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9. Tears for the Sun

Soleia 0.106

I hope that you never think me heartless.  I can see how your mother is with you and I know what I must be to you.  She will be soft so I must be hard.  I must be hard so that you can be both.

In your life, you will meet people and mostly be able to safely and quickly dismiss them as one or the other.  Wishy-washy people who go back on their word, dream without taking action, and consider an insult equivalent to a violation.  Boring, anal, impatient people set in their ways, conflating rudeness for confidence, volume for persuasion and proud of their pig-headedness, their stubborness, their ignorance.

Learn from these people, Kwynn.  Learn from their faults.  Learn what not to do and how not to be yourself.

Even in moments of solidity, liquids can form.  I like to think of myself as ice: cold and rational with respect to what must be done for you.  I've been ice since you were born - winter ice, the ice that doesn't melt even when beaten upon by the Sun.  I was ice holding you that first time because I had to be - because you are the most important thing that I'll ever do, because I know that you are, because I know that other things will try to distract me from you, & because I don't want to be like other people.

But the Sun always shines.  And sometimes ice melts.

It was an innocent moment.  You were upset, uncomfortable.  And I simply put you on your side on my chest and rubbed your back.

You don't even know who I am yet, what I am.  You didn't soothe because your father was rubbing your back, or because someone who loved you was rubbing your back.  You soothed because something was rubbing your back.

But soothe you did.  Right into slumber, on my chest.

And the ice turned to water.

I don't know how long I wept there, quietly, alone in that room save for you, my darling, sleeping blissfully oblivious to my catharsis.  But it was nice to be reminded that I can still weep for joy, like a normal person.

It just took an amount of joy that no one in the world could produce in me.  No one, except for you.

- Papa

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