Day Fifty Eight - Link The First

I call this post Link The First because I am a HUGE Zelda nerd and I know myself well enough that there will be more than one posting about Link. Frankly, I'm shocked it took me 58 days to get to the first one. (Linz, tell these people what I'm talking about.) Also, let me take this moment of your time to clarify that though the games are all under the name, "The Legend of Zelda", the character you play is named "Link". I have no desire to be Zelda, she gets kidnapped about as much as Princess Peach, though her dresses are much cooler. But in my soul, since I was a little girl, I have longed to be Link. I dress up like Link for Halloween. I have many, many times tried to talk myself into getting the triforce tattooed on my hand. (Seriously, how legit would that be!?) Or really, anywhere on my body. Link was everything I wanted to be when I was little. Except being a boy. I never wanted to be a boy. But really, in that little tunic thing, who was going to know? I wanted to save whole worlds. I wanted to explore abandoned temples, preferably ones without dungeon masters because those things still creep me out. I wanted to befriend water people, learn their secrets, and be able to breathe under water. I wanted to dance to the drums of the Gorons. I wanted to learn the secret of the forest's song while getting lost in there. I wanted to sit on mountain tops and learn to play new songs. I wanted to have my sword glow with my power and deal justice swiftly. I wanted to master the bow and arrow. I REALLY wanted that hat.

And I didn't want the annoying thing on my shoulder always telling me things I already knew, and yet that's the one thing I got. Go figure.

I tell you about my passion for Link because tonight, something in my heart wants to leave this tiny apartment and go out into the wild blue yonder and find adventure. And I hope, I hope it's by the sea. Because I really, really love the sea. Go to this Link (aren't double meanings fun?) to see if this longing for salt water resonates as strongly in you as it does in me. I digress. I long for adventure, and know I have nothing stopping me, and yet I curl up in layers of sweaters and drink my precious tea and stare out at the sparkly night and continue to long. Because the wind whispers that its not time yet. Not quite yet. The adventure is on it's way, but as any great adventurer knows, we don't choose when we begin. Or who we'll meet along the way. Or where we're going. Or how we get there. We great adventurers know that we just say yes when the call comes, and the rest will fall into place. Or we die horribly over and over again until we google how to beat that boss. Some parts of the analogy don't cross over into real life as well as I'd like.

The point remains that Link didn't go looking for adventure. But adventure was always going to come to him. Saving Zelda and Hyrule was always going to be his destiny. (Oooh, someone please remind me that Link's salvation of Hyrule, only to give up all power to Zelda, deserves its own post and discourse in due time. Oooh someone else remind me that his fade into obscurity and legend while living life as an outcast is another.) He couldn't rush it anymore than he could postpone it. Same as me. Not all little girls are born with the desire to slay dragons and save the world, but I was. Somewhere out there in the wintery night, my adventure is building. If I close my eyes and listen hard enough, I can almost hear my shout of victory echoing back through time to encourage me now. "Wait," the winter wind whispers to me again, "Soon."

Until my next adventure comes for me, for this will not be my first, I will content myself by reading of the heroes of old. Biblical patriarchs, and matriarchs, the women of Austen, the heroes of A.A. Milne, Hobbits and Elves and Men, poets who fought valiantly for imagination and expression and memory, soldiers who redefined bravery, saints who died bravely, and learn from all of them. Whoever said you only had to be one type of hero? I will be them all. I will fight the darkness for the glory of the Light, I will be honored among women, I will be childlike in my motivations, I will be big of heart though I may not be big of height, I will find new ways to express beauty, the human heart, and all the wonders of all the worlds that have been and will be, I will fight for what is good and true and honorable, and I will greet death like an old friend for I will be very tired at the end of my life, having fit so much living into such a short time.