A Letter From Rae

We had lost ourselves trying to become who we were supposed to be.

We had fallen so deeply into the stories written by those around us that we had forgotten how to live in our own.

We found ourselves trapped in the fear of judgement, failure, and uncertainty.

We had looked outward for the answers to all our questions.

We looked to our parents, teachers, peers and the TV for guidance.

We hoped that someone would just tell us the truth.
We defined the answers gathered as our own truth.

We were just following the script.

The story we were told.

Playing the roles designed by the expectations of those around us. Hoping that if we played the part just right — we would be the ones THEY’D cast in OUR movie.

But we didn’t get the part.

And we began to question our own significance in the story. We began to recognize the disguise we had been wearing. After a few years of restlessly searching for the truth on two entirely separate paths, TJ and I found ourselves both on the porch of the home we both grew up in.

We had found ourselves back at the place where our lives began. Desperately trying to make sense of the void we had both felt at this very moment in our lives.

Trying to remember who we were before we were told who we were supposed to be.

For the very first time we looked inward for the answer to this question.

What we FOUND was the art we had left behind.

We sat there for hours listening to the collection of music TJ wrote in his early high school years. For the first time I carefully listened to the lyrics. His message was not just his. It was mine too.

And all of ours.

At the very same moment our perspectives aligned; inspiring me to look through my old sketchbooks. We remembered everything. As if we had just woken up from a societally induced coma.

Everything we had known, believed, and learned from that moment on had an entirely different significance.

We realized that his music and my artwork was the TRUTH. That no one ever could give us the answer. Because it was inside of us the whole time.

We found the TRUTH in the stories WE wrote.

Stories of our fears, values, doubts, and uncertainties. His music spoke to me the same message as the stories depicted in my artworks. This intense, almost psychic connection inspired the both of us to face our fears and BE who we have always been.

Now, 3 years later I live in my fullest expression.

I took off my TV head and became an architect.

I live to create and spread art that I believe in.

I am no longer playing the victim in someone else’s movie.

I live in my story.