HOME TRUTHS: Monica

Monica is a 16-year-old student living in Sunshine trying to get through
VCE. Home is where she feels comfortable and surrounded by love. She has
vivid memories of her childhood home and loves being content in moments of
happiness with her friends.

Name: Monica

 Age: 16

 Lives in: Sunshine, Melbourne

 Please answer this question … I feel at home when … I feel at home when I’m comfortable and surrounded by love. When I’m holding my friend’s hand as we’re walking or drawing on other people’s notebooks in class or laughing about something absurd someone’s said. I just feel so content in moments like these.

What does home mean to you? Has this changed since the COVID-19 pandemic?

Home is where the people I love are. There is an unmatched feeling of comfort and contentment I get just from being by my loved ones’ sides. Yeah, it’s really cliché, I’m aware, but when I’m with my friends I don’t notice anyone else or hear any other conversations. It’s just me, the loves of my life and our moments. I love people and they love me. That’s home. And I do think it’s changed since the pandemic. Not in the sense that my definition of home has changed, really, but in the sense that the feeling of being at home seems harder to come by nowadays.

Where’s home for you?

Two places that I hold very dear to my heart are my room where I’ve lived my whole life, and my grandma’s house which is the heart of my childhood. My room has always been my solace. Everything about it is very me; the walls are bright pink, filled to the brim with soft toys, books, drawings, half-finished crafts projects. There are dents in the walls from moving my bed around, tiny holes in the wall from thumbtacks. I feel so comfortable and at ease with myself when I’m in my room. It’s purely, irrevocably me. My maternal grandparents’ house is where I spent most of my childhood. My parents and my cousins’ parents started work too early to take us to school and finished too late to pick us up, so my grandpa drove us to and from school every day. Six of us kids would spend our afternoons playing games and talking and eating, and every other Saturday the whole of my mum’s side of the family, all six of her siblings and their partners and children, would get together. My grandparents’ place is my home as much as my actual house is.

What have you lost because of lockdown? Is there anything you’ve gained?

More than anything, my security. Even going on short walks has been coloured by the fear of catching COVID-19 or catching it and then spreading it to your loved ones. We can’t feel safe simply living our lives anymore. That being said, I haven’t lost the feeling of home completely. Earlier this year, I celebrated my birthday during the first lockdown. There are so many problems in the world but not getting to spend my birthday surrounded by people mattered to me. I wanted a big party with all my friends and family, and I got none of that. Even so, I was sent birthday wishes and my dad brought home a card and a cake and made a special dinner for me, and my parents and brother all sang for me. I gained a very intimate display of love from my family.

What’s the first thing you’ll do when there are no restrictions at all?

See my friends again! Hang out with them! Go to their houses! I want to eat and play games and watch movies and spend all my waking hours with them. I want to hug everyone and not let go, hold people’s hands, kiss people’s cheeks and foreheads. I want to be able to show people that I love them again.

Illustration Jessica Cruickshank @jesscruicky