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My Father Ruined His Proudest Moment
The argument was over the bill.
The campus unfurled past my car windows in facades of pristine red brick and graceful nineteenth century arches, towering and ancient live oaks swaying their green ground-spilling fingertips of Spanish moss in the strange Tallahassee wind. It was my last time driving through the grounds of alma mater, Florida State University, and I was filled with the sour tang of bittersweetness.
Four years. Four of the happiest, the most psychedelic, the strangest, maturing, the growing years. Dancing beneath the church spires of ages-old pines and live oaks, my whole spirit overflowing and my hoop in perfect grammar with my ever-moving body. Learning to be and discovering who truly lurked beneath my breastbone, a time of fullness and a time to find my place in the puzzle of existence.
I will never not miss it.
My family was taking me out to an Italian restaurant before graduation, and the bittersweetness in me was also for them. All I wanted, all I’d asked, was for the two sides of the family to go out to dinner together. For once in my life, I wanted everyone to be together.
It was the first time, and the last time.
I had a dream once, of a long table, like the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice in Wonderland. My…
