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I was at the height of my empire, but by no means was I a young nation, even back then. But I was foolish and brash, and still mastering the art of making things bigger than myself. I was a powerful, volatile nation, and I was making something new. I was making you.
Making you was a messy task. I stained my best coat in the mud and it took me days to get the clay out from under my fingernails. It took me hours upon hours, but I willed your shape from the land. I dug my fingers into the moist ground and ripped and searched and tore until I found materials worthy of making you. The soil that made you is more favorable than the soil that made me, and unsurprisingly you are more favored than I. The hands that crafted me were motivated by war and by survival, but I made you out of curiosity and stubbornness. If I could make you, and if you lived, then it meant I had succeeded.
I shaped your core first, to house your soul. Little flecks of gold and quartz embedded themselves in your being and glistened like the stars. Perhaps that is why you have a heart of gold and why, despite being part of the land, you are always looking to the sky. You are a dreamer, and I fear for that I am to blame. I filled you with my own hopes and dreams and wishes as I forced the clay into your form, and when I was through I had given you everything and saved nothing for myself.
I made your legs and feet next. They had to be strong, to carry you across your vast lands and to allow you to climb to new heights. And that you did. What began as uncertain steps of a child, new to the world and unsteady, grew into the long and confident strides of a man. You never looked back to check who could not keep up. It was my own fault that I fell behind and lost sight of you.
Next came your arms, with which you now hold up the entire world. Had I known the responsibilities you would shoulder, I would have been more mindful in making them. Do you feel the cracks? Do you feel the strain on the seams where, in my impatience, I did not take the time to blend your joints into one cohesive limb? Does my haste hurt you, even now, all these years later? I am sorry, though I will never say it out loud. We both know you would never even believe me if I did. I never could have guessed the pressure you would be put under as I pressed the clay together and molded it into you.
Your hands were a more difficult task than your arms. In this, I did take my time because I expected them to be your most important tool. In a world where hunting, farming, and making were necessary for survival, I never anticipated what those hands, so small and with fingers so chubby, would do. You wrote declarations against me with those hands. With your hands that I shaped, you held up your rifle. You aimed it at me.
That was not the first time I knelt in the mud before you and dirtied my coat.
Is it silly of me that I cried both times?
I made your head last. I wonder if it was my love for the ocean that bled into you and made your eyes as blue as the beckoning sea. I wonder if my never ending pursuit of wealth made your hair as golden as fields of grain. I did not decide on your features, the shape of your nose, the cut of your jaw. My hands diligently obeyed the will of the land, and when they were finished and the task was done, you were there before me, beautiful and asleep.
It took three seasons before life was breathed into you. I was not there when you awoke.
When you opened your eyes were you met with sunlight? Or perhaps the shimmering galaxy of stars was your first sight? Maybe it overcast and stormy.
Were you frightened? Or did you learn fear later in life? Did I teach you to be afraid?
How long did you wait for me?
How long…
I do not think I could ever apologize enough for not being there when you needed me.
I wish I had never left…
In my dreams I still see the little boy with bright blue eyes begging me not to leave…
But you see, I was at the height of my empire…