Stockholm, 2016

Image: kstudio on Freepik

The email is open on my screen, looking like a joke I’m not supposed to get. At the top, the college crest I’ve always dreamed of. The header is crisp, the message is clear: I made it. I can almost smell the cold air of a city I’ve only seen in pictures. Stockholm. The only thing I’ve wanted since high school.

God. The blue light feels too bright in this dark room. I spend years romanticizing the "escape," convinced that a plane ticket to Sweden will finally fix the person I am becoming.

Then I hear him in the other room.

The man who taught me how to speak is currently arguing with a ghost in the mirror. 2015 was the stroke and the dementia. He is running out of words, and today, my name doesn’t make the cut. People love to talk about "ambition" like it exists in a vacuum. But hustle is a luxury for people with healthy parents. For the rest of us, "winning" is just another word for abandonment.

I’m not a martyr. But an anchor.

I close the tab and shove the laptop away into a pile of textbooks. All that expensive paper—it’s just trash now. I look at the door. I’m not going anywhere. Just back to where I’ve always been.

I don’t tell anyone. I’ll let them think I have no plans. I’m the youngest, the last one left in the house. I’m the one who has to stop living. My dreams are just stories no one cares about. I can’t leave them like this, even if staying means I have to kill my own future.

No, it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. There is no pride in it. Just a heavy, hollow thud in my gut.

So I’m staying. Not because I’m a "good person," but because I can’t live with the silence if I leave. I am an anchor that has stayed underwater for too long. I’m not holding the ship anymore; I’m just becoming part of the seabed. And maybe that’s the most honest thing I’ve felt in years.