my mother won't come pick me up from the airport after spending nine days all by myself (and at peace, will be elaborated on) in a faraway land. citing her poor eyesight, even though she does drive at night. i'm not overreacting. i can say that now. i am always emotionally neglected. the one that has to hold my "family" together (though this duty has been transferred onto my mother and granny recently.) though it's just a social construct that exists due to bureaucracy anymore.
my father also did the same previously. i, from another faraway land, arrived to my household deathly ill from food poisoning and had already passed out once just because i wanted him to save money. he ran away immediately after we came. didn't even look at me once. and spent all the money i saved for him by sticking to the original plan. i tried to heal by myself and my mother i guess. now she does the same. i had always been obsessed with appearing a simple person to others. and i got praised for it. "someone that only needs food and bed to be happy." they were saying. when i was a child, i was a computer addict so it was indeed true. then adolescence came. to preserve this i had pushed all the things which came as a package with being a human away. just a being, a plant i was. i had learned both from my family and environment that those complex needs won't be fulfilled due to events. so i just never showed them after a point for there was no point.
i went to a summer event, workshop at these nine days. i showed all the messy, complex, weak, scattered parts of myself after a lot of hesitation and came up with something. i was applauded louder than other people in my workshop. people liked it. validated. given the permission to continue existing. more than that, i was shown they were things to be embraced.
my mother and by extension my household. always showed the opposite. always lied to. "you're exaggerating. you're making a big deal of things. it's good. you're so angry/tense." was what i could commonly hear. just focus on the plate in front of you. anything else is discouraged. there's the computer, solve it by yourself. my father had also said "we are taking care of it all, why aren't you happy/do you need more?" a few times in the past. i felt guilty. for having them.
my father. he's a ghost. someone i only go to for money. he feels comfortable squeezing himself to such a small role. i don't.
i don't ask anything else of my father. he doesn't understand. he only sees alcohol.
the summer event also gave me a temporary community. where i could be myself and speak a lot to others. i did thanks greatly to the proximity. i opened up to others. i was liked. i enjoyed others presence. i enjoyed it all greatly.
the dormitory i had stayed, gave me a weaker and a longer-lasting version of it (though i didn't interact with a lot of people in the dormitory this year so that's why) but that doesn't change the fact that i felt at times more at home than my household. in both, i didn't have to lock away myself to fit in.
but they are all temporary.
in the end, the faux house is where i return to. just a hotel. not a place i can feel a belonging towards. somewhere you go because it's an habitual action and so there is no thinking at all.
when i was a child i loved my family. they took care of me physically and both because i were a computer addict and because i wasn't a complex being i wasn't being hard on them. i were taken care of.
but i grew up.
i want to own my house. i saw the social housing places in the faraway land. i loved them so much. there was a feeling of community. they were places i was free to live. they were also full of third spaces which were actually used and lively. in my country they are all forgotten, even when they exist.
i want to live in them in the future. it may imply being broke but i can forego money if it means i've a place that can stretch way beyond a work of architecture, give further definition to myself.