Obsession - by Heather Havrilesky - ASK MOLLY

This post is for the person who has written to me 16 times in the past three months. I understand narrowing down your whole life to a single point of light. I get it and I do it. It’s a sign that you’re an artist living inside the body of a pedestrian. It’s a sign that you are a poet pretending to be a civilian. It’s a sign that your life is gray and sullen, but inside you lives a clean, pure being made of radiant colors. In order to thrive, you have to expand that single obsessive pinpoint of light until it’s as wide as the sun. The pinpoint demeans you. You put on a collar and a leash every morning. You tell yourself that this is all you deserve. I would publish your letters here but the last thing I want is to diminish you further. Because I am exactly the same as you. I want connection, but I also have a bad habit of fixating on the exact people who can barely see me at all, who don’t understand and don’t want to, who are built to reject me. A person can resist the temptation to do

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