From the past

I remember when I was either 15 or 16 (on hindsight perhaps a little younger even), my younger sisters, my parents and I had to move out of our "old" house temporarily, so that we would get a "new" one in a few months. Basically, the house was going to get renovated - so at the end of it all, there was going to be new kitchen cabinets, new bathroom tiles, polished parquet and marble floors, which had grown dirty with so many years of use. It was a nice feeling at first, but then as the weeks dragged by, it became rather unbearable, not that my granny's place where we were putting up was bad, but rather, it's not like your own home. It was different waking up in the mornings, suffocated by the musty smell of incense, mixed with the humidity of the day. It was different, not being able to see the lights in the next block twinkle on and off as everyone, like yourself, begin another day. There was no sun rising up from the horizon, or the honking of the big trucks passing along the expressway outside my window. It was just different.

"It's the little things that count" Drew Barrymore, in the Wedding Singer.

So like now, each consecutive morning I wake up, it's cold. I go to a dirty bathroom that no one really bothers to clean, the only place that I can really call my own, is this small bedroom that I have and because I pay the rent, no one can charge in as and when they wish. I go downstairs and have breakfast all on my own, in this huge big house that has got no one I would love. Everytime I turn off the lights, there's this deadly silence that I try to drown out with music - no one to talk to.

It's like how when my whole family had to move out temporarily and when we finally returned, though there was this the alcoholic smell of new paint, turpentine and dust flitting about, it was still home. I was soo happy, just to be back.