Homecoming: A Journey Home to Myself: An Excerpt Anonymous
Content Warning: Emotional Abuse FINLAND 2012 Over the summer before 8th grade, we moved from our shoebox of an
apartment into a decently sized three-bedroom apartment in Haukilahti, a well-situated neighbourhood mainly populated by elderly Finnish people. When we moved, the yelling subsided and was replaced by a deafening silence. You might think that silence is better than yelling, but I was
surprised to find out that was not the case. Yelling meant that something was worth arguing over—that someone was worth engaging with. But
now, Hooyo and Aabo had graduated from simply disliking each other into full-blown indifference.
They eventually stopped talking altogether. When Hooyo was in the living room, Aabo would go into the kitchen. When Hooyo was in the kitchen, Aabo would go into his room. Years of frustration, disappointment, and resentment surrounded them like a forcefield keeping them at a 5m
distance from each other at all times. The air in our last apartment was
always crackling with electricity so that if you breathed too hard you might spark a flame. The air in this apartment was heavy, dimming my senses
and lulling me into a never-ending numbness. Nothing other than silence felt appropriate. We were all dragged into grieving the collapse of their twenty year long marriage.
Being in a constant state of indifference must have been exhausting, so every once in a while, Hooyo and Aabo would drag themselves out of mourning and insert themselves into my life.
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