I drove like hell through the night, the highway stretching endlessly before me, my headlights cutting through the darkness like a blade. The only sound was the hum of the tires on the asphalt and the music playing on my cell phone. I didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. I just kept driving, pushing forward even though I was tired and running on caffeine and adrenaline, after driving Amelia back to my farm after looking at a house in Erie, Pennsylvania.

By midnight, I was home—my farm, my land, my permanence. I stepped out of the car and let the cold air settle into my bones, grounding me, reminding me that this place was still here, even if Amelia wasn’t planning to stay. I looked out across the snow-covered fields, and then to my favorite tree, the one that forever shades Penfold’s grave, the one constant in a world that never stops changing.

Soon, Amelia will be gone. She said she had to move on, that her work here was finished, that there were other people who needed her. I told her I was fine, and she saw through the lie like she always did. She pulled me into a hug, the kind that lingers just a little too long, the kind that says everything that words can’t.

She loved me, in her own way. But not all love is built to stay.

And there I was, standing on the now cold and frozen land that will never leave me, trying to make sense of how someone can just walk away from something I was willing to hold onto forever.

Some people are made to stay. Others are made to leave.

Amelia was always the latter, though I didn’t see it at first. Or maybe I did, and I just didn’t want to believe it.

She loved me—I know that now—but she never loved me in the way I love, in the way that takes root, holds on, refuses to let go even when the storms come. She loved in motion, in transition, in the kind of way that feels absolute while it’s happening but is always meant to end. I don’t know if she ever saw this as permanent. Maybe she convinced herself she did for a while, but people like her… they don’t settle. They don’t plant their feet in one place for too long.

I’ve never been that way. I never could be that way. I build, I commit, I stay. I don’t do temporary.

Amelia does. She sees relationships as chapters in her life, as something that exists for a time, serves its purpose, and then moves on. She told me that outright—that she had helped me, and now she needed to help someone else, as if love is some kind of mission with a start and an end date. I can’t think that way. I don’t want to think that way. Love isn’t a job. It isn’t a task to complete before moving on to the next. It’s a decision. A promise. A permanence.

I cried in the shower after midnight, and as soon as I grabbed my towel, she hugged me longer than she ever had before, as if that was supposed to soften the blow. Maybe, for her, it did. But for me, it just made everything worse—because that was the moment I knew.

I knew she had already left, long before she ever packed her bags. Her love was like a passing storm that nourishes the earth, allowing life to grow and to thrive, before inevitably passing on to continue nourishing others.

I knew she was already thinking about the next place, the next person, the next version of herself that she was chasing. For the past month, she had been talking about Erie, Pennsylvania as the place where she needed to be. And after weeks of discussion, I knew, without a doubt, that she was never meant to stay.

And the worst part? I probably knew it too, yet never allowed myself to accept this as a possibility.

I don’t know how to do halfway. I never have. I live in absolutes—absolute love, absolute friendship, absolute trust—or I simply don’t live at all.

I don’t love in pieces, and I don’t hold people at a distance, waiting for the day they might leave. I don’t prepare myself for detachment, and I don’t hold back just because something might hurt later. I don’t believe in that kind of love, the kind that’s given on a timer, meant to expire the moment someone decides they’ve “done enough” for you.

When I love someone, it’s forever, and always, no matter what. When I call someone my friend, it’s without condition, and without limitation. When I trust someone, I hand them everything, legally, physically, and metaphorically, and hope they don’t drop it. But Amelia—she wasn’t wired that way. I will never know if it is her personality, her autism, or something entirely different, all I know is that this is who she is.

She said she wanted to remain friends, and maybe she believes that. Maybe she thinks she can still exist in my life as something less than what she was before. But I don’t do less. I don’t do downgrades. A pedestal is not an elevator. I don’t do the slow unraveling of what was once whole. Friendship isn’t some consolation prize to make leaving easier. And love, once given, does not simply shrink itself down into something smaller just because one person decides they need to walk away.

I wasn’t afraid of loving her. I wasn’t afraid of trusting her. I was afraid of exactly this—of being left behind while she convinced herself that this was the best thing for me. Of being given something real, something I thought was permanent, only for it to be pulled away because she was ready to move on.

She left because she thought I’d be better off without her. But what I wanted wasn’t to be better off—it was to keep what I had. I wanted to stay married, even if we were married as friends sharing a home together, in nothing more than to simply hold onto something tangible that we had built together that mattered.

