Begin Again

Orbiting

You know, I say goodnight to her every night, for years I do. Gently, I kiss her forehead, brushing back her wild hair. Every day, she's different somehow, stronger, wiser, it's like her innocence grows in reverse, but she's growing all the same.

Sometimes, words can tell you exactly what you're thinking, or better yet, they can tell somebody else. I've never had that, that power to turn reality into words, letters forming into some sort of poetic ballet. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to do that. But... It's like she evolves, the way that she changes. Her thinking is far beyond my own, I don't know why or how, but it is. The stars dance for her, even behind the clouds and the darkness of autumn brings, I know they dance for her.

Kyoko has turned my entire world upside down, sometimes it's hard for me to catch up. But that's the thing, when I'm falling behind, she makes sure that times freezes for me.

All of my life I've done my best to stay away from wishful thinking, but maybe that's because I've never had a star like her to wish upon. Her and Tadashi are my life, my everything... Without them I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't. I would thank them for that, but how do you thank a person for being the light to your universe, the axis that keeps you in place for thousands, millions of years, or even just long enough to get a taste of what life is?

Way back when, oh so far back in time, people thought that the Sun orbited the Earth. But that was because of where they were standing, it was all in perspective. When Kyoko was young, when Tadashi was in the attic, when I was alone and Tadashi died, when my father left... All of those times I thought that the Sun was supposed to be orbiting the Earth. This was never about the Earth, though, or at least it wasn't supposed to be. This life of mine, this story, it was always about them. Tadashi, Kyoko, Hiro, Cass, Gogo, Fred, Wasabi, Callahan, Cray, Heathcliff, Lillian, Addilyn - it wasn't ever supposed to be about me. This was just... Their story through my eyes, their story through my blind eyes, the same eyes that watched the Sun orbit the Earth. Come to find out, the Earth orbits the Sun, it needs the Sun to keep it in place, I revolve around these people, these stars that make up the universe. I'm just a rock mass, seventy percent or so made of water, that was lucky enough to end up needing these stars to keep me in place.

I've tried explaining this to Tadashi, he tells me that I'm the only known planet that has been able to sustain life, if that's the case. But he tends to take these analogies a tad to far. In a way, in a way it's somewhat true, that I'm supposed to be raising Kyoko, sustaining her. However, I look at her now, from this new perspective, and see that she's not revolving around me, or Tadashi, or even Hiro. She's an individual, and I couldn't be more proud of that. She stands tall and represents what she believes in, she readily admits it when she's wrong, she's smart beyond belief and I'm not just talking about education, I mean as a person. How do you get somebody like that out of somebody like me?

I believe that character is formed from surroundings, that the world she treads over and the people she's around molds her into something. What I can't understand, is how these imperfect surroundings have molded her to be something so flawless. Like Tadashi, she's selfless. Like Hiro, she's sarcastic - but not offensive. Like Gogo, she's headstrong, but sensitive. Like Fred, she's funny and humorous. Like Wasabi, she understands that there has to be some sort of organization amidst the chaos. How she found balance in all of this, I have no idea. That's something that I could never teach her, and here she is teaching me.

After she turned seventeen, we moved out of our house. My mother had just passed away... Another death belonging to cancer - a villain that nobody has been able to defeat. This time though, even though it hurt more than anything, even more than losing my father, Kyoko and I have grown enough that we could help each other through it. It was Tadashi's idea to move into my old house after my mother died. I thought it would hurt, moving back, but it felt... Nostalgic, I guess. And now I am so grateful for the comfort that it has brought to me. When my mother died, it was emotionally a lot more to take on than it was with my father. With my dad, I regretted him leaving and a few things I had said... In reality, that wasn't always something I could help, some of the regrets were the things that he did. With my mom, though, it was always my fault, whether I felt like that at the time or not, it usually was. She was the person that knew my inside and out, it was her and Tadashi that could read me like a book.