The Apple of My Eye

 

The apple in my hand doesn’t taste the same.

It’s unevenly cut, the slices jagged and clumsy, nothing like the neat little crescents my mother used to place in front of me every morning before school. Back then, I never realized how much love was folded into something as simple as the way she held a knife. I just ate it and left. But now, as I sit at this unfamiliar desk in a room that still feels more like a borrowed corner of the world than a home, I realize I am missing the smallest things the most.

Welcome back to another entry in this little corner of the internet, where I’m learning how distance reshapes love, memory, and the meaning of home. Sometimes it feels less like writing a blog and more like writing letters to myself—letters I wish someone had handed me when I first stepped away from everything familiar. 

I miss the mornings when laughter would burst out of nowhere—my mum twirling to a song she loved, her smile brighter than any sunrise. I miss my dad’s silly jokes, the kind that weren’t even that funny, yet somehow made all of us laugh until our stomachs hurt. I didn’t know at the time that those tiny, fleeting moments were the ones that would carve themselves into me the deepest.

Here, the silence is different. Even when I call them, even when I hear their voices, it’s not the same. I can’t reach across the table and grab an apple slice from the plate, or sit on the couch next to them while we share a joke that only we find funny. They’re still mine, still my people, but they’re miles away—and that distance is heavier than I thought it would be.

They are so close—just one call away, just a familiar voice carried through a thin line of static—and yet, they are oceans apart. I can hear their laughter, feel the warmth in their words, but I cannot step into the room where that laughter lives. Distance is cruel that way: it lets me hold them in sound, but not in touch; in memory, but not in presence. And so, even as the phone rings and I hear them say my name, I am reminded that love can travel miles in a heartbeat, but arms cannot.

No one tells you how much it hurts to grow. They say college is exciting, that it’s the beginning of freedom, of independence, of “becoming yourself.” But nobody tells you that becoming yourself can feel like leaving pieces of your heart behind, scattered across kitchens, and living rooms, and half-cut apples you can’t eat without tears stinging your eyes. Happiness, I’m learning, is fleeting—sometimes it arrives quietly, like a firefly glowing in the dark, so small you almost miss it if you’re not looking. Change has a way of scattering these lights, pulling us away from the familiar warmth where they once gathered. But maybe that’s why we must hold onto them so tightly, cupping our hands around those tiny sparks of joy, remembering the glow even when the night feels endless. 

So, if you’re reading this and you’re also sitting in a new city with mismatched furniture and an ache you can’t quite name—know that you’re not alone. Maybe we’re all carrying our half-cut apples, missing the way they used to taste. And maybe, just maybe, that longing is proof of how deeply we have been loved.

Until next time,
—Me