of course

(a quick shot at what the original sketch photographed to be)

I will never be able to explain what compels me to draw her over and over and over again.  

I think I nicknamed Colleen "little dove" not simply because her usual design sports a pair of wings upon her head, but also because she brings me peace of mind.  Colleen has been, in my imagination, every single archetypal role of any human idea imaginable that I've ever needed in order to achieve some sort of catharsis:  A queen, a lover, a mother, an orphan, a child, a slave, a heroine, a scapegoat, a friend.  Does it matter?

There are many different types of people in the world and I'm the type that, when I'm at my loneliest, I turn inwards for comfort.  When I'm inside my head, I never feel alone because, for some reason or another, Colleen and Lale (of course, but seeing as this is Leen's picture he won't get much of a mention here) exist so wholly for me that I write with them, I draw them, I converse with them, and I even dream about them - and sometimes, they talk back.  As recent as yesterday night, November 11th 2012, I met with them in a lucid dream and they talked to me and they're so, so real, too real for my humble imagination to simply have conjured.  I woke up with heart thumping because it was so real - their voices, the inclination of Lale's head when he's being sly, the way Colleen's eyes crinkle when she smiles - that I expected to see them beside my bed when I woke up, and I was horribly disappointed when they weren't there.  

I fully understand that nobody loves Colleen and Lale as much as I do, and I'm also aware of the implications of my own vanity at loving two people who are, real to me or not, my creations.  But they are my pillars of support; I've been relying on these two imaginary friends for consolation, for alleviating my loneliness since I was a young child, and I'm far from becoming independent from their presences, now.  It's like having a relationship with God, I think, but don't quote me on that and start some super zealously polarized religious argument; this is only what I feel.   

Here is one such attempt at me to draw Colleen as realistically as I can muster - which is not saying much, considering my ridiculously unrealistic style.  But it's a legitimate attempt, niggling flaws aside.  I am without tablet or proper scanner, so a photograph and plenty of mouse + photoshop is the best I can do for now.

I admit that there have been times in reality where I've met a few girls that look a bit like how I've seen Colleen - her heart-shaped face, her specific shade of blueish-grayish eyes, the arch of her brow, the shell of her ear.  And it's always made my heart constrict, yearning for her to be someone real out here that I can hold and love, instead of someone in my head, where I can only apologetically tell her that I love her, but cannot hold her.  

I believe that when I die, Lale and Colleen will still exist somewhere outside of me.  That, maybe, when I die the two of them will be released into the world to be born as real people and one day meet each other, fall in love, and wonder why they feel like they must've been together in some sort of a past life.  Maybe then, one of them will imagine someone like me, and that way, I'll be able to be with them forever.