dear ioanna, first born,

daughter of mine, heir to my neurotic obsession with human behavior and near impossible to contain depths of empathy, what am I to do with you, with my inability to let you go and yet my insistence on pushing you further and further out into the world?

this year has been tumultuous. So much has changed, nothing has changed. You’ve left and everything has changed. You’ve left and nothing has changed. And I struggle with the anxieties and pride of you having left. I struggle with the delight and trepidation of when you come home. But this isn’t home. Home is over there. But over there isn’t home either, it’s over here. I wonder if you are ok, I fully imagine all the horrible things that could happen in order for them to not happen. I try not to imagine your return. I try to imagine desperately your life outside of my care. I imagine an apartment in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, all the places but never home. I try, but it sneaks in, like a mouse finding a crack in the foundation and wiggles its way into someplace warm and safe. It isn’t fair, it isn’t fair to see you grow and embrace the world with such wonder and confidence. It isn’t fair that in order for you to be all the things you want and are meant to be has to be at away from us. It’s not fair that this is the cost to see you flourish.

But I’m willing to pay it, even at a distance.

love, always,
me