(This was originally written as a Common App essay in the context of university applications)
Time. I dream of time. If I could have one wish, I would wish to be immortal so I could waste time. Wasting time is impossible when you have a limited amount of it. Every tick on the clock is a drip of blood out of an open wound called life. Where the dreamer can complain about having too much time, I dream of leaving this world with the knowledge that I could have done more with more time.
I woke up on January 1st. I had 525600 minutes left to this chapter in my biography. The humid chilly wind of the northern Laurentides filled my lungs with hope and a naïve yet blissful belief that 2020 was my year. And it was. Sometimes you just get what you wish for in an unexpected giftwrap.
Until March, I went about my business, rarely straying from the path that was drawn out for me, being content with casual conversations with my classmates around a water fountain, something surprisingly unthinkable just a little over 60 years ago. I occasionally skipped a class here and there, never more, comfortable in a monotonous 18-year-old marriage with a predictable “girl” named Time dressed properly, with long skirts and high socks.
One day. I realized how little I did with Time. We spent our days watching YouTube videos, sharing a blanket, exhausting our eyes staring at a tiny football, a political speech or a comedy show on a luminous cellphone screen, akin to the gates of heaven in the darkness of my cubic room. I wanted freedom, I needed change.
So I decided to spice up my relationship with Time. I hosted a social gathering she’d most certainly frown at, with cheap LED lights and loud music. 250 strangers in a confined space with the sole purpose of shortening our dinner date with Time. My sleep schedule and my companion disagreed. But in the space of 43800 minutes (a month), I simultaneously was an accountant, an entertainer, a guest, a host, a businessman and a diplomat. It was wonderful.
Initially, Time was quite shocked with my choice. However, when I expected her to leave, she simply adapted. Short skirts and tight shirts embraced her hourglass frame just as well as her previous attire. Even the emperor’s new clothes could not get the plaudits her outfit did. I liked New Time. Then a plague froze the world around us.
In the middle of a world being shattered, the world found out about the silenced voice inside of me. The one who worried about my guardians when I walked back home at night, reminding me I was not the one they intended to help with their good intentions, the voice that only got 28 days a year to be ignored and 337 to be discredited.
Suddenly, Time told me her parents were warming up to the idea that my blackness was, at last, more than an outfit I could wear on sad days or a dialect that made everyone at the table uncomfortable. I believed her. I unleashed my voice and asked, no, demanded a seat at the table. But she said, “Now is not your time, negro”. Oh Time, how cruel you can be at times.
Time, I truly do love you. You may hate me, you may rebuke my kind, yet you always leave me hanging by a thread and grasping at straws. You are the thurible whose incense separates my body and soul. Yet I still want your validation. I cannot stop you, but I will change your world. A world where mine and yours are equal. This summer may have been the start, but I know you’ll see the day my dream comes, your hand in mine, by my side, as always.
With Love,
Trae
Trae Davis 