Sugar Life
You deceive yourself and believe that you are happy. I had made the conscious decision to leave, to distance myself from everything and everyone. I had become a lonely man again. A simple nomad. As I rest my head against the window of this restaurant I stumbled upon along the way, gazing at a rainy, ever-changing landscape, I imagine us under the sun, forgetting everything that happened. Perhaps starting anew... It was an unlikely fantasy.
I made 16 pieces of napkin into one, counted them, and built a little house with them while a terrible Sinatra song played. I never liked it. The waitress interrupted my obsession, telling me that if I wanted to stay, I had to order something. I kindly asked for the $1.99 donut and coffee combo. It had been a while since I had eaten this since you made me watch my figure, but I guess that doesn’t matter anymore at this point.
I opened my wallet and had enough to pay for my meal at the restaurant. I checked my pants pockets, and in the left one, all I could find was a small hole, and in the right one, besides the cash to cover my bill, an extra dollar. It was enough to make a call, I thought, or to play another song on the jukebox. I chose the jukebox.
I believed I had lost the meaning of life, but upon extensive analysis, I realized that wasn’t true, as everything I did was to see them again. I needed to see their faces once more, longed to hear them laugh or simply hear their voices. We all do something wrong at some point in life, and I had promised myself not to return to you until I reached the top again.
My father used to tell me to stop dreaming, that dreamers were lazy bums, and I think I ended up believing him in the end. While he devoted himself to routine work to make ends meet at home, I played my guitar. “You should study to become someone in life,” he would say, but music called to me. It made the world better, at least mine.
I left home at seventeen. When I left, I promised him that I would make it, but he didn’t believe me. He pointed his finger at me and told me he didn’t want a failure in the family, then he closed the door. At that moment, my own decision to leave became the only option I had left. I had been indirectly kicked out of the house.
366 days passed - I counted - of playing in bars until a man offered to take me to success. From there, things happened easily, with women and plenty of whiskey. One day, from the stage, I saw you in the front row. You weren’t alone; you had two of your friends with you and a man whom I still detest to this day. For some reason, you stood out from the crowd. I don’t remember much of what happened next, I just remember that it all felt like a pleasant dream from which I never wanted to wake up. We were together, at the pinnacle of my success, nothing could stop us. We lived on the road, never spending more than a week in the same city. We didn’t know the world, but by meeting so many people from different places, it felt like we did.
I was twenty-one, and you were eighteen when our daughter arrived. I thought I was happy, but when she entered our lives, I experienced the feeling of absolute happiness. At the same time, a brutal feeling that I hadn’t felt in a long time struck me. Fear. Have you ever thought about the number of events that happen at the same moment? Well, at that moment, I dropped my glass of whiskey and fell asleep. I was awakened by the cry of our daughter, and I knew that my life had to change. As I held her, I heard my father’s voice, berating me for being a failure. Our daughter needed to grow up in a healthier environment than our current lifestyle. I turned to look at you, and at that moment, I knew you agreed with me.
I found a job that paid the bills, but I could see that you weren’t happy. Each time, it was harder to make ends meet, and we could barely afford the rent. I had promised you a happy life, and seeing that I hadn’t achieved it filled me with guilt. I consumed that feeling along with the fear.
You found a job, and we managed to stay stable for a while until one day I came home and didn’t know how to tell you what had just happened to me. I had been fired from my job. We fought all day and into the night. “If you can’t support this family anymore, there’s no point in you staying. One less mouth to feed,” you said. That was when I decided to leave, and at the same time, you kicked me out of the house. I realized that despite everything that had happened, I still loved you, and I promised you that I would return once I achieved success again. I’m afraid of going back and finding that you’re no longer waiting for me, but no one is to blame for what happened except me.
I snapped back to reality when the waitress arrived with my donut and coffee. I thanked her and asked for some sugar. You always scolded me for preferring things sweet. After a while, the waitress came back with a jar of sugar mice. I put two in my coffee and was surprised at how quickly they disappeared. Just as fast as my success, I thought. I won’t return to you until I’ve made it. I have to do it quickly, one way or another.
