I ran away from home. It wasn't like in the movies, done under the covers of night. I didn't sneak out gingerly through any windows. There wasn't any need to move in silence or fear of being caught. My family helped me pack, they helped me settle into my new apt. Yes they helped settle me in, but truthfully I ran away from home.
The feeling if being a lost puzzle piece didn't occur overnight, I believe it was always a thought in the back of my mind that I didn't really fit here. My family by all accounts is very eccentric and unconventional in many ways. Females in my family are encouraged to be independent, assertive and go after the things they want. Within reason, theirs of course, not ours. A contradiction of sorts you say? YES INDEED! So this unconventional family pushed me to run. My situation is one that, even in an unconventional family, you are expected to live with you parents until marriage and then you are to live with you husband and more often than not his family for the rest of eternity. EGAADDD!!!
As a teenager I was like OH HELL NO, I will not allow myself to be one of those women. I needed to know what it felt like to live alone, I wanted to experience living on little money and resorting to eating Crix if I had to. (topic of a blog to come). I didn't want to live with my parents and then live go on to live with husband and in laws, it was a reality I couldn't reconcile myself to. With the onset of early adulthood however, all that was happening for me was the fact that I had to live with my parents, relationships on the eros plane weren't showing any indications of having longevity. My parents, they really didn't know, still don't know how to deal with an adult, single child. It was during this time that my tolerance level for my family started dwindling (for another blog as well...lol).
But not just my immediate family but for my extended family as well. The maternal side of my family is very close ( going most everywhere together). My paternal family, they are close as well and move together a lot, but with them, I was like a square peg trying to exist in the land of round holes, so I never really bothered. But mummy's family, boy as a child, I spent almost every waking and sleeping moment with my grandparents and everyone was always around. My family is like a small village unto itself. And with the 'growing up' everyone started becoming irritating and insufferable or were they always like that and I didn't realize. I found a niche with a group of people who helped me escape temporarily from time to time. My interaction with my family lessened and I would be gone for weekends and public holidays with my new found 'family'. I missed many gatherings of my biological family, but didn't feel as if I was missing out on anything and I couldn't be bothered.
Yet even with the release that these friends bought, I still had to return for extended periods to my family's home and for me the mental anguish was becoming to much for me to bear. Tensions were at an all time high and choices I had made, had caused a degree of unease among the members of my family. I NEEDED TO GET OUT. And so I ran. I found an avenue and with a speed that would make Usain Bolt's head spin, I grabbed it and ran. Placement in a job like mine, for an individual like myself would be easy. I could get to work anywhere I choose, even right within my village. I choose to go as far away from my village as possible, knowing with a measure of confidence that I would be granted an opportunity to work on this side of the country. The justification that I wanted to further my studies and the proximity to the university would be the smoke screen to mask the fact that I was just running away from them.
Trepidation hit, when my inner desires started becoming my reality. I was granted a chance to work 'far' from home (nowhere in my country is far). I didn't know how to tell them and so I stalled for days. I was looking for apartments on this side and still hadn't said a word to my family as regards to me having to move away from them. Inevitably I had to and there was pandemonium all around, how could they send you so far? What will you do? Where will you live? There concerns were endearing but I didn't care, I wanted to shout that I needed to get away from the suffocation which was brought on by you people, but I wasn't that coldhearted one time.
Fast forward to the present, a little more than two years later. I have lived in two other apartments and am now in my third. My family has helped me pack and unpack on each occasion, they still haven't realized that I have run away from them. What used to be my close friend circle has dissipated but I value the ones which has taken its place. However it means that I don't galavant as much as I used to before. I have started going back to school and really now don't have that much time to waste (note to self especially). This week marks one month since I have been 'home', (to be blogged about), the longest I have ever been away from that place while still being in the country. And a scary reality hit me last week. *in whispered tones* I miss them....shhhhhhhhh don't say anything.
My parents came to visit me on Friday and then came again on Sunday afternoon (they miss me as well). My grandmother called, she was checking to make sure everything's okay. In the time that has elapsed since 'running away' I have come to realize that I love my eccentric family, I love that we talk nonsense and it makes sense to us, I love that clowning around seems to be genetic and that everyone has a turn to wear the 'blonde' crown, as unwittingly as that occurrence may be. They may irritate the hell out of me when I am around them for extended periods but in their absence, or rather my absence from them, things really can be boring. (I guess I am more of a sucker than I thought I was) Sociologists talk about primary socialization having the strongest impact on who we become, I really never agreed with that school of thought. I felt secondary socialization was stronger in creating for us an identity we would own as adults.
But truth is were it not for the zany, overly excited, mildly OCD, love to cook, love to eat people who raised me, I certainly would not be the person I am today. It takes running away to realize that fact. I wouldn't regress on my decisions though, I am happy that I am away from them. It is only when we are not interacting with something that we'll realize we miss it. I am now looking forward eagerly to Christmas vacation. I am going to have a 'time' with my jelly beans and hopefully won't have to write an anger management needed post here during that time.
To you who struggle with family issues of your own, my recommendation would be, run! I know it's easier said than done, but if you can and an opportunity exists for you to get away from them even in a temporary sense, do it. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder.
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