The Strange Leaf

I always wanted to be a leaf, not literally but because to the idea of having a tree or a home that would never let me go and would protect me from the wind that desire my fall.

Having been raised in a complicated family status, I have to build up a flexible personality that would help me fit in any situation. Being an eldest with two younger sisters, I just woke up one day in my teenager life (I was 15 years old) when our father left us for a reason that he discovered mother had another man. We have to live together as a “family” and treat him as our new father.

But after sometime of living together, our mother got pregnant and we were left behind. I and my sisters were transferred to the care of our grandparents because our mother and her “another man” cannot support us anymore.

And then, after three years of having a broken family, our father knocked our door asking the strangest word a parent would request to his daughter – “forgiveness”. He promised making up for those three years of being absent on our lives, I could not find any answer to this, maybe I trained myself unconsciously not to be fragile when this kind of time happen. I also believed that I should forgive myself first before trying to forgive anyone.

At present, our father did not live with us but still give his support on our educational needs. Our mother still lives with his “another man” and their son. And we live with our grandmother and an aunt.

I have to be matured enough to accept those drastic changes in my life. I have to be like a leaf that still clinging into her tree. And most of all, I have to accept the fact that there really is no perfect family.

My family status may be complicated but I still want to stay thinking about it in a positive way. Maybe there is a reason for God in giving me this kind of fate.

I am not a stranger in my own idea of a family and to those people I treat as a member of my home. I am a stranger to those people around me because of their concept of a “family” that values the roles of a mother and a father. Being an adulterer’s daughter I always remind myself that it should never be like mother like daughter. This idea and experience also made me a stranger to my father and my mother.

This is my first time writing about my family maybe because this is the first time that I find the courage to accept and open up this part of me. And maybe the wind will teach the leaf how to forgive her parents and herself.