The air is crisp, not too cold, it doesn’t quite cut through sweaters, but it's sharp and there’s a breeze. It wakes you up as you walk through it. The sky is clear, not mostly clear where you can see the sun, but there’s still clouds. No, there isn't a cloud to be seen. The sun is bright, but not hot. Its lulling warmth contrasts the gentle punch of the breeze where it shines through onto the sidewalk through the branches overhead.

Well, that's the weather. You know I once had the idea of being a weatherman but instead of listing numbers that everyone will personally map to different feelings and sections of their wardrobe, I’d just describe in detail what the weather would feel like. I’d do it every day, and people would watch me. I know it’s silly, but that’s how daydreams are supposed to be.

See that's the thing about the weather. It doesn’t care what's going on down here. It's like a stage that never matches the performance. See, on exactly this day last year, my mother died. I don’t feel what I'm supposed to feel. I don’t feel sad, and I don’t feel not sad in the hasn't hit me yet way or the denial way or the went through the approved stages of grief and is now enlightened way. I just don’t feel it at all. I feel the breeze through my hair, I feel the sun on my back slightly warming my sweater, and I am not sad at all.

My mom wasn't the worst person to exist. She wasn’t the best either, and I'm not sure that she deserves what I'm feeling, or what I'm not feeling right now. She wasn’t the cruelest person in my life, but in the end I lay it all out in front of me and I'm not sure that the good outweighs the bad.

My mom hurt me, over and over and over again. It was the little things, the things you expect from a parent. It was disapproval and bickering and stupid pointless rules. It was fights when I was a teenager and drunkenly cheating on my dad. It was angry phone calls and homophobia. But I’m supposed to forgive her, right? She was my mother after all. I'm supposed to see through all those flaws, put on my rose coloured glasses and see the moment of tenderness when I broke my arm, and the occasional almost complement on my violin playing.

But I don't dictate how feel, and I'm not one to fake it. My girlfriend gets back home tomorrow, and we're going to go for a walk along the waterfront. I'm going to buy her earrings and get her to tell me every little detail about the conference she's at right now, no matter how much she’ll think she’s boring me. And I won’t think about my mom at all.