Where We Started

i. sonder

════════════════════

C H A P T E R  O N E

════════════════════

son·der (n.) : the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own — populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness — an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you'll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

════════════════════

❄❄❄

DECEMBER 23, 2016

❄❄❄

     WHENEVER CHRISTMAS WOULD come, I'd always remember her.

     It's that time of the year again — my second Christmas without her, to be exact.

     The first Christmas after she left, after she vanished into the void — the first one when I started celebrating the holidays alone — was now long gone from my memory. I bet this second Christmas would probably turn out to be just like last year — like a street blur, or raindrops skittering down a window, or a coffee stain on a sweater. Something your mind would briefly soak on the vivid sensory details for a moment, but once you lost interest, you would completely forget about it.

     Those things, Christmas included, happened so often it became so normal.

     It's 4 am now, too late to sleep and too early to be awake. But I went back to bed anyway, feeling very guilty, because I couldn't ask her what she wanted for this year.

     I didn't want her to think, even for a second, that I have forgotten our little infinity over those long nights of cold December.

❄❄❄

     THIS MORNING, I woke up to a bright white glare outside my window. When I eased the curtain aside and peered out, I saw it had obviously snowed overnight. There were about four inches covering everything, and it was still coming down. Lethargy began to seep on my bones, but I came out of my room anyway.

     "Snow," my mom reported as soon as I came into the kitchen. She was at the window, a mug of coffee warming her hands. "Haven't seen that in a while."

     "Not since Phoenix, right?"

     "I missed this place, this house," she smiled, not reaching her eyes. "Your dad–"

     "Don't—" I clenched my fist. "Mom, I thought we agreed we will move on?"

     "Yes," she said as she closed her eyes. "Yes. You're right, Oliver."

     Mom and I were originally from Phoenix, where the scorching heat of the sun all resides. I spent most of my childhood living between here in Brooklyn and Phoenix. We constantly moved around since dad used to work here, while mom's in the latter state.

     The only thing I liked about moving is that when you move a lot, you didn't have a lot of entanglements. Nobody could really know you – the real you. When you're always on the run, there's really no time to get caught up in anything, on anyone.