I’ve been in residential housing for a month now, and it’s been a strange mix of silence, routine, and learning how to hold onto myself in a place that doesn’t quite fit me. I’m writing again — poetry, reflections, little pieces of truth — because it’s the one thing that still feels like freedom.
I’m in a room that isn’t mine, inside a house that isn’t home. They say this is where I’ll learn to be something called “normal.”
But I’ve lived too many lives to fold myself into that word. I’ve crossed countries, lost people, raised children to the best of my ability, survived storms that would flatten most.
Now they want me quiet, predictable, contained.
But I’m not built for boxes. I’m built for open doors, for the kind of freedom that comes from knowing I’ve already lived through worse than anyone here can imagine.
My flatmate knocks on walls I don’t want to open. We orbit each other like strangers on a bus who know they’ll never speak.
So, I keep to my room — my sanctuary, my small oblong of sky.
And maybe I don’t know how long I’ll be here. But I know this: I won’t let this place shrink me into something smaller than the woman I’ve fought to become.
Reflection: Life in Residential Housing
Not unsafe, not dramatic — just quiet, awkward, and full of routines that don’t feel like mine. My flatmate and I barely speak. We used to cross paths at meds time, acknowledge each other, and then disappear back into our own corners of the house.
I’ve realised how much I rely on my room. It’s the only space that feels like me. My door stays closed, not out of rudeness, but because it’s the one boundary I can control. When she tried to come into my room early on, something in me tightened. I’ve lived too many years without safety to let anyone cross that line now.
They say this place is meant to help me become “normal.” But I’ve never been normal. I’ve been surviving, rebuilding, reinventing — for sixty years.
So, I’m writing again. Poetry. Reflections. Pieces of truth that don’t fit into neat boxes.
I want to read Russell Brand’s Recovery. I’ve been to AA before. Maybe this is another beginning. Maybe it’s just a pause. Maybe it’s both.
All I know is: I’m here, I’m breathing, and I’m still myself — even in a place that doesn’t quite know what to do with someone like me.
© 2024 Amanda — All Rights Reserved