EPTThe first house was the house I lived in from the ages of 0-7. The memories are fewest, but they are the happiest. In fact, right above my monitor screen are a handful of pictures from me in my youth. I look like such a happy child, but I can't remember where any of these pictures were taken and what made that moment so happy.
The second house I lived in was during my pre-teenage years up until about my 13th year. In this house, a small puppy was added as a new addition to our family. Towards the last few years of living in this house, I believe this was the time when my birthday was no longer celebrated, when christmas started to have no expectations of gifts, and when I started drifting away from my younger brother. There had been some arguments with my parents about my seemingly excessive usage of video games (think gameboy advance, not PC) around this time too.
The third house is the house my parents are currently paying off and live in. This is the house that I am in right now during my spring break from college. In this house, our dog died. My parents fought against me harder than ever to stop me from spending so much time on the computer. Fight, fight fight. We had so many countless fights that I can't even remember what they were all about because they happened so frequently that my life during high school fell into a pretty solid routine of fighting and making up after those fights.
What is in the present is the most important part of time because the past cannot be changed and the future is yet to be determined by our present actions. Well, presently in this house, I don't have any happy recollections about living here. Instead, when I think of this house as "home", I don't think the word "home" should be thought of so negatively in my head. Yet it is.
In this "home", during the occasional downtime between arguments between my parents and me, the only outlet that I could explore without limits was the internet. It was the one thing in this entire house of almost 5,000 square feet that helped me feel at "home". It was a shelter, something that provided a feeling of safety, security, to me. My happiest moments were no doubt on a computer during my childhood. Watching SC:BW proleague games, watching tasteless cast by himself at Gom studio, hanging out with online friends in various esports games. The one place where I could escape my problems.
Fast forward now to now and I am in this house again. Now, whenever I walk through this house I am reminded of the mangled relationship I have with my brother, my sister, my mother, and my father. When my dad picked me up, he mentioned something about having new speakers for me back at the house. I can't bring myself to ask him about them now that I am here. I start to get teary.I keep my mouth shut so I don't choke over my words. It doesn't feel RIGHT to me to ask for something my dad said he got for me. One thing my parents made sure to teach me was not to "talk back" to them. What this basically meant was that anything other than a "yes" or a "no or no thank you", forming an opinion of original thought, ended up as an argument.
Although both my mother and father have become a lot nicer over the years, the pain I feel every time I talk to them about something is almost too much. These are my parents. They are not my friends or mentors. They are my parents.
When I got back, my mother gave me a hug and was happy to see me. I forced myself to hug her back and to say something back to her, even if it was just one word that was said with no eye contact at all. She only wants the best for me and despite reaching out to me, I can't reach out back to her. I can't. In a younger age, I would have tried. I would have forgiven her, but the words "i am sorry" have since then lost any significance of the original phrase. They are just empty words to me now.
Every time I see my parents, they always greet me with a warm welcome, but when I muster up the effort to reciprocate, I have none. My dad said something about new speakers on the car ride here, but since then I have not mentioned it to him and he is sleeping now. I am probably not going to mention it to him unless he brings it up again.
My mom asked me whats wrong because I looked sad. I said I was fine. I was ok. I'm not. But I couldn't tell her that. How could I tell her the reason I am feeling sad is because I am home with my family?
I feel like an unprecedented DICK because I have no feelings for any of my family members. I feel too far pushed away from any of them to connect to them. They still love me, but it feels forced to love them back.
My wounds are still raw. The pain is still too much to move on and I lose all control of my ambitions of trying to re-connect with my family. I guess time truly is the answer to healing something like this. I guess enough time hasn't went by for me to move on yet.
