A Question on Where I Belong?

words by Aliza Susatijo, art by Sana Friedman

Am I still present within my family when I live 80 miles away?

Do I continue my role as a supportive daughter and caring older sister 

when I am no longer active in their everyday lives?

How do I show all of my emotions through a glass screen and a FaceTime button?

Longing and Disconnection

What I would give to play a game of Pictionary on cold, snowy days when school is canceled

I want so desperately to sit with them at family dinners

And to join my mother on her weekly grocery trips

Is it enough to send texts on birthdays and holidays?

To be updated on big events rather than the small occurrences that bond us as a family?

Is it the physical distance or the emotional separation that makes me absent from their daily life?

When did the once regular calls 

trickle

 into every week

Then once a month

Returning on breaks

Is a homecoming 

Yet muddled by the confusion of changing habits and daily schedules

Running the dishwasher instead of washing by hand

Furniture moved across the room so I bump into it in the dark

Have I become an outsider in my own home?

Wearing clothes that were forgotten in the deepest parts of my closet

Jeans that are one size too small

Shirts that are frayed at the hems, 

in colors I don’t wear anymore

The colors of a home I once knew by heart

Every tint and shade like a familiar warmth that filled my life

It is now a stark brilliance

A cold vibrance that is new and unfamiliar, yet not unwelcoming

Adapting to new routines and relearning old ones

Only to be whisked away by the start of a new semester

Suddenly pushed into a never ending cycle of work and movement

Never enough time to sit and remember

To yearn for the natural acceptance that comes from family knowing you all your life

Now they only know what I tell them

Leaving out certain parts that would create the intimacy that ties us together

Will I always toe the border between being family and a visitor?