Homesick While at Home
“They were busy building my world, but forgot I needed them within it.”
I was a child whose only friends were the four walls around me and a handful of toys that never talked back.
No siblings to share secrets with, no hands to hold on the first day of school. Just silence, comforted by blinking television lights and the quiet hum of loneliness.
My parents? They ran tirelessly in pursuit of giving me a good life. And in many ways they succeeded. I had everything a child could need…warm food, colourful dresses, a solid roof above, and the soft hum of stability. But there was one thing they didn’t leave room for.
Warmth.
Not the kind that came from a blanket or the heater on cold nights, but the kind that only a person could offer. A shared meal. A lingering hug. A voice that asked, “How was your day, really?” I didn’t crave lavish dinners at fancy restaurants. I longed for something simpler…a plate of homemade food, eaten together. Conversations that spilled like curry over rice, soft and warm. Laughter echoing in our small kitchen. A mother who sat beside me instead of the clock. A father who looked past my grades and into my eyes.
But life wasn’t built like that in my house. My mother often worked into the late hours of night, her presence in the house reduced to the sound of keys and quiet footsteps. My father, too, worked through early mornings both of them running, relentlessly, from their past struggles to build me a future they thought I deserved.
And I understood. I did.
I knew they weren’t absent out of choice. They were sacrificing. Providing. Protecting. But in doing so, they didn’t see the child behind the glass, a child not asking for more things, but for more time. For attention. For affection. For presence.
At school, I’d sit in the corner and watch other mothers feed their children wiping curry stains, tying loose braids, giggling with their little ones like best friends. And I, with my neatly packed box and silent mouth, would quietly chew on the envy, telling myself, “It’s okay. She’s working hard for you. She didn’t even eat yet. You can’t be selfish.”
So I swallowed my longing along with my lunch.
My father, he tried. He was there for the things he knew…sports day, notebooks, school events. He did his best. But he didn’t understand the soft ache I carried, the kind that couldn’t be healed by new shoes or evening walks. And I didn’t know how to explain it either. How do you ask for love when you’ve never seen it spoken?
Back then, I didn’t realize it but those quiet aches were laying roots. Roots that would grow into silence, hesitation, emotional distance. It wasn’t just that I felt lonely. I grew into loneliness.
I learned early how to be okay with being alone. How to keep myself company. How to not expect too much. But no matter how many toys I had, how many shows I watched, how many smiles I wore…
I was homesick. While at home.
