Since I Can’t Give You Everything Yet

I was practically raised in a bookstore. We lived in the country, but my parents both worked downtown when I was little. My childhood is a vivid sequence that revolves around getting a new book, reading my new book, finishing it, and demanding the next one. It didn’t matter how many books I got in one trip, how thick they were, or whether I was supposed to be doing homework in that time. They’d be gone in two weeks. My parents spent most of my childhood trying to figure out how to keep me in my books, and now in my adulthood the only thing that’s changed is I’m financing my addiction. 

The earliest story I still have that I wrote was when I was nine years old. It’s so bad it hurts. I have kept almost every journal and sketchbook I made since then, and in them are words and pictures that make me cringe internally, but slowly as I age, have potential. I started writing seriously when I was fifteen because that was the only way to get the bad thoughts out. I tried to stop at sixteen, when I was “cured”, and found that I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. How could I? Writing reminded me of going to the bookstore as a kid.

I’ve mentioned another book before that I was trying to publish. It never saw the light of day. I’m not sure why exactly, since I spent years getting it ready. I think it was just me who wasn’t ready to share it yet. Something in me was still pretending that writing was temporary.

My novel is now copyrighted. A cover is being designed. Printing expenses have been taken into account. I’m actually going to do this, guys. Something about this process, this book specifically, the way that I look at writing now as my source of calm instead of a panicked remedy, has made me feel more like I was before I had to grow up than ever before. Do you ever wonder if your entire life is spent trying to get yourself back to that place of childhood, when you were bright and trusting and loved very specific things unabashedly? Or is that just me? Either way, here I am, and for the first time in a very long time, that feeling of complete trust in my words is there every time I write.

When I was a kid and would go to those bookstores, one of my hobbies was going to the shelves lined in alphabetical order, and finding the spot where my last name would go. I would stick my finger between the books crowding my own, and wonder what it would look like to see my own name on a bookshelf. How many books would I have? What would be the popular ones, what would be the underground ones, would they get their own table? I guess this is the first step towards that.

This is not the first book I’ve tried to publish. It will not be my last. The cover photo of this blog entry is a painting by my dear friend Emma Frey, who painted it when I told her about my book. It is one of my most prized possessions now. Below, is an excerpt from my book, that might show you why I love this painting so much.

One night, a girl went to the sea to ask for a favor. “Will you tell the boy I love,” she wanted to say, “that I am thinking of him? Will you tell him that he will never be alone in this world, for as long as I am in it?”

But she never got the chance. For scarcely had she started her message, when the sea told her, “Girl, you are not the only one who seeks my help. I have a message from a boy, who says that he thinks of you night and day. He says he prays constantly that you return to him, and sends to you a love so strong that it fared every storm, and that not even the great deep could make it lose its way.”

The girl’s eyes grew wide as saucers, and she felt her heart sing. But her mind held her back enough to ask the sea, “How do I know that that is from the boy I love?”

The sea sighed a little, and replied, “I guess you’ll have to trust the world to help you find him.”

©2020, Cassidie Cox. All rights reserved.

This will be available soon. Keep a lookout. Until then, I hope you enjoy this tiny piece of the thing I’ve poured everything into. Please accept this small excerpt and count it as the beginning. Please know it is my heart, and it is all I have to give.