Chances

I can't give up just yet.

Welcome to the real world, E...said my Dad with a sad smile. It couldn't have been more appropriate...if only he had said it during that night 9 months ago when he told the truth for the first time in his life. It was also the first time I truly felt that the world was at a stand still and I was in the present. Since I could remember, my sister and I have been encouraged to run...excel in school, join contests, be the best, take up sports, make friends...anything we could focus on, so we wouldn't have time to think about, or question my Dad's absence from our lives. By the time we entered University, the running had become more daring, and harmful to ourselves, and others. When he told me the truth that night, I felt the world stop. There was no need to run anymore.

But it was too late for my sister. She had ran so far that she couldnt' find her way back anymore even if she wanted to. I still keep trying to call her back, hoping that one day she'll come home. She hears me, I know it, but she refuses to stop. Traitor, she thinks, and adds coward in disgust.

I chose this (non) life of brutal truth and stark realities where the only time I don't feel pain is when I'm asleep. Sleep, that plays hide and seek so well I have to pop pills to win. I can't give up because I know this is temporary. Pain is not man's normal state, happiness is. Each and every thing I am doing now has a purpose, an aim, an end. I falter sometimes and get close to the brink of aimlessness, but I get up because the end exists. Is this drab (non) life better than ignorant bliss? Y-E-S. I know it.

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We are standing by the same river, SOB and you were right...we are on different sides. I'm swimming against the current, you're letting it carry you. It's not a contest on who reaches the shore first. The question is, who will survive?

I just realised, I haven't been paying attention to you either. You have always told me you end up more depressed after talking to me. Is it because the conversation is done and you have to go back to being alone again, or do I drag you further down? I shouldn't have gone off the way I did when I've been doing the same to you for years. Let's call a truce, shall we?