I will be okay
It’s been 5 months and a bit since I left her. When I first left our house in September 2024 it was a haze, the relief of a pain subsiding and the feeling of something momentous happening mingling together in the busyness of getting set up for myself. Then came the pain and anger and the realization that with the coming out came the giving up, of my being a father to my daughter.
In the beginning it is tough, because perhaps for the first time in my life I experience this thing called “grief”. Grief settles like a heavy wet blanket around my shoulders, making it difficult to breathe and work. I get up and walk around and look busy and thoughtful and try to escape somehow but it pulls me in, sucking the ability to think and act. There are meetings to sit in and plans to make, and I come home and smile to my mother and talk to my friend and sleep and it all feels as if I am wearing a raincoat and wading through this life sliding by in a thick ooze.
The first 3 months, I go through the motions of life. I know I have plans for visiting M in December, and this keeps me going. Work is demanding, but I get things done. People like things getting done, and they like me for doing so, so it all feels a little bit like I am where I should be. Except in my heart I feel I have done grievous harm to my loved one and I don’t know that I can make it right. I think of undoing everything. I message my ex in a desperate attempt - would she consider discussing what went wrong. But our paths have diverged, she makes demands that are non-negotiable and I let things go.
When I meet M she looks delighted to see me. Her face lights up with happiness, her arms hug me with desperation. She looks guiltily at her mother for approval. Can she ask me to carry her? She doesn’t want to take photographs with me where it’s just me and her. Her mom tells me M has hidden away all my photographs in her house. She doesn’t want to talk to me on Skype because it causes her pain when we finish the call.
When I meet M she tells me I have failed because I have promised to be with her no matter what - but I lied. I left when it was inconvenient for me to stay any longer. I shouldn’t have had a daughter, she says. That there are dads who sacrifice it all for their children’s sakes - but clearly I am not that kind of a dad.
My little baby talks big words. I cannot argue with her, she has learned these from listening to adult conversations, and I cannot scold her. I only think of my own actions and motivations and how selfish I am to do what I had done; but even so it all feels inevitable.
It is February 23, 2025, and I haven’t seen M’s face this year. The pain eases away. I try searching for its familiar sharpness, but it is now dull. My ex tells me she is well. She is studying, she says, she is playing with her friends. Maybe she doesn’t remember me so much, or the thought of me slips away just a little bit easier. I fade into the background of her life, a figure who once played with her and now occasionally visits her with gifts and vanishes once again. Someone not important.
I draw strength from this. I will move on with my life too. I will heal myself, mould the clay of my soul in new and stronger ways. I will read more, sleep better, eat better, hit the gym. I still can’t see M’s face in my phone’s photo gallery; as long as I don’t, I am okay. I am busy with work and that’s a blessing.
Things break. We break. I broke long ago and held on because I wasn’t ready to fall apart. Now I’ve fallen and I’ve started picking myself up because finally, finally, I am able to put words on screen.
I will be okay.