My origin story wasn’t written in ink; it was scratched out in found graphite on stolen printer paper.
As a child, my world was defined by what we didn’t have. We were poor, the kind of poor that makes dreaming feel dangerous. But I had a secret weapon: I could create worlds where money didn’t matter. I never asked my family for supplies. I knew the answer would be silence or a sigh of defeat. Instead, I became a scavenger. I hunted hallways for lost pencils and accepted charity paper from teachers. One teacher, recognizing a hunger in me that went beyond food, gave me an illustration desk. That desk was my sanctuary. By high school, I wasn’t just a kid doodling; I was a comic book illustrator in waiting.
Then came the summer before senior year. The summer of the “Real World.”
My parents didn’t hate art. They feared poverty. When they looked at my sketches, they didn’t see heroes or creativity; they saw a path that led back to the struggle we were living in. They loved me enough to want stability for me, but they were too afraid to believe that passion could pay the bills.
”It’s time to grow up,” they told me. “Art won’t support a family.”
They didn’t burn my things; they made me do something far harder. They made me carry them out. I had to lift that heavy drafting desk, the symbol of the one adult who believed in my talent, and march it to the curb. I watched the trash collector take the physical evidence of my soul away. I didn’t fight them because I didn’t want to disappoint them. I buried the artist to save the son.
For 20 years, I lived the life they wanted for me. I worked a “real” job as a web developer. I paid bills. I survived. I did everything right, but the world felt grey, rendered in low resolution.
But here is the truth about creativity: it is not a possession you can throw in the trash. It is not a desk you can leave on a curb. It is a way of seeing.
One day, I realized that while I had thrown away the paper, I had kept the eyes. I still saw the muscle anatomy of a stranger on the bus. I still saw the dramatic lighting of a storm rolling in. I still plotted arcs for heroes in my head. My parents had blown out the candle to keep the house from burning down, but they hadn’t realized the ember was buried deep in the wick.
Picking up a pencil again felt heavy, not because I had forgotten how to draw, but because I had to forgive myself for stopping. I had to forgive my parents for being scared.
I am no longer the boy scavenging for pencils in the hallway. I am a man who knows that stability is important, but a life without creation is just existence. The desk is gone, but the hands remain. The spark was never truly out; it was just waiting for me to be brave enough to fan the flame again.