You will leave someday and it will be fine

I think I always wanted to run away when I was young. I guess most of the people have felt this way at least once. There wasn't a place that made me feel as safe as a home should feel. I remember school and the classmates that broke my heart in quiet ways that nobody ever talks about. I remember people always being ready to be unkind the minute you make a mistake. I remember getting scolded all the time because I couldn't finish my food, even when they knew that it was more than a 10 year old child can eat. I remember getting slapped when I told my Mother that I broke my glasses, my teachers mocking me the minute they saw me getting lower grades than usual. I couldn't cry because I looked weak. I couldn't stay in bed just because I was sad. That wasn't enough of a reason. My parents were tougher on me because they believed nobody in the world would coddle me but I knew that people need kindness more than anything in this world. I knew that when a child makes a mistake, they need someone to teach them why it was a mistake and why they shouldn't do it instead of being beaten and bruised by words. So, I always wanted to run away. There was this perpetual unsettling feeling in my stomach. When I turned 17, I left for university. I remember when I broke my glasses, I was so afraid of telling my parents. Then I remembered that I could just get it fixed and I did and nothing happened. Nobody was there to raise their voice at me for an unintentional mistake. And on Sundays, when I felt another wave of depression hitting me on a cold day, I covered myself with a blanket and made some soup and then slept. Nobody asked me to get out. It was okay to take a pause, it was okay to be sad. I could say a 'no' when my boundaries were crossed, I lost things sometimes and like an adult, I had to go manage whatever mess I made. I went on trips and wore the outfits I always wanted to. I could eat in bed at midnight and then wash my sheets and nobody would tell me how much of a troublemaker I am. And that's when I realized that this is how life is. For the most of my life, I have been so afraid of doing things simply because they counted as mistakes. For other people, they were just a part of life. It was okay if you forgot to buy tomatoes during grocery shopping but for me, it was a bad thing. It was something that I couldn't afford to do wrong. I couldn't opt out of a family event, I had to be nice to be everyone even if they were mean. Anything I did had an outcome and the way it was dealt wasn't determined by me but by some other person who couldn't wait to dump all their anger on me over a trivial thing. When I became an adult, I learned that things change for the better and we all make mistakes. Rather than being harsh on ourselves, we can just search for a way to make it right. It was so human and it was how everyone else lived. I could cry in the park and sit by the river on a sunny day for as long as I wanted to. I could study at midnight instead of forcing myself to wake up at 4 AM. My problems didn't disappear but at least I was the one who made the choices. And everything that I ever wanted to run away from didn't exist anymore. I was finally in a place that felt safe, a place that felt home.