We eventually started living in a nice, four-bedroom house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I honestly never really liked the house. It was nice and spacious, with beautiful natural light, but something about it made me feel lonely.
I remember those late work nights when I was the only one home. I couldn’t bring myself to look out the windows into the woods. It was dark outside, and somehow, it felt dark inside too. There would be just one light on in the living room and another in the study.
Once I finished the dinner my parents had prepared for me before they left for work and finished all my chores, I’d pour myself a big glass of water from the kitchen, leave one light on downstairs, and head straight to the study upstairs. I wouldn’t go back down again.
I’d shower before sunset and then stay in the study until it was time for bed. If I didn’t manage to shower before sundown, I’d wait until my brother got home from his work so I could feel safe enough to be alone in the bathroom.
It wasn’t the house itself that scared me. It was the darkness and the quietness.
And I used to leave the lights on when I went to bed.
I feel like my parents never really “loved” the house either. They bought it in a hurry because our shipping container, full of furniture and boxes of belongings from Taiwan, was arriving soon. There wasn’t really enough time to slowly shop around for our dream house, and that one just seemed to work.
It was big enough for all our stuff. It was convenient enough. It was in a good neighborhood. So there you have it.
It wasn’t long before we discovered this thing called an “open house,” where newly built model homes were open for viewing. Somehow, it became our family thing—well, minus my brother, since he was always out and about or going on dates, or just simply doing things on his own—to roam around town looking for new open houses.
We loved walking through different houses and imagining how our own house “could have” looked. It became something we really enjoyed doing, especially after driving an hour to the nearest Asian market to get our groceries.
We were already out there, so we might as well linger for a bit and check out some gorgeous new houses in the area too.
It wasn’t long after that when my brother moved out and eventually joined the U.S. Air Force. It became just the three of us.
I was 13 at the time, struggling to fit in—or not fit in. Honestly, I had no clue what I was doing.
Everything was so foreign to me: the names people had, the new faces I saw every day, and the language I was now actually starting to speak. I had learned a good amount of the basics throughout kindergarten and primary school in Taiwan, so I could understand bits and pieces of what people were saying. I knew simple vocabulary like pencil, eraser, homework, teacher, and so on.
But knowing those words was very different from actually being able to have a conversation with someone.
This is beautifully raw and real. Keep writing – even in your third language. It’s something I haven’t been brave enough to do, so many kudos to you!
LikeLiked by 1 person