You Are Not The Work You Make

You are not the work you make.

You are not the words you write and say; the lines you draw. You are not the connections you make.

The sculptor knows the hand she shapes wet is not hers. She makes nail beds; carving the winks and kinks of the knuckle, She knows once it is formed that she must let it go.

We make things, we say a thing, we build a thing we throw some symbols together in an open space and justlikethat it works.

You heave and sweat and make love all night and feel sick mornings later and stop bleeding and nearly a year later you heave again and you birth a child. He’s beautiful even if he’s not. He looks like you in the slightest nuance even when he doesn’t yet, and you celebrate and you pop champagne and although he was made from you in heat and love in strings of stories told in chromosomes, he is no longer yours. And he will break your heart a million times before you realize it.

We are not what we bear. We are not what we give or receive.

We are the thought that counts. We are the decisions and the motivation behind it. We are the people we sit with and share with. We are behind the smile, we are the kindness. We are what we walk away from, what we fear. We are what we do every single day, but after we do it, it is not ours. We can’t own it. We can be grateful for the effect that what we made has had on others. We can thank our God for allowing us to be the portal for which something we are proud of has entered this world.

And although we love it, we must let it go. We must know that even if it never brings us a cent, or loves us back, to love it anyway. Make it anyway, give it all away. Enjoy it for the journey. We are better for it.

Originally published at medium.com