Where The Heart Belongs

  

                All of us remember the time we turned into a teenager; hormones racing, making new discoveries. But this is not a piece about change in sexuality rather about a change in perspective.

 Actually being 13 is not the qualification for being a teenager. In reality you turn into a teenage when you become a pain in the ass for your parents, when you discover rebellion hidden in the innermost part of yourself and when you start making simple situations around you arduous. So you may turn into a teenage when you are 13 or 16 or 18. No, I did not skip Biology in school; I know the process of puberty and how it’s difficult to cope up with all the metamorphic changes in our bodies.

Something all of us can absolutely relate with is feeling alone. 'You don’t understand what I’m going through', was everyone’s favorite dialogue while arguing with their parents. This is the first time in life we realize that it’s been a long time since our parents were young. In the decades that passed, their normal became orthodox for us and our normal, an unacceptable way of life for them. 

You might recall often feeling trapped, incapable of making sense to them. But as we grow out of our teens we realize it was just a phase, a fogged glass in front of our eyes. Our vision and perception were blurred by an overflowing string of hormones. Our mood swings were only second to that of a pregnant woman.

                

                  But what if it doesn’t pass? The feeling of entrapment, not belonging in your own house. What if while growing up, the feeling only grows? From a phase it turns into something more permanent like a way of life. Your faces match, people often joke how all of you are slightly different versions of the same person but the hearts are just not in place. 

Have you ever noticed the new kid at school? He feels awkward, nervous and detached, with children looking at him as if he were a new species. Imagine feeling like that when you look at your family. A constant reminder lingering in the air that though we share the same blood, you’ll never be one of us. ‘How did you grow up to be so different?’, they ask you. ‘Why can’t you accept me?’, you only ponder.

Stuck playing by someone else’s rules, you feel suffocated. You just want to escape to a place you can feel free, do as you please and where you don’t have to justify your every action. A place where you find support and love instead of rules to obey. Often your own thoughts become your sanctuary. And it creeps up on you that maybe your rebellious days are not behind you, rather you feel a battle building up inside. 

You prefer the company of friends over going back home because it just doesn’t feel like it. How can you call a place home where you aren’t valued; where your absence goes just as unnoticed as your presence; where no one cares what you think or want from life? You live there, eat there, bathe there but that is the extent of your involvement. You are the last to know about anything important and are excluded from the most worthwhile decisions; may they concern the entire family or be limited to you. 

And sooner or later you accept it. Accept right now as something transient, leading to your destination. You walk through life in the search of a place filled with warmth. Somewhere your heart can feel at peace. A place to call HOME.