Many changes have happened in this last year. One of the big ones is that I moved out of the campus dorms into my own apartment with my girlfriend. It stirred a lot of emotions, some were expected but many were unexpected. Me and my girlfriend function very well together which is all well and good but it made me reflect on just how dysfunctional a life I lived with my parents, whether that be when I lived with my abusive mother or when I was recovering at my dad’s house. Dirty dishes or clutter could be a trigger that made the world end at my mother’s home, a ticking time bomb sitting out on the counter. My father’s house is an old 80s building that was poorly built out in the countryside and absolutely infested with ants. He refuses to get an exterminator out there and just keeps treating the land for ants while they’re already in the house, in the walls. If you leave out a plate of food or a sweet drink for an hour and come back, it’s covered in ants. I woke up several times with ants in my bed while I lived there. I no longer have to be constantly on guard and on edge every time I feel a hair disturbed on my leg.

I explored this same feeling more in the second drawing ‘Messy Home’, a reflection on how despite there being clutter and mess around our apartment, the feeling of comfort and homey-ness prevailed whereas in my past life, it’d of been a catalyst for disaster. I’ve been met with a strange position of feeling so at home in my new space and reconciling the habits I made living in a space that was not my own.