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I don’t regret leaving, but I do regret how I left. I dropped it on everyone as if it were an afterthought. It must have been a shock.

I knew I may have hurt people who cared about me. At the time, though, I convinced myself it was the only way.

It happened the summer before my sophomore year of college when I had overcommitted myself.

I grew up striving to be the ideal son

That summer, I worked for my dad’s law firm, babysat, house-sat, and registered for classes at colleges in Alabama and in New York, where I hoped to transfer that fall. I also volunteered for Randall Woodfin’s mayoral campaign in Birmingham.

I was exhausted, but the work kept me from spiraling. The campaign became my steadying force, the only place I felt like I mattered. Talking to neighbors and hearing their stories gave me a sense of purpose I hadn’t felt in a long time.

However, the more I poured into the campaign, the more I realized how little control I had over my life. I had enrolled in business school with the idea that I would help my dad’s law firm grow.

His business was struggling, and I felt it was up to me to fix it. From an early age, I was expected to be his partner, not just his son. That meant being the one to solve problems, build marketing plans, create websites, and dig through legal documents to find potential cases.

I followed my dad’s mold. I was always striving to be the ideal son, but that left me little space to explore my passions. I just learned how to be what everyone expected of me.

By the time I was 20, I realized that I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted.

That hard realization broke something in me

One night, I lost it on the bathroom floor of my aunt’s house, sobbing quietly, alone. When I picked myself up and looked in the mirror, I barely recognized myself, all puffy-eyed with red cheeks.

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Yet, that night, something finally clicked. I didn’t have to save my dad’s business. I didn’t have to stay here at all.

I had $1,000, my beat-up 1997 Lexus ES 300, and what I could fit inside it, which mainly consisted of some clothes, my laptop, my Xbox, a TV, and a few books.

The car was old enough to have a cassette player but reliable enough to get me where I needed to go: New York, where Jacky lived.

I left Alabama for New York

Jacky had been my escape for years, the one person who truly saw me.

We had built our relationship across different states, holding it together through late-night calls and short visits. That wasn’t enough anymore.

I wanted to be where she was, with a fresh start in a place where nobody knew me, where I could be myself.

In Alabama, everything seemed to revolve around keeping up appearances. When I wore a headband and grew my hair out, I got comments implying I looked too feminine. When I told my peers that I had met my girlfriend online, some laughed and others rolled their eyes.

In that world, deviation was a weakness. There was an unspoken rule: this is how life is, and there’s not much room to step outside it.

So I left. No grand send-off. No dramatic goodbye. I didn’t want people trying to stop me or tell me I was making a mistake.

One morning, I simply packed my things and began driving north. The only person I told was my manager at the campaign.

Things were never the same between me and my dad after that

The first few hours of the 1,200-mile drive were a blur. Somewhere around Virginia, my dad called.

“You’re where?” he asked. He had always told me to leave Alabama, but I don’t think he meant it like this.

“You always said it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” I said.

He let out a breath, half laugh, half sigh. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

We spoke after that, but less and less. It was never the same, less like father and son and once more like business partners, even though I seldom returned to Alabama and never worked at his law firm again.

It’s been 2 years since my dad died

I’d like to think he respected my decision, even if it hurt. I always appreciated him, and I wish we had spent more time together.

I wanted to know more about who he was and what he wanted for me, but leaving made that feel impossible.

Eight years later, and nearly two years since my dad died, I keep thinking about the call we had when I was already halfway to New York.

I never got to tell him I was sorry for the way I left. I thought I was avoiding pain, but all I did was delay it.

Leaving was still the right decision, but the way I left is a heavy regret that I’ll always carry.