Not from loving you. Never from that. But from the job you didn’t ask for and I didn’t know I gave you: the job of being my reason. My reason to wake up early. My reason to save money I don’t spend. My reason to avoid traveling, to stay in this house with the leaky roof, to postpone my own dreams of painting in a seaside village.
You are an adult. You have a career, a girlfriend who rolls her eyes when I call too often, and a life that runs just fine without my daily prayers for your socks to match. And yet, I have been acting as your general manager—worried about your cholesterol, your heating bill, the fact that you haven’t changed your car’s oil in fourteen months. querido hijo estas despedido
Querido hijo, estás despedido
For a full minute, he read it again and again, thinking it was a joke. Perhaps the punchline to a running gag about how he never returned the hedge trimmer. But the ink was too steady, the paper too crisp. He read on. Not from loving you
Do not feel abandoned. Feel released. You were never meant to be my anchor; you were meant to be my sail. And a sail, my love, only works when the ship knows how to steer without it. My reason to wake up early
You are fired, querido hijo, so that I can hire myself. My new role: a woman who takes salsa lessons on Tuesday nights, who buys the expensive coffee, who might adopt a dog even though you’re allergic. My new project: the rest of my life.