Don’t get me wrong, I love my bedroom. I could lock myself in and wrapped up under my tan warm blanket that might be older than me. But there’s that. I rarely communicate with my family, only going out whenever I need to have a meal or take a visit to the bathroom. I live with my granny, my aunt and her family, while my own parents and siblings live just outside the city. My aunt is practically my second mother and she has done nothing but making me feel like I’m a part of her family. She even built a room for me in her new house and let me do whatever I wanted with it. It’s just that I can’t help but feeling like an outsider.
I occasionally visit my parents house and spent the weekend there, and then again, I couldn’t shake the fact that I still feel like an outsider. My mom remarried and she has two kids with my stepdad, one just stepped into kindergarten and the other turn 3 this August but he’s already two steps further than me when I was his age. I can no longer fool him whenever I played PlayStation because he can kick an ass or two in Dynasty Warrior, despite blindly punching the buttons. Again, I still feel like an outsider there.
My mother with her new family, my aunt with her own family. I visited my dad on the other side of the city whenever I got the time too, and he already has his own new family. So where do I stand? Where is it when I said I’m going home, when my home doesn’t even feel like home?
I started to partake in a local community that has concern about abusive relationship back at September 2018, and slowly build a new friendship with numerous amazing people from different background who apparently shares the value like mine too.
Being bullied throughout elementary and middle school, while feeling out of place in high school, made me feel more comfortable with the friends I had now. It feels really nice to have someone who listens first, without judging every word you utter. They’ve created an invisible safe bubble for me and unconsciously embrace who I really am and led me learning to accept myself.
Some people told me that I’ve changed to a completely different person, a chatty and outgoing one, whenever I’m out with my friends rather than the person who isolate herself in her room.
I was told multiple times to stop being so “loud” whenever I hang out with my family since I was a little girl and so I did just that. And growing up, they start attacking me with intimidating question on how I lock myself and my life away from them. They ask me why I kept secrets and why I spend more time out rather than with them.
Well, as they all said, a home is where you feel safe, right? Where you felt comfortable, and where can just be yourself. I found a home in my friends. I found a home in how they simultaneously laugh whenever I fell but extend a hand to me and help me up on my feet again. I found a home in every countless rant session at the corner of our favorite coffee shop. I found a home in every shared beers and cigarettes while discussing whatever the hell just happened on Twitter.
I’m as much at home whenever I’m with them.
ambedo 