us as we drew anime-inspired doodles and gushed with us all the same. I felt so... small compared to you. You were the Earth, and I was still just me.
I wish I could find the piece you drew for me: a reward for winning a little character-creation contest. Her pose and expression still live in my mind: her soft desperation, reaching up towards an unseen light, hoping to be pulled into the world, 'Find Your Voice' is what the caption said- I think. I hope. If the details will only ever live in me anymore, then I hope I'm getting them right.
Still, your art wasn't your only inspiration for me. It was your love of Astronomy. You were so, so enamored with space in the most technical way. I had once only thought in dreamy stars, the soft types that decorate My Melody memorabilia or Astrology aesthetic blogs. Their stars were magical. But your stars? You saw them as they are - the giant balls of gas that burn so far away that I can't name a distance. There was a beauty there I never realized - the fact we can SEE them from our little blue dot and not even fathom how many more that we can't.The beauty was in the vast universe and its grandeur. That stuck with me, far more than my love of art. I couldn't say why; I don't know if I can even now.
I left the forum unceremoniously when I simply forgot to log in after a while. I had moved on. Only after a few years did I think back to that pink and purple UI, in a completely different city than I had logged into it last. Do you remember the magical girl you had drawn for an art trade we had planned? She had blunt cut black hair and a bit of andesert aesthetic, red and maroon color scheme with a little pocket watch hanging from the sash at her hip. I drew her, too, as part of the trade. And, years later, I made a D&D character who looked nearly identical to her. Internal inspiration? Sheer dumb luck? I'm not sure, but it made me remember you.
By that point in time, you were away from the forum, too. You were gone from most social media, actually. All of the accounts you had once linked were inactive or deleted. I looked through all of them still, hoping to maybe find a loose thread, until somehow I ran across your Twitter. Your handle was such clever, science-y nonsense it took me a second to get it, and far longer to stop laughing. It wasn't super active, but it certainly wasn't dead. In your description, it said you were majoring in Astrophysics. I read that and beamed at my computer screen. I was so happy for you, enough that it surprised me. It seemed so right.
I was so ready to send you a message, and then I stopped. What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, remember me from years ago in your anime phase that you're probably not still in? we didn't talk much then, but i stalked you through the internet to tell you i accidentally plagiarized your design. haha, funny, right?' Seriously? If it were Deviantart or something it may have felt less weird, but Twitter was suddenly so personal. It was so much less anonymous than we ever were. What if you didn't want to be found by your past? What if you thought I was as much of a creep as I felt like?
I stared at your Twitter for far too long. I bookmarked it, and left it to be.
A little over a year later, I found that bookmark again. That Twitter is deleted now. The forum is gone, too, probably overrun by the Russian spam bots I had seen starting to flock there the last time I went looking for you. I will admit, I still tried to dig after you for a bit after, but I stopped soon enough. It was too weird, thinking of going deeper to find information on a person I barely knew, and you have the right not to be found.
Your influence has kind of stuck with me, Earth. I have tried and failed in college so many times already. I don't want to burden you with the details of my ineptitude, even if you never read this, but know that, no matter how many times I fail it, I keep coming back to Physics. Something about it calls to me. I think there is beauty in it and the everything that it represents. The everything in the space you revealed to me.
I hope you're still out there, somewhere, still pursuing Astrophysics. I won't keep looking for you. But maybe, if I keep being pulled in by Physics, we'll meet again one day. I still don't know what I'd say; best leave it until then.