Since you left, I lost an anchor. Since you died, nothing is keeping me here… except being here. You know, to finish what I started.

Now that you’re gone, I have room to think about whether or not I am happy. It didn’t matter then. What mattered was that was here with you. You were getting old, they told me, you wouldn’t have much time left. So I decided to come here and stay here until it was time for me to move on to other opportunities. I’d be with you four years more, like it used to be when you had just retired, when I was just a baby, before we moved south.

No one thought you would leave so early. We all thought you would live to be a hundred. So in my personal timeline, I could spend my college years with you ‘til your 95th, go away and make something of myself for a while, then come back to celebrate your 100th, make a few more mistakes and tell you about them at your 105th… Your departure didn’t work well in anyone’s schedules. Not mine, not at all.

Now that you’re gone, I can say that I hate it here. I hate school because I hate what I study. I hate being stuck because I’ve known what it feels to fly. I hate being left behind by dreams I’ve had all this time that I’ve forgotten and now remembered. I hate myself, how I look, how I think, what I do and can’t do, what I say and can’t say. I hate what I feel. I hate that I hate. I hate that I’m unhappy. Having you around made it worth it, and now that you’re gone, I’m working up the courage to tell your daughter that I’m not happy. I can only hope for her to understand. You would have.

Since you left, I’ve started running. I run on a treadmill because I don’t know where to go. I run in circles around the village because I can’t get to where I want to be. I run because I forget that I’m unhappy. I run so that by the time I get home, I plunge into a deep sleep that knows no unhappiness.