Things I have learned in my life so far

If I think about what I learned in my life up until now, then the first thing that comes to my mind is the sentence “blood is not thicker than water”.
Those who think family is everything and can‘t be replaced by anything else are living far from reality and should renew their world view. Families aren‘t always the same. A family doesn‘t only give you the feeling of security, safety and not being alone. Quite the contrary! It can hurt you, abandon you, make you sick and even destroy you.
A family doesn‘t always stick together, it can also fall apart, as it was in my case. Indirectly I don‘t have anybody of my family. Of course the rest of them are still alive, but there‘s no contact anymore. They have no place for me and have pushed me aside.
I am an abandoned cat. That‘s what I felt like when I became conscious of the fact that I no longer had a place in this family. I didn‘t fit into their view of the world, I was different from them. I had read many books, was introverted and thought a lot. I was pretty much living in my own world. And I devoted myself to drawing, wore clothes they thought of as obnoxious, listened to japanese music and started learning this language, which the weren‘t able to comprehend.
In their eyes I was an embarrassment , crazy and downright abnormal. My granny once said I was too complicated. She always asked why I couldn‘t be like the rest of them, why I couldn‘t listen to normal music and why I shouldn‘t rather learn English instead of Japanese. So what? Back then I never knew an answer to this. Today, being twenty-years-old I know it. Because I want to live the way I want it. A few years ago I also thought nobody could replace my family, even though they treated me like rubbish. I didn‘t only feel like an abandoned cat, no, I really felt like waste, small and insignificant, being left on it‘s own. What was I worth anyway if I had been discarded like this?I was hurt deeply but kept on smiling, no matter how much they hurt me. Back then this smile was fake, but today it‘s for real. Never again do I want to look vulnerable. I got dull and didn‘t let anything approach me, that‘s what I thought but on the inside it was different. On the inside I was just a kid not wanting to be waste or an abandoned cat. That‘s when I made a decision I still don‘t regret.
A new life had to begin. I left my family and the past behind.
When I was sitting in the train, moving away from my family, I became melancholic even though I was excited. The closer I got to my new home, the more I felt like I never lived with my mother and my brothers. As if I never felt the quarreling. Insecurity overcame me in my new home.
I became anxious. What if they dislike me here, too? If I took the wrong path? Is there anything left to lose? My fears didn‘t come true in the end.
I arrived at a school where everyone was a tad different and even the tutors were all but what one would have expected. I always had problems finding new friends, but it was different here. I still wonder how I found this many friends, everyone supporting me all the way through. In the course of time my friends became my family.
They weren‘t able to replace my mother nor the rest, but they became like a completely new family to me. Not a perfect one, but all I could wish for up to now. If you‘d ask me to decide between my friends, whom I dearly love, or the rest of my family I‘d always pick my friends, no matter what might be up ahead. Some might find it heartless to say something like this and that everyone deserves a second chance but I don‘t think so. I gave them more than just a second chance and they always threw it away deceiving me. Now they have to live with it.
If I hadn‘t known better, I‘d say it was all just a nightmare and that I must have fallen asleep on that train journey back then, but that‘s not the case. So today I look back with a sad smile, trying to write a story named „blood is not thicker than water.“