Part Of Me - By Coral Morgan

The Book Shop

I sat in the book shop, in a little chair dangling my little legs, looking up at the perfectly carved ceiling with beautiful star windows. I'm alone there, nothing but the overwhelming feeling of loneliness and wondering, 'what good can I bring to the world?'. I browse the children's section, I look at all the cute looking pop up books and the classic stories. Then my ears picked up on a voice. There was a man with two children, one looked around the age of seven with beautiful long blonde hair flowing past her shoulders, the other appeared to be around 12 standing tall next to his father. 

"Daddy, please read to me" Asked the little girl holding onto a book. The father looked at her and took her somewhere quiet on the other side of the room. They sat down and began to read. 

 Walking past, looking at this little family, I couldn't help but feel emotional. I thought about my own family, how far away they are and how nothing is going to be the same.

 When I was a child I don't remember many happy memories with my dad. My dad worked all the time and wouldn't come back until dinner time, sometimes later. I would only have about an hour and a half each night before going to bed to spend time with him, most of the time it would be dinner then go to bed. Not many happy things happened when I was young.

       I'm 21 years old and my dad is so much better than he used to be, I'm so proud of how far he has come and who he has grown into.

  So why do I cry? You see, I wish he was like this when I was younger, when I needed him but wasn't there. I am such a dependent person now, I feel like I didn't get all of those happy childhood experiences that everyone else seems to have. I just have memories of the 'stressed from work' dad or the 'sorry I couldn't be there' dad or the 'My relationship is falling apart so I'm going to get black out drunk' dad! 

      I missed him when he was working. I would day dream of going out together as a family and doing happy memory making things. It felt like all I did was daydream. 

   Half an hour had passed and I was still sat in that little chair in the bookshop. It's two and a half hours until I feel love from another human being, two and a half hours of fighting loneliness, fighting suicidal thoughts. 'Why should I stay here?' I say over and over in my mind. I don't feel safe, but here in this bookshop with people around me there is no way I can do myself harm.

   Every time I tell my dad I miss him, he laughs. He doesn't understand why I would miss him, I'm 21, I'm meant to be an independent young lady, what am I meant to be? I don't even know who I am. Just tell me you will stay and keep me company as I count down the hours, thoughts raging in my mind. He says 'I will see you next week' when all I'm needing is to see him now. I can't explain it to him, I don't think there's a way of explaining it. I just feel so fragile, so mentally stressed out, desperate for someone just to talk. I hear people talk around me and I think they're talking to me but they are not. My head shooting to each side every time I hear someone move or speak, hoping it's my dad or a friend or my fiancé. 

Two hours and twenty minutes before I can feel safe, I'm at the book shop still, hungry and sad. I'm questioning if I should look after myself and leave and do what I need to do, but depression and despair drag me down. Just two hours and twenty minutes.