I love in permanence. I trust in permanence. I build in permanence. And that is why this hurts more than words can explain—because I would have never left.

The world has been trying to break me since the day I was born. It has thrown everything at me—a disordered sexual development at birth, loss, betrayal, abandonment—watching, waiting, betting that I wouldn’t make it. But I did. I always do.

I came out as a lesbian at 16, and was kicked of the house by my father. I left home with a duffel bag of clothing, a hand-me-down car with bald tires, with nowhere to go, and no one to turn to. I was told I would fail, told I wouldn’t survive, told that I wasn’t enough. I found a job at a summer camp where I could live in a tent for the time being, and earn a little bit of money. I learned how to stand on my own before most people ever had to. I fell in love with a girl named Allegra, from Boston, fought for every inch of my life, every piece of stability, every scrap of peace. I was sent to a boarding school, where I would run away to seek a job at a fire department, only to be denied my high school diploma. It didn’t matter; I was determined to live life to the fullest, even if in doing so, my prescribed life path differed from what society considered normal.

My differences, the very things that set me apart, the things that made people uncomfortable, skeptical, and sometimes outright cruel—they would become the key to my success.

Doctors labeled me a hermaphrodite, as if I were some kind of anomaly instead of just me. They spoke about my body like it was a mistake, something that needed to be fixed, or explained away. They told me that I would never fit in, that I would struggle, that I would have to fight for acceptance in a world that had already decided what normal was.

Teachers hated me—not for what I did, but for what I was. I questioned them, challenged them, thought for myself when they expected obedience, and rejected their teachings when I knew that they were wrong. I saw through their narrow expectations, refused to conform, refused to let their limitations define me. They didn’t know what to do with someone who was oftentimes smarter than them, someone who refused to bend and break just to make them comfortable.

My so-called friends questioned me, doubted my choices, doubted my identity, doubted my refusal to follow the script that was handed to me. They wanted me to blend in, to disappear into the crowd, to make myself small and palatable. But I was never meant to be small. I was never meant to be a replica of the people around me.

I was meant to be a force. And in the end, the very things that made me an outsider, the things that made people turn away, became my strength. I built my life not despite my differences, but because of them.

They made me unstoppable. And still, the world kept trying. One loss after another. People leaving, people dying, people disappearing like they were never real to begin with. And yet—I am still here.

I have thrived despite what should have destroyed me. I have fought battles that no one ever saw, no one ever understood. I have built something permanent in a world that wanted me to have nothing.

And for that, I will wear my survival on my skin. I’m planning to get a Pegasus tattoo across my chest. A creature that cannot be tamed, cannot be broken, tamed, or restrained. A symbol of everything the world tried to take from me and failed.

I am not someone who falls. I rise. Amelia left, but I am still here. The world tried to keep me down, but I am still here. I’m still thriving, still doing everything I want, with no obligations, or restriction.

The world told me I would fail, but I bought my land, built my life, and made damn sure that while the world can and did take everything from me, nothing can ever take my land from me again. The Pegasus is a mark of defiance that will remind me of one undeniable truth—I am unstoppable.

I told her I was fine. I tried to say it convincingly, tried to make it sound like the truth, but she saw through it. She always did. And yet, she didn’t argue, didn’t push me away or demand the truth. She just pulled me into a hug—one of the longest we ever had. It was the kind of hug that lingers, the kind where neither person wants to be the first to let go, the kind where time slows just enough to make you wonder if maybe, just maybe, they’ll change their mind.

But she didn’t. I knew that no matter what, her mind was made up, and there was nothing I could do to change it. She told me I would be better off without her. That she had to move on, that there were other people waiting for her help. Like she was passing through my life the same way she always had—like a storm that sweeps in, shakes the ground, and then disappears before you can fully understand what just happened.

She believed this was the right thing to do. Maybe she even believed it was an act of kindness. Maybe, in her own way, she thought she was saving me from something. But what if I didn’t need to be saved? What if I just wanted her to stay?

She simply walked away like it was inevitable. Almost as if it was always going to end this way. And maybe, deep down, I knew it too. Maybe I should have seen it coming. Maybe I should have prepared for it. The problem is, I don’t live my life that way. I don’t brace for impact before I crash. I don’t love with one foot out the door. I don’t let go just because something gets hard.

