I woke up to the sound of rain knocking on my window pane. It was one of those dreary Sunday mornings in which poetry became my blanket and coffee the most comfortable bed to unwind my mind upon. After three o'clock in the afternoon, I decided to drag myself to the kitchen for some lunch, which would probably end up in cereal as the scrubbing of my feet against the floor screamed for bed again. I never get this lazy, most of the time, but I can’t help feeling tied up to my bedsheets when the packages of popcorn keep crawling into my mouth and my unwashed body can’t make itself to the shower.

When I finally got to the kitchen, which was only a few steps away, yet appeared to be a damn mile, I opened the cupboard to find my cereal box practically empty. I put my hand back up to try and search for anything else instantaneous to eat in those smothered places in which long lost packages of biscuits magically appear; however, I found myself holding a piece of paper mantled with dust from years upon. The writing faded off of the worn out paper of being confined too long in the cabinet. I wiped the dust off, carefully, slowly, yet all at once. The urging amount of ideas that seeped through my mind overwhelmed me. I have always been keen on mysteries and unravelling anything that could possibly be at my reach. It’s like I become a little girl in search for the next candy she’ll eat, or the odd boy at primary school seeking for the girl he likes to throw paper airplanes at. I fall in love with the enigmas that life holds and this letter would be no exception. I began to lay my eyes on the paper and read,

“Dear Niamh,

A little too late to call myself your home, but how I wish you did. I can’t bare to excuse myself for my absence or lack of interest in your growth. I can’t make amends for the sweetness I’ve deprived you off, or the warmth you’ve never been able to call Dad, but I will. I will try to excuse myself in every single way to see if in the midst of every word you read, you may find some space for forgiveness. To see if you may hold within you your mother’s heart which once called me her beloved.

So here I am, my sweet, my love, my daughter. I’m here to say sorry. And in the most kindest words, and in the cliché embrace of the word ‘sorry’ I hope you understand that it’s not to evoke an ephemeral sentiment, it’s for you to look for forgiveness somewhere in your heart."

I stopped reading. Could it be that smothering my urge to read it overlapped that of finding out if the Niamh in the letter was me? I was shaking even more than the quivering of teeth during a cold night out. The only thing I knew about my parents was that they'd wanted to name me Niamh since they knew my mother was pregnant, but my adoptive parents had the urge to change it when they first saw me. They didn't want the burden of a previous chosen name of parents who wouldn't be able to utter it within their lifetime.

The rain kept spitting harder against the window, the chilling breeze sneaked through the cracks, the coffee already too cold to drink, the goosebumps lounging all the way across my body and the cereal box as untouched as the teardrops down my cheeks. Could it be that my father found a way to know his little girl was alive? The vacillation of ideas overtook me and my eyes succumbed to kissing the pages once again.

"I can only talk for myself here, love, but don't get me wrong. I talk for myself and not your mother because we were both at different places in our lives. She was lost in the midst of her mind battling depression, surviving cancer, building her patience to love me more; she was trying to live, yet failed miserably. She was in such a maelstrom that she began to feel unreachable for too many days. So I hope you understand when I say she loved you dearly but didn't grasp that love well enough. She let it loosely hang until she lost not only her mind, but you, and her life as well. That's all I can say my dear Niamh, about your sweet mother, because not even the darkest of places can be unravelled by the people who love you most.

Now I can say a bit about myself. Try to make the wrongs right and your love for me spring back. I was lost. I can't excuse it, but I was lost among bottles of alcohol, lines of cocaine, and women in short dresses. I indulged, I lived (if that's even called living), and slept under bridges to save up money for the Friday gambles. I was submerged with all these things I felt were my luxury, but became my curse. And let me tell you why, Niamh, why they were my curse. They made me lose you..."

My adoptive parents always warned me, "you don't want to dwell on your past, it's not as sweet as you may wish it to be". I should listen. I should stop reading. I shouldn't care. I should live and not care what the people who left me behind did. I shouldn't have to listen to excuses, but how I want to. Want it badly. That little piece of me which seeks enigmas to unthread the mystery caved in and although I felt pale and cold, I couldn't resist.

"I will regret this every single day. I’ve always longed for holding you, for taking you to school for the first time, for telling off the boy who wants to hold your hand...and that’s why I wrote this letter. I wrote it to apologize for my absence and let you know that my drunken mistakes will never be filled, that my life could never proceed with all the burden in my mind. I will have you know that the weight was so pronounced that the only exit I could find was leaving. Leaving these words on this page and leaving the lungs that kept me alive. I don’t want you to cry, or find yourself lost now, I want you to use this, to be strong with it, to learn from my mistakes. I want you to learn that running away won’t carve a tunnel out of your problems. So embrace them, live them, enjoy them, even if the storm seems endless.

Goodbye my dear Niamh, touch the sadness I’ve caused and transform it into strength.

Best wishes,
Thomas --Your sincere mess of a father.”

I felt weak. The letter had dropped to the floor and the weight of so many questioning years ran out my mind. I wish I had stopped myself, that the ringing of my biological parent’s voice in my head would have carved deeper in my head so I could’ve stopped. Now so many loose ends were hanging. So they actually loved me? Would I end up like them; sad, depressed, alone? My heartbeat increased and my mind slowed down. I leaned back on the wall as my knees began to bend, dragging me to the floor. The tears gushed down my cheeks, hit against the floor, and danced to the rhythm of the raindrops outside.

I fell asleep. Drenched in the same tears as last night I woke up with a sense of emptiness. A massive void filled me with loneliness. The weeks dragged me along. My carelessness overtook me and my grades began to drop. All I had in my mind now was the wreck of the parents I had had. I would probably end up like them and become a mess. I might leave my children behind like they did with me. I didn’t want to spend my life dwelling on this, yet slowly realized that the bottles and cigarettes lived in my home as well. I was paying rent for the murderers of my life to take over me and I only realized it when I was alone in my flat, after having missed weeks of school, after having lost complete contact with my friends and biological parents, and after passing out in my living room.

I had become my dad, my mother, and myself all in one.

A broken legacy it is to wake up from the nightmare of becoming your parents, especially mine. The sun touched my skin and whispered in my ear that it had just been a bad dream. That my life wasn’t a downfall and that blood doesn’t tie you. I rang my biological parents after taking a long shower; wiping the tears and fears away. I felt full again. I felt who I was and who I wanted to be. Although my parents were a sincere mess, I would love them from a distance and turn the tables around. I would make them proud and look up to clouds and know that they loved me despite all the blurriness they had dealt with day to day. I would make my biological parents proud and, above all, I would become who I wanted to be: a deeply seeded mess that in all sincerity flourishes and succeeds.