THE PAINFUL LIFE OF A LONELY EXTRAVERT

Again, this is about having to work in black and white as the translator I will be. Very few times will I be allowed to use colour in exchange for money. Very few (such "experimental") books, The Neverending Story for example, employ colour in their fonts.

I worship Francesc Gómez Guillamón/neilabbott for not having met obstructive forces that derailed his career. I mean, a kindred spirit of mine who is a successful kawaii illustrator and character designer...

Long, long time ago,

I can still remember

how bright colours used to make me smile...

And I knew if I had a chance,

my characters would them entrance,

and maybe, they'd be happy for a while...

But then, Jesús Mey made me shiver

with criticism he delivered...

bad news on the doorstep...

I couldn't take one more step...

I can't remember if I cried

for having to write in black on white,

but something pierced me deep inside

the day my childhood died...

So I keep singing...

Bye, bye, Sandra Dermark, goodbye;

you left your dream and took your calling, 'tis too dull for your eye...

You'd love to turn left, but already gone right,

singing: "this would be the day that I died..."

So maybe this is like Maud Müller 2.0. You know, the farm girl who gave a dashing Judge Jenkins a drink and then both stood speechless, face to face, for a while. She wished to partake in high society, he wished to live a more simple life by her side. Yet, in the end, Reality imposes herself.

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
and his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
and Maud was left in the field alone.

Oh yes, the shadow of a dragon matriarch looms large. Like that of a psychologist who chaperoned one throughout her adolescence and attempted to live one's life constantly. Thus, I became a translation student with very little to use colour in the workplace; while a fashion victim socialite was chosen to play the role of Mrs. Jenkins:

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
he watched a picture come and go:

And sweet Maud Müller's hazel eyes
looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
he longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
to dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,
where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

And Sansa Stark, captive first of the royal court and then of her deranged aunt, wishes herself back to Winterfell. And Brienne, in wartorn lands, misses Tarth terribly. While Maud Müller marries an uncultured, unlearned lager lout (surely, her parents also had made that match) and they spawn like rabbits. Yet she cannot stop dreaming about a possible high society alternate reality in which she is Mrs. Jenkins:

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
on the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

and she heard the little spring brook fall
over the roadside, through the wall,

in the shade of the apple-tree again
she saw a rider draw his rein,

and, gazing down with timid grace,
she felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
stretched away into stately halls;

the weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
the tallow candle an astral burned;

a manly form at her side she saw,
and joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
saying only, "It might have been."

Pity on them both! and pity on us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

It might have been. Then, let me write it down: Sandra Dermark might have been an illustrator or character designer, as she wanted to be one as a child to entertain others. To give them respite and solace, feelings like the ones she was given by such creative people, that made her forget that she lived a life full of absence and coldness. I am Maud Müller, Sansa Stark, Brienne of Tarth. We all have had childhood dreams. And it's painful to see them come undone. It fills one with longing for what could have been. 
Drawn by infatuation, whim, passion, and impulse, and seeing them all shattered at one fell swoop... To "never breathe a word about my loss" is not that easy.
I am writing this part in orange to appease my need for colour. A need that, like that for kindred company, has rarely been satisfied. Not only am I a translator in love with bright colours... but also a lonely extravert.