Storymania - Leaving Home by Dawn Garland

Leaving Home
Dawn Garland

Things weren’t right in my house for days before I left. Everyone was
counting the days down the days but never said, pretending the day
wouldn’t come. My family had always been close, the longest I’d time I’d
ever spent on my own was over night and now I was moving away. I was
leaving my small town Carnoustie, where everyone knows everyone knows
everyone to go to live in the city of Aberdeen which I’d only ever
visited twice before. Everyone told me I was going to love uni life, the
knot in my stomach told me that I wasn’t so sure.

The journey up was long, much longer than journeys back and forward
since. All three of us sat in silence. I sat looking through the window
of the car watching pretty Stonehaven pass me by. My head was full of
exciting possibilities, wondering what Aberdeen would hold for me, but
my heart was heavy thinking of what I’d left behind, security and a
place where I belonged. I was scared that my presence wouldn’t be
missed, wondering how the house would feel without me wandering around
it in my pyjamas and bare feet when I really should be some where else.

On arrival at my new home a feeling of emptiness confronted me. My room
was so empty and basic it didn’t feel like home but rather a cold prison
cell. The small room was made of breeze block making the whole
atmosphere unfriendly. I felt empty inside, my dream of things to come
had been very different, I knew my face would tell. I didn’t want my mum
to see the little girl in me coming back, so I forced the new
independent me to come back and take over, and she stayed.