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I look back into my 20 short years of existence, and somehow, I don't find one single moment where I truly, utterly felt happy.
I grew up alone. And by alone, I really meant alone. I have been living alone in a quaint 2-story house since I was 12 years old.
There used to be only my mother and I, but as a nurse, she would work odd hours and I was often left home alone. I never dwelled much on the fact that I grew up without a father. After all, I was the 'illegitimate' child. My mother was the mistress who broke up a family and had me. Before I was born, my father miraculously fixed things up with his first family and chose to stay with them. "Out of sight, out of mind," I would say. I learned early on that I wasn't in the place to yearn for a father nor a family life, much less a stolen one.
A single-parent income, especially if you are a nurse in my country, made it increasingly difficult to provide for our family of two. When I turned 11 years old, my mother made the decision to work abroad (in Saudi Arabia, and later, the United States) and leave me alone here in the Philippines. She first tried entrusting me to her sister--my aunt, but that didn't work out after they started mistreating me. I wouldn't want to use the word "abuse" because I know full well the gravity of the word; I was treated more as a maid and a babysitter who does her cousins' homework than a guest or a niece in my aunt's home. I got slapped a couple of times and berated often by my aunt and the rest of our extended family, but I turned it all off. I hated my life. But again, I felt like I wasn't in the place to feel bad, yearn more, and hope for the better.
By the time I turned 12, my mother earned enough as a nurse overseas. She continued working abroad, and upon hearing gossip from my aunts' neighbors about how I was normally treated, she bought a house for me to live in our home country.
I've now been living alone in this house for the past 8 years. I talked to myself often, I didn't allow myself to feel sad or bad. It was a coping mechanism, I compartmentalized and swept it all under the rug. I'm fine. Nothing was wrong. People out there have been through worse. I truly believed that. There was an ache, but it was dull from years of practice.
College came and it became easier. I moved into a dorm and had 3 roommates. And for those 4 years (I started college at 15), suddenly, I felt less alone than I had my whole life.
College eventually ended and I moved back to my own house... and suddenly, I was alone again. I spent my 20th birthday with some friends and went home alone to my house, sat in my bed, listened to a random Linkin Park song, and the tears just started flowing. They won't stop. "One More Light" came on and it felt like a dam broke, I cried myself to sleep. I felt lonely all my life, but there on the night of my 20th birthday, I've never felt more alone.
I'm still 20 years old now. Everything was so different. My mother married a guy in the United States and migrated there fully to join his family. She thought she would be able to bring me, but by the time she married, I was already past 18 years old and laws didn't allow her to do so. It's not something I wanted either. Being alone was my new norm that during the few times my mother visited me, it felt almost strange having people living in MY house.
I know my mother loves me, she just wasn't the type to be independent. I made the decisions for the both of us. She wouldn't even fight the aunts who mistreated me for years, she wouldn't believe my pleas until she heard testaments from my aunts' neighbors. She married a guy she didn't fully like and would always tell me, "I did this for you. Everything I did has always been for you." She worked abroad because of me. She married a guy because of me. She put burden after burden on my shoulders, and I can never blame her for it. Because she never realized how much she burdened me with all of this. We tried talking and talking. I would tell her I was depressed and alone and wanted to kill myself, but nothing would change. She didn't get scared or worried--the generational gap just won't let her comprehend.
The truth is, I'm scared of dying. It's something I've only realized lately. It's the paradox I'm facing: I want to die, but I don't want to kill myself.
It's almost laughable. I wanted to die, but I don't want to kill myself for exactly two reasons. I wanted to die, but I don't want my mother to feel bad, I don't want her to blame herself. I wanted to die, but on the off chance that hell was real, committing the greatest sin that is suicide scares me. So now I'm left wishing I would go to sleep and never wake up--the coward's way out, right? Every night for the past 2 weeks, I would stare at the bottle of Naproxens on my bedside table and just... think.
Now here I am at 20 years old, I have no friends, no family. I technically own a house at 20 years old. An empty house. I've spent the past years turning all my pain off, my emotions off, my care for my well-being off, my selfishness off, and yet right after I turned 20, all of them just came pouring out. I still don't know when they will stop.
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