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I've been in a Darrow a year.
Just like that.
I wouldn't believe it if not for the date on every calendar I've checked today, every email sent my way. Part of me is proud of the fact that I've made it this long in this strange yet beautiful place. Part of me is terrified that it's been so long since everything changed. I still don't know if it changed for the better, I'm not sure there is such thing as change for the better – I'm starting to think there's just change and you can accept it or live in denial.
Today, I'm done living in denial.
I'd read about the Mailbox to Somewhere Else some time ago. I'd thought about who I might want to write to. My mother, maybe, or a friend from back on Earth. I like to think that I'd reached a point of closure with them though. I like to think that I left them on good terms even if they didn't all agree with what I was doing.
At least they accepted my right to.
Somebody didn't. A person on my mind almost every minute of every hour of every day, even when I try to push him away. How do you forget the person who woke you up to an indescribably lonely fate? Somebody who decided they knew you well enough to mess up your life forever? How do you forgive that person?
I've given it a lot of thinking.
And I've come to realize that there's no forgiveness for them. There's no forgiveness for Jim. He might as well have murdered me when he hacked into my hibernation pod. He kept a lie from me for an entire year I was awake – a different kind of anniversary but a significant one all the same. His intentions might not have been cruel but his actions were irrevocably so.
I've decided to forgive him anyway, because it's exhausting carrying around this anger. This grief. I can't say there won't be days when I don't feel the ache of missing him and anger at myself for feeling that way. I can't guarantee anything, only that the moment I drop this letter into this box to elsewhere, I will no longer be beholden to Jim Preston.
When I find myself faced with the colourful box, though, I can't help but hesitate for a moment or maybe it's a minute. I don't think this will ever find him, but I imagine his face as he reads the words. The anguish. The regret. Everything he would have felt when I drunkenly told him that I never, ever would have loved him.
I still wonder sometimes if I did.
It doesn't matter any more. I drop the letter and turn away to walk back through the park, not realizing I'm crying until the salt of tears reach my mouth.
Just like that.
I wouldn't believe it if not for the date on every calendar I've checked today, every email sent my way. Part of me is proud of the fact that I've made it this long in this strange yet beautiful place. Part of me is terrified that it's been so long since everything changed. I still don't know if it changed for the better, I'm not sure there is such thing as change for the better – I'm starting to think there's just change and you can accept it or live in denial.
Today, I'm done living in denial.
I'd read about the Mailbox to Somewhere Else some time ago. I'd thought about who I might want to write to. My mother, maybe, or a friend from back on Earth. I like to think that I'd reached a point of closure with them though. I like to think that I left them on good terms even if they didn't all agree with what I was doing.
At least they accepted my right to.
Somebody didn't. A person on my mind almost every minute of every hour of every day, even when I try to push him away. How do you forget the person who woke you up to an indescribably lonely fate? Somebody who decided they knew you well enough to mess up your life forever? How do you forgive that person?
I've given it a lot of thinking.
And I've come to realize that there's no forgiveness for them. There's no forgiveness for Jim. He might as well have murdered me when he hacked into my hibernation pod. He kept a lie from me for an entire year I was awake – a different kind of anniversary but a significant one all the same. His intentions might not have been cruel but his actions were irrevocably so.
I've decided to forgive him anyway, because it's exhausting carrying around this anger. This grief. I can't say there won't be days when I don't feel the ache of missing him and anger at myself for feeling that way. I can't guarantee anything, only that the moment I drop this letter into this box to elsewhere, I will no longer be beholden to Jim Preston.
When I find myself faced with the colourful box, though, I can't help but hesitate for a moment or maybe it's a minute. I don't think this will ever find him, but I imagine his face as he reads the words. The anguish. The regret. Everything he would have felt when I drunkenly told him that I never, ever would have loved him.
I still wonder sometimes if I did.
It doesn't matter any more. I drop the letter and turn away to walk back through the park, not realizing I'm crying until the salt of tears reach my mouth.
