Leaving Home: Short Pieces Read Online Free PDF Page A

have professors who play favorites. So be it. One of the best lessons you’ll ever learn is how to pick yourself up again, and in order to do that, you have to stumble.

    Fall in love . Once, you and I had a conversation about whether or not love was a miracle. You said no – that there are natural phenomena that can’t always be explained by science. I said yes – that in a world of six billion people, finding someone who gets you is pretty miraculous. I hope I get to prove you wrong. I hope you find a partner who makes you a better version of yourself, simply by association. I hope you find a person who loves you not because you’re perfect, but in spite of the fact that you’re not.

    There are so many other things I won’t say to you: B e history, instead of just watching it happen from the sidelines . Try something new, even if it scares you to death . Learn because you love to learn, not because you’re being tested . Don’t whine – there is always someone who’s having a worse day than you are. Be honest with yourself, and you’ll never have anything to hide . But all of these things you will discover, in due course.

    Growing up isn’t about age, and it isn’t about experience. It’s a very real threshold, much like the one we’re standing on now at your dorm room, between two schools of thought. One minute, it’s all about you – and the next, it’s all about the people that surround you. As soon as their well-being is more important to you than your own, you have crossed that threshold; you can call yourself an adult.

    I have always loved you, but I can very distinctly remember the moment I realized how much I liked you as well – not just as my child, but also as a fellow human; as someone I would pick as a friend, even if you had not been placed strategically in my life’s path. I was on a book tour in Rome and I had brought you along. After an hour of walking in circles, due to my geographical incompetence, you ripped the little map out of my hands. You , you said firmly, are not allowed to use this anymore . And just like that, you became the grownup, and I followed you like a child to our destination.

    It was not the first time we had been on an unknown road together. Eighteen years ago, you were the one who showed me how to be a mother – a baptism by fire. You loved me, even during the times I wasn’t sure I was doing it right or well, simply because I was yours. During that hurricane in 1991, when I held you for the very first time, I could never have imagined that this is where we would both end up.

    Now, as you bend down to embrace me, as you say goodbye, I think of all the things I’ve taken for granted: The ability to hug you whenever I feel like it. The pitch of your voice. The mess on the floor of your room. A standing invitation in front of the television, to watch a new episode of Project Runway. Your incredible photographic memory. The seat height in your car, which I always have to readjust. Your sarcasm. The beauty of you doing a one-and-a-half off the diving board. The way you roll your eyes, but ultimately share your chocolate with me.

    So, here is my brave smile, the one that will crumble as soon as I am safely in the car, where you can no longer see me.

    Work hard! Have fun!

    And maybe there is one last thing I will say: Eighteen years ago, when I saw you for the first time, I was wrong. The story you’ll tell the world, Kyle, is not the one about how you arrived…but instead the one about where you are headed.

    I can’t wait to hear every word.

Ritz

    The note is inside the refrigerator, propped against a carton of orange juice. I’m taking a break, my mother has written . Don’t worry about me.

    “What’s she taking a break from?” I ask out loud.

    “Sanity,” my brother Devon answers. “People don’t leave notes in refrigerators.”

    Devon, who is eighteen and apparently knows everything, is looking at this the wrong way, in my opinion.