A House That Doesn't Feel Like Home

                       

               In 2005, in the house of Catalina and Alvin. I was born after my older sister and brother. I was the last straw, the last chance and last hope of my mother to keep our family together but it failed. Me being born doesn't make my father change my mother treat me like a mistake that she have to face the consequences after having. My father acted as if we were just a long lost relative that he will talk to when he needs something.

              I'm Karol, my family and friends call me Seth. I grew up with my siblings, my struggling mother and  my father is physically and emotionally absent. I was five years old when i started to question why my family lives like that. My older sister and brother will do and help with house chores while my mom strive to work  to make ends meet. While i stay out of the way, trying not to cause mess, noise and trying my best to behave and do what my siblings ask me to do. Too scared to make anyone mad. I was careful, too careful that i have to act behave as an adult and not to act like a child in a young age. 

                 I saw the cracks, not on the walls of our tiny house but in my family's relation. I saw how my mother disregard any type of addressing emotions and that leaves an impact on how me and my siblings react. My older sister is the strict one, she run the house when mom's not there. She shows reliability, but i see how she looks when her friends hangout. My brother was the reckless one, he stays out late and leaves early in the morning just to be with his friends and i'm just there. Whenever they fight, mom would stop it right away, my older sister will be the one talking to them and my older brother would just go out again and they never apologize, never even make small gestures to anyone. They will just ignore it and anyone until they calm down. 

                That's the reason why i often doubted my emotions. I feel like i don't have the right to have my own feelings because i am aware that everyone goes to something in their lives or mind. I feel obligated to just shut and have everyone express their feelings but mine. I realize this when i got in a relationship with my girlfriend, whenever we fight, i just shut down and confuse about my own feelings, scared to make the situation worse by talking. I just stood there, but instead of ignoring and letting it pass, she did something. She talk to me in a way that my family never did. I learned from that, not to hate my family but to be the one who will break the silence, the barrier that keeps us from opening up and to open doors that were shut many years ago.