Going Home
Winter is disgusting in cities. Grey buildings blend with the equally grey sky, snow in the streets melts and the muddy puddles are so deep and big you’d have to hover for your feet to stay dry, even if you have the best shoes in the world. Traffic is terrible and taxis are almost impossible to find. I should have been looking forward to leaving the city for the holidays for the first time since I moved here twelve years ago. But I wasn’t. I was dreading it.
I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror. There I was, just a few miles from my destination, sitting in my car and trembling like a leaf. My face was twisted in a grimace, I was sick with nerves. This isn’t how holidays with family are supposed to feel. It may have been …show more content…
Heaven forbid, no. You did it one street away, preferably under some tree casting a big dark shadow, because if someone saw you, people were going to talk. And people talking, that’s an introduction to a disaster in such a town.
I did something not many people in a town like that would dare to do. One faithful evening, and I say this with as much acid as I can without it burning my tongue, I came out to my family. It was a reunion similar to this one I was going to, closest family members gathered in our house - my grandma, both my parents, my two sisters, my aunt and uncle, and their …show more content…
I was tired of these questions, I was tired of hiding. I stood up from the dining table and looked at them. This is it, I thought, I’m doing it. And, I did it. Well, it mostly consisted of me yelling at them to shut up, that I was gay, and I didn’t care what anyone said. My aunt had a disgusted look on her face, but no one said anything. I ran up to my room and locked the door. That was it.
Someone knocked on my door several times that evening, but I never opened it. I packed and took the train to the city where I went to college next morning. My parents called, my sisters came to see me, but I wouldn’t meet them. They called nonstop at first, and then didn’t call more than a few times a year, and I never answered. Time went on. I never went home again. Until that day, twelve years later.
I rang the bell of my childhood home. When the door opened, I just broke in tears. I didn’t see who opened it; I only felt my father’s arms squeezing me in the tightest hug I’ve ever received. He was almost breaking my ribs, but for the first time since I left, I finally felt I was able to breathe again.
One lengthy crying session later, my parents and I were sitting at the dining table in silence. I owed them an explanation, but words wouldn’t leave my mouth. Still, they
Winter is disgusting in cities. Grey buildings blend with the equally grey sky, snow in the streets melts and the muddy puddles are so deep and big you’d have to hover for your feet to stay dry, even if you have the best shoes in the world. Traffic is terrible and taxis are almost impossible to find. I should have been looking forward to leaving the city for the holidays for the first time since I moved here twelve years ago. But I wasn’t. I was dreading it.
I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror. There I was, just a few miles from my destination, sitting in my car and trembling like a leaf. My face was twisted in a grimace, I was sick with nerves. This isn’t how holidays with family are supposed to feel. It may have been …show more content…
Heaven forbid, no. You did it one street away, preferably under some tree casting a big dark shadow, because if someone saw you, people were going to talk. And people talking, that’s an introduction to a disaster in such a town.
I did something not many people in a town like that would dare to do. One faithful evening, and I say this with as much acid as I can without it burning my tongue, I came out to my family. It was a reunion similar to this one I was going to, closest family members gathered in our house - my grandma, both my parents, my two sisters, my aunt and uncle, and their …show more content…
I was tired of these questions, I was tired of hiding. I stood up from the dining table and looked at them. This is it, I thought, I’m doing it. And, I did it. Well, it mostly consisted of me yelling at them to shut up, that I was gay, and I didn’t care what anyone said. My aunt had a disgusted look on her face, but no one said anything. I ran up to my room and locked the door. That was it.
Someone knocked on my door several times that evening, but I never opened it. I packed and took the train to the city where I went to college next morning. My parents called, my sisters came to see me, but I wouldn’t meet them. They called nonstop at first, and then didn’t call more than a few times a year, and I never answered. Time went on. I never went home again. Until that day, twelve years later.
I rang the bell of my childhood home. When the door opened, I just broke in tears. I didn’t see who opened it; I only felt my father’s arms squeezing me in the tightest hug I’ve ever received. He was almost breaking my ribs, but for the first time since I left, I finally felt I was able to breathe again.
One lengthy crying session later, my parents and I were sitting at the dining table in silence. I owed them an explanation, but words wouldn’t leave my mouth. Still, they