It’s not home, but it is where I live.

  “There is no place like home, nothing like sleeping in your own bed,” my brother-in-law said as he drove me back to my apartment just now. He was talking about himself, as he has just returned home from a week away.

My apartment is where I live now, as of a few weeks ago, but it is not my home. In my apartment I feel lonely, sad, scared and overwhelmed. Home should not feel like that.

I am not homeless in any true sense of the word. There are millions of people who would be grateful to switch places with me. Knowing that does not make me any less lonely, sad, scared or overwhelmed.

I left what was my home two months ago, very quickly, without warning, in a shocking and disturbing manner that I was powerless to prevent, after someone who has been cruel to me for a lifetime was cruel once more. I soon after moved in with my sister’s family for a month, something I am very grateful for. I slept in my nephew’s bed, in his jungle room as I have taken to calling it, surrounded by animals of all stuffed, printed and stickered sort. By the time it came time for me to leave, I did not want to. I felt safe there, an unfamiliar feeling that I did not want to relinquish. I knew that if anyone ever broke in to my sister’s home, my brother in law would handle it or perhaps even my sister would go mother commando to protect her kids. I wasn’t alone.

I had arrived at my sister’s home still in shock, even though the shocking event was almost three weeks earlier. Sometimes, I think I still am in shock. I am definitely still feeling the emotional fallout.

 

This is all I know for sure right now. The place that was my home, for decades, is no longer my home. I can never go back to it and I will never go back to it. Others related to me will, but I will not.

Elina Grace Edwin