it is only as i spend a few moments alone can i start to feel the same familiar sensation wash over me, just as it has so often before.
i can feel the clutches and the restraint – the smothering suffocation.
don’t get me wrong, i love my family, but i don’t even have a room to myself here.
the only time i spend alone is at night, when everyone else has gone to sleep and when my eyes can barely stay open – or on rest days like today when i can steal moments in the communal bedroom to finish reading a book.
it’s difficult for me to spend too much time with the same people without extended moments of solitude.
i – who cherish times of isolation, who even in the first year of university consciously chose to spend hours, sometimes even a day or two, all alone – have no time to myself.
and how truly can i be myself when i am surrounded by people who have painted a portrait of me as already semi-damned.
i can’t escape the image of my life as having strayed off the righteous path – as being foolish and mislead – and maybe its an accurate portrayal.
but i love my family, and i really am grateful that i get to spend this rare time with them. this trip has, for the most part, been wonderful.
someone please hand me a more positive attitude – just pry the non-existent fingers off my throat, steady, one by one.
there are only a couple more weeks.