home away from home

stream of consciousness

I moved back home from home five years ago. As I embraced a long-lost part of me, I was unable to comprehend the gravity of leaving home forever. Five years later, I am still home, away from home. It is as if I enter through the front door of the house I grew up in and belong until I reach the middle. There, an emptiness greets me. The other half of my home is nowhere to be found. Half of my identity remains under lock and key, waiting for the scent of an elementary school classroom. The dichotomy of being at home while also oceans away at the same time is bittersweet. What terrifies me the most is that when, one day, I do try to go home, it will no longer be there. That I will be met with indifference where I expect warmth. Do I even have a home to return to? The possibility that this is all I'll have for the rest of my life is more than a little unnerving.

I got my own room a few months ago. The walls are a depressing shade of pink but they are my depressing pink. Note that I did not paint it pink. The pink walls are a part of the love it’s been given before me. I fear wasting my years away lost in my room, but it is an intoxicating draught. Getting my own room has made me realize that there is room for me in people’s lives. Or rather, there’s a room just for me in people’s hearts. My mother is here every chance she gets. My baby brother takes all his naps on my bed. My brother, who’s not a baby checks on me often. Even if it’s just to tell me about a new game he has started playing. My father comes to see me everytime he’s passing by. Needless to say, they won’t let me lose my years rotting away in my room. I have a whole house in my room. Our home is in this dimly lit pink room. But one puzzle piece is 6,929 miles away. My third brother, the oldest of the four siblings. He has not seen this pink room as mine. He does not sit in on the family meetings that happen sometimes at 12 a.m. in my room. He does not check in on me. He’s not here to save me from wasting away my years locked away in my room. I’m not there to save him from wasting away his years alone. Our home in this dimly lit pink room is without a much needed piece.

A house is not a home, until, until, until. Home away from home comes with the weight of a grandmother who’s sick. The weight gets heavier every time she doesn’t stop me to tell me a random anecdote as I go to leave her room. The weight gets lighter when she has more to say than just about the ache in every part of her. The weight gets heavier again when she starts talking about leaving. We divide this weight without ever discussing it. My father gets the heaviest part and loses sleep. There is a certain helplessness in the passing nature of time. Home away from home is her. There is nothing without her. The two times she has had to stay at the hospital, this truth glared at us from her empty room. She is the essence of this house, this home. I fear I will only have a home as long as I have her. No amount of dimly lit pink rooms will be able to save me then. I hold on to the possibility that this is all I’ll ever have, because this is all I ever want. I am content with only half of me.