This post is looking back on the decision to leave home, 2.5 months later. I wrote a separate piece, "i have found a way out," a few weeks before leaving; I'd recommend reading that one before this.

And I was running far away
Would I run off the world someday?
Nobody knows, nobody knows

—Runaway by AURORA

A day before turning 18, I hopped on a flight to Cambridge and left home. I didn't look back. I hated my hometown, and I was so happy to be free.

It's been roughly two and a half months since then, and now I feel different. I no longer feel liberated. I feel guilty.

I feel as though I have betrayed someone– my family and friends, by leaving sooner than I was expected to.

I feel that I have left people I love behind.

Since leaving home, my life has changed more quickly than I ever could have anticipated: I've done AI biosecurity research in the UK, learned to cook, lived in my own apartment, taken a weekend trip to Ireland with a friend, attended a conference in Paris, started seriously dating someone, and am now in Berkeley for a month-long writing residency.

In the interim, I've missed several Model UN conferences, skipped Prom, opted out of Disney Grad Nite, and won't be going to my high school's graduation ceremony.

My friends back home have continued to attend high school as normal.

I can feel the distance between us growing, but it's not them that's changed– it's me. If the distance has grown, it is because I've moved further and further away from that life.

They've stayed put. I was the one who left.

I don't regret it. But some part of me feels a tremendous amount of guilt at the fact that I've gone off into the world and changed so much, while the people I love have stayed where I left them.

My parents never wanted a high-achiever, a child who strived.

All they wanted was a daughter.

My ambitions have cost so much in that regard. Moving away was the most obvious manifestation, but it showed up in tiny ways long before I left. Family movie nights that didn't happen because I had too many assignments due. Board games that grew dusty in the living room cupboards. Late-night conversations about life and the world that didn't happen because I was in my room studying. Vacations interrupted by my endless Zoom meetings for youth councils and nonprofits and projects.

The feeling always nagged at me. I was aware of it, to some degree, in real time. I could see the look of disappointment in my dad's eyes the eleventh time he asked if I wanted to play Ticket to Ride and I refused, saying I didn't have time. My stress made my mom stressed; she'd get so frustrated when I told her I'd forged her signature on my latest overdraft enrollment form so that I could take 11 classes. She kept telling me to stop.

I don't want a valedictorian, she'd say. All I want is a healthy, happy child.

But by then, I was already too far in to stop.

I'd already founded this organization, already registered for too many courses, already shed too many tears and had too many sleepless nights and said no to too many hangouts to give it all up now. I was speeding, almost spinning out of control, but I was in a race and couldn't afford to take my foot off the accelerator.

Just a little while longer. I can go a little while longer.

It'll all be worth it when I get into my dream school. They'll finally be proud of me then.

"I just need to remind myself that this does not matter at all."

That was what I said, out loud, to an empty room, one minute before opening the Stanford portal.

When I opened the letter, the first thing that registered was the red confetti.

And the first thing I did was cry.

I called my dad first. He was incredulous. I could hear the smile on his face. He was so happy, and excited to tell my grandma, and told me, no one gets into Stanford and you're going to have such a great time and I'm so proud of you.

Then I called my mom, still sobbing uncontrollably. She couldn't understand a word coming out of my mouth, and she wasn't expecting any college decisions that day. At first, she thought our dog Melody had died. Through tears, I said incoherently, I got into Stanford, and she said, no you did not, and laughed.

For one brief moment, it felt like everything was okay because everything worked out. Like I'd finally proven that all their sacrifices were worth it. I cried and cried because I was terrified, for so many years, that they wouldn't be.

For years I told myself that it would all be worth it once I got in. That my parents would understand. That the missed movie nights and dusty board games would feel like a fair trade. And when I opened that letter, for one moment, it was.

But the thing about proving yourself is that it never actually ends. Getting into Stanford didn't make me slow down; it made me want to leave even more.

I was supposed to start at Stanford that fall. Health problems delayed things. I spent one more semester at home, and on the first day back, I knew I couldn't stay. In January, I got on a plane to Cambridge.

In Cambridge, I became someone new. Someone who cooked for herself and traveled alone and stayed up debating AI timelines instead of studying for tests. I liked her. I think my parents would like her too, if they met her.

But I don't think she's who they were raising. They were raising a daughter. I became a person.

The person I'm becoming– the person I've always wanted to become– was never the person they were hoping for.

They wanted me to be happy.

I wanted to matter.

I call my parents sometimes, but not as often as I should. The conversations are fine– warm, even. My mom asks about my apartment, I tell her about the research and the writing and the trips and the food.

But I can hear it in the pause before she says, that's great, Sophie.

She's proud of me. She's also mourning someone.

The daughter who would have stayed.

The one who would have played Ticket to Ride.

You could say that all my dreams came true
Oh, what an oh-so-lonely view…

—plastic palm trees by Tate McRae