One Room, Two Lives

I was sitting in the living room, watching TV, changing the channel all the time. Honestly, I didn’t know what I really wanted to see. Nothing was interesting anyway. It’s so boring.

I looked around and saw my mom wandering around, doing her work with one hand holding a cell phone and another one holding a pen. She talked very seriously with her client. Ah, my mom, as always, I thought.

In another part of the room, my dad was sitting on the couch, holding a bottle of bear. It’s still in the morning, but he was already drunk. Oh, God!

My brother’s coming down stair, I could hear his footsteps. He appeared in the living room with his messy hair and his night shirt.

“Did you see my wallet?”

“How on earth you’re asking your wallet when you just wake up?” I replied in disbelief, looking at him from up to down.

“Well, I need to order some pizza. I am hungry,”

“Oh, well, waking up and the first thing you thought is pizza. Oh, a perfect brother,” I mumbled. “Maybe you forget flushing it in the toilet,” I added, half-jokingly.

“Oh, right? Maybe I forgot throwing it away to the trash,” he replied, sarcastically. “Mom! Did you see my wallet?” he turned to her, disturbing her daily business activity.

“Oh, honey, you should know where you put your own wallet,” she replied, hang on the phone for a while but then put her attention back again to her client.

“Oh, great,” my bro said, then he came back up stair again and made disturbing noise when he’s searching his wallet. Well, I bet so.

Ignoring all this messy room, I came back looking at my TV, which was now airing morning news. It showed a poor condition of a village in which country I didn’t really know. They were really poor and starving, only lived in a house which made from cardboard boxes and the environment was very dirty.

Oh God, at least I could still live normally today. No matter how weird my family was, with a drunken dad, a super-busy mom, and an ignorant brother, at least I was more fortunate than the people in the TV. Oh, well.

I stood up and walked toward the window. I opened the curtain and let the warm sun light creeping in. I saw the green garden of mine. It’s still wet after the rain last night, but now it looked beautiful, reflecting the sun light.

I turned my attention to my neighbor. A family who was ready to have a vacation. They brought surfing boards, food boxes, swimming suits, etc. They were going to go to the beach, I thought. They laughed all the way to their car in the driveway, putting all their stuff in the baggage. I smiled looking at them, looking at their happiness.

I knew I didn’t have a family like them, but at least I have a family. I couldn’t imagine if I were homeless like the people on the TV. I was already fortunate with what I had, so no complain!

I just couldn’t wait for the holiday to end so I could come back to my other family which was called friends! And to come back to my other home which was called boarding school!