CIRC MAGAZINE

I sent as an open submission, my following work, on the topic of: “How does one’s home anchor their place of solace?” It ended up getting published in the issue 002 of Circ Magazine.



HOME IS WHERE YOUR HEAR IS.
At least that’s what they say. So, I moved out today.

My roommates started dating and I became the disruptive element, the intruder of their home. Though, I need to say, they have always made sure I felt welcome. But the idea of being there, when I know they yearn to start building their love nest, was unimaginable. So I packed up and left. All the nine boxes and a big orange suitcase, hardcore minimalism or just a student life?

So now, I’m homeless.

And it’s not that I don’t have a place. My boyfriend, after reassuring him a dozen times that it is all just temporary, let me stay. So now I have a park right outside of the house and a built up pressure I need to leave ASAP. And I love him but I hate him, too. When all my friends were jumping in to tell me I can always sleep at theirs, he didn’t say a word. We picked the curtains and the cutlery for him, and the rug in the living room everyone keeps admiring. I made him get grown up bedsheets and fixed the lights. Yet still, I am just an intruder in his house.

God only knows, and my friends, obviously, how much I want my own home. How much it means to me to be able to close the door, turn the lock and tell myself: Finally! To decorate it the way that I want to, to cook naked and pee with the bathroom door opened. To sit on a bed after an exhausting day and just stare into the emptiness of nothingness. To have a place that is my own shelter and no one can take it away from me, where I can be unapologetically myself and know there is no one to judge me. A place of peace and solace, where I can meditate and enjoy my solitude.

Because right now, it’s all conditional. And I always need to double check, every step of the way. When we argue I can’t storm out and go home and wait for him to call. Instead, we need to go to different rooms until one of us says it’s time for dinner. And I know it’s cute but it’s all conditional. And that’s not good enough for me. But despite all this, I am hopeful. Hopefully homeless, homelessly hopeful that one day I will have what I need. My castle, though it might be just a couple square feet.

As my friend Teresa says: "God gives his toughest battles to his funniest clowns." And so, I'm waiting. For God to stop laughing, for the curtain to fall, so I can go home.