knew, from the earliest age I can remember, that one day I would have to tell my parents and my friends a secret about myself, a secret I could not escape, and they would leave me, or I would have to leave them, and then my happiness would be over. And so I savoured the happiness, cradled it, saw my childhood (even as I was living it) through a lens of nostalgia. Soon, I knew, it would be over. Soon I would have to end it. There was happiness, yes, but there was always the relentless knowledge of time running out. Love, comfort, safety, all of them ran like sand through an hourglass.
