“We may act sophisticated and worldly, but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.” — Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou
House: A place to make strangers friends.
My first home away from home was in a room filled with strangers. It was an all-girls boarding school far from home, but close enough for my parents to never skip visiting day.
On the drive, they tried to convince me that boarding school was in my best interest. They didn’t know I was already sold. Three months away from the parents, chores, and responsibilities of being a 13-year-old first daughter in a Nigerian household, and it wasn’t church camp?
SIGN ME UP!
They don’t know that I want this more than they do.
At the time, it was such a grown-up thing to do — leave home, go away for months, come back with bigger boobs, a new personality, and an air of maturity — it was a ritual, and now, it was my turn.
I would soon learn that sharing a dormitory with 24 other girls can be brutal. My routines came with bells and sanctions. The realities of living away from home took its toll on me, and I started sleep-walking (and talking).
I would wake up in the middle of conversations that I don’t remember starting. I was super tired all the time, went to bed immediately after the night class, and spent an hour sleep-walking before lights out.
I eventually adapted, and that was home for three years. In those years, I was in different dormitories, and each space introduced strangers who became friends who became strangers.