fifty one.

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   Recently I've been doing a lot of reflecting. I think a lot about my life and how I got to this point. I guess I'm trying to figure out how I've managed to let half of my life fall apart while the other half seems to thrive immensely. It sort of feels as though I'm becoming a whole new person. Like how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

   I started to notice how the life I left behind in Barbados is slowly becoming less and less apart of me, while the life I've started in Los Angeles is becoming more apart of me.

   My friends back home are growing apart from me even more than they were when I first moved away in 2010. It doesn't feel like we're as close anymore. In fact, we barely talk, but that's okay because I know the love will always be there.

   My family- well actually my family has always been kind of shitty to me. In terms of how it's gotten more impactful on my life though, my mother doesn't speak to me and then my father takes my mother's side on everything. Plus he's dying so there's also that. My brother is kind of the middle man right now so in result, I barely talk to him either. I feel kind of bad about not talking to him as much as I should but I can't really handle the way he constantly tries to get me to reach out to our parents. He doesn't understand how they treat me makes me feel because he's always been the favourite.

   I'm starting to feel like I no longer have a family. I mean, literally yes, I do have blood-related family. I have cousins and grandparents, my parents and my brother and all my aunts and uncles. But the way family is supposed to treat each other, that's not at all how any of them treat me.

   I feel like I don't matter.

   I've felt like I don't matter, specifically to my parents, for as long as I remember. It's always been hot and cold with them. They pick and choose when they want to treat me like their daughter. It's tiring.

   So as I said, I feel like I no longer have a family.

   I always get so deep into thought recently about this. I have a hunch it's because it's the holiday season, the season that you normally spend with your family.

How did I get here? I constantly ask myself.

I spent the first sixteen years of my life in Barbados, moved to London for the next three years and finally moved to Los angeles. I've done so much in between all these years and I still cannot figure out how I ended up here.

It's like, I blame myself for the way things are turning out with my family. I truly believe it is my fault and I don't know why. I know I am not supposed to think like that, but I can't help it.

If you didn't say that, you wouldn't be in this position. If you let them control you, they'd still be talking to you.

It's sick and twisted that I miss my parents' attention, though I never really had it in the first place. I don't know, but the fact that I can't even call them to wish them a Merry Christmas is weird for me. No matter what fights we always got into, we always came back around. Maybe the reason I seem to miss them is because our rollercoaster of a relationship is all I've ever known. But now things are very different. My number is blocked by them and I only know that because I did try to call - stupid of me I'm aware - and it said the number is out of service. I know it's not.

Ever Since LA - h.s.Where stories live. Discover now