THE OUTSIDER

Love Letters from America,

Today, marks my one year anniversary as an American Citizen. Something that made sense to very little people in my life. My love for this country was tested and questioned. Riddled with confusion and mishaps. Violence even, Full of trials and tribulations and pain. So much pain… Of the times I was close to give up, I rather not speak of. Not days, weeks, months or even years. Decades spent only on a feeling. Reality all around me seemed to prove me wrong. My eyes couldn’t see and my hands couldn’t touch. My heart was so certain. I could not possibly be so deceived. To love something that does not love me… I lost my mind so many times… yet my heart persisted. I learned that to love is enough. To commit is enough. To dream is enough…

In America, they let you dream…

The supreme right of the American is the right to Dream. A country of fantasy and exaggeration. Of loudness and impossibility. Of transfigured reality. America isn’t real. It’s a depiction of all realities. A Cosmos of our collective shames and our chaotic pureness. A distorted mirror of our most inner desires. A sample of us. The rest of the world points their fingers in reproach and judgement, unable to recognize they speak only of their sins.

Here they let you dream… Here, anything can be manifested and brought to reality when you have imagination, here. Here reality bends to your wishes and desires.

Finally, I am here. To have others experience what you prophesied, have them see what once existed only in your heart, sounds like the ultimate achievement. But it pales in comparison to the burning desire you had in you all along, for the pleasure comes in keeping the flame alive. How much of yourself are you willing to burn down to keep your dreams alive… To live, to experience, to learn that nothing need be outside of your heart.

America understands me.

To Love you is enough. It has always been enough.

Love,

Filipa