But she does. She hugged me like she was saying goodbye forever, even as she promised we would still be friends. But how can you be friends with someone who decided that making someone the center of ones universe simply wasn’t enough? How do you step backward from something that was supposed to be permanent?

The truth is, she left long before she packed her things. And now, the only thing left to do is figure out how to exist in the silence she left behind. Loss has followed me like a shadow my entire life. People leave. People die. People vanish into thin air, as if they were never real to begin with.

But my farm? It stays. I fought so hard for it, driving myself to the edge of exhaustion, through sacrifice, hard work, and clawed my way toward something no one could take from me. Because everything else in my life was stolen, ripped away, or lost to time.

I’ve watched homes disappear. I’ve watched people die. I’ve seen things in my life that there no words exist to describe. I’ve watched the world try to grind me down until there was nothing left. But I refused. I bought my land, and claimed my permanence.

Amelia said my farm was my birthright, and maybe in some way, she was right. But more than that, it is my proof. My farm is my proof that I survived, proof that I fought back, and proof that no matter who walks away, no matter how many times the world tries to leave me empty-handed, I will still have this place—this land, this sky, this soil beneath my feet.

She left, and when she did, she gave me the opportunity to follow. But I cannot come with her, my ancestors settled in the area, my friends live nearby, and for the very first time in my life, I am deeply respected for who I am, and what I have accomplished in my life. She took herself out of my life as cleanly as a blade through paper. No ties. No claims. Nothing but a promise that we would remain as friends, and that she would stay in touch, yet it feels like a promise that already feels like an echo of something that won’t last.

But my farm? It’s still here. The fields still stretch out in waves of green and brown, wild and unbothered. The tree still stands, holding Penfold’s memory in its roots. The house still breathes, still settles in the quiet, and mo matter where my adventures might take me, it still waits for me to come home, forgetting and forgiving the times I was absent.

The world has taken so much from me. It will not take this. This farm is not just land. It is my defiance. It is my permanence. It is mine. Forever.

Some people write their stories in ink. Others write them in blood. I write mine in poetic prose.

Before I ever found my voice in words, I found it in August and Everything After. That album cracked something open inside of me—made me realize that pain could be beautiful, that loss could be poetic, that stories weren’t just things that happened to other people. Our life stories are ours to tell.

And somehow, my relationship with Amelia mirrored that album—track by track, note by note, like it was always written in the chords of a song I hadn’t fully heard yet.

Round Here—A song about searching for something real, about watching someone drift away before you even know how to hold onto them. That was Amelia—always searching, always moving, never quite staying long enough to belong.

Sullivan Street—A song about leaving, about the road stretching endlessly in the rear view mirror, about love being something you carry with you even when you know it’s over. I drove all night to return to my farm, just like Amelia drove away to start whatever comes next.

Raining in Baltimore—A song about distance. Not just the kind you can measure in miles, but the kind that settles between two people before the words are even spoken. The distance that was already there, long before she told me she was leaving.

That album inspired me to write my story. Amelia taught me how to live. And just like August and Everything After, she was something that changed me, moved me, left a mark that will never quite fade.

But here’s the thing about music—it doesn’t stop just because the album ends. The songs still exist. The meaning still lingers. The words are still there, even when the sound fades.

Maybe Amelia was always meant to be like that album—something that came into my life, wrecked me in the best and worst ways, and then left me different than I was before, yet at the same time better off than before?

Richard Bach once said, “here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t.”

The music keeps playing, and I keep thriving. I’m only 45, and have lived a life that few people believe could be possible, and most never pursue.

The dust has settled. The door has closed. Amelia is gone.

She left with no bitterness, no regret—just the quiet certainty that this was how it was always meant to end. She believes she accomplished exactly what she came here to do, which was to save me from my life path of self-destruction, and now that her role in my life is finished, it is now time for her to move on to the next thing, the next person, her next purpose.

Love, once given, does not vanish. It does not shrink to fit inside new boundaries, does not fade because one person decides it should. Maybe Amelia believes this was the right thing to do, but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less.

I will get the Pegasus tattooed across my chest as a reminder of what the world tried to do to me—and how it failed. A creature that cannot be caged, cannot be grounded, cannot be broken. Because that is who I am. That is who I have always been. This is who I will always be.

Maybe Amelia was always meant to be temporary, but I am permanent. My love is permanent. My home is permanent. My fight is permanent. And no matter who comes or who goes, no matter what is lost, no matter how many times the world tries to knock me down—I will always rise.