I’ve always felt wedged between time, with one foot digging into the past and one foot grazing the future.

To exist in one place has been a battle where I’m pushing to escape, but am constantly pulled between two things. Being born in the middle has always felt like being trapped between two cement walls.

I was somehow stuck in the middle of things yet never included, especially in my family.

My older sister was my mother’s best friend. One of my younger sisters had been my mother’s happiness. I’ve always seemed to be my mother’s anguish and throughout the entirety of my 20 years of life, I’ve been trying to escape it.

“You always bring me peace,” she’d say to my older sister. “You’re my happy child,” she’d say to my younger sister. But with heat pooling in her eyes, she’d say to me: “Why are you like this? So difficult.”

It’s odd because all I’ve ever been told is, “Out of all my daughters, you’re the most like me.” And I hated it. Through my eyes, my mother was anger; unforgiving, wild anger.

It was clear everyone in my family saw me the same way.

The loneliness was suffocating.

My corner of the room seemed so dark compared to my sisters. They’d hang off the edges of their beds laughing at jokes they shared between each other and not with me.

I was forced into my own world but truthfully I wanted in on the late-night laughter and the sacredness of sisterhood.

Eventually, my anger overshadowed every other trait within me. With no access to my heart, my family couldn’t see my kindness.

I was left to deal with my issues alone.

According to an article by a group of psychology researchers, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, childhood trauma poses a risk for a “variety of mental health problems in adulthood.”

Anxiety disorders, depression and adult loneliness can easily become a reality for individuals like myself. Before I knew it, I had drifted into these issues with an eagerness to escape.

As a child, my emotions were much simpler and easier to forget. Though I still spent my days alone, it was fun. I found pride in my adventures. During one particular adventure, I had found freedom.

I climbed up onto my window, kicking my legs over the sill. The air crashed into me immediately and I smiled so wide that I could still feel the pull of my cheeks.

I was maybe two stories up, which is a lot of distance for a 6-year-old girl, but when I looked down I wasn’t afraid.

Looking up, the sky was the closest I’d ever seen it. If I had popped up on my toes I could’ve swallowed the sky whole, but that’s not what I wanted.

I wanted to fly.

Even now, the feeling of escape holds me tighter than anything I’ve ever known. It was that kiss of freedom on the window sill that directed me toward the Midwest once I graduated high school. I didn’t think much about what a school had to offer besides its distance from California. All I wanted from college at the time was to be far away.

Wisconsin seemed like the proper distance. 29 hours, 1,985 miles by car separated my sour past from my promising future.

I hadn’t said much to my family before heading to LAX, and I hadn’t planned on saying much to them once I was in Wisconsin. Like my childhood, I just wanted to fly.

Ami was the first friend I made in Wisconsin. She was one of the only other Black girls I saw, so, of course, I took notice. She was dressed casually, with shy, cool eyes and a double-pierced nose.

We had briskly passed each other during orientation, eyeing one other awkwardly before disappearing off to our tour groups. When we saw each other again later that day, she approached me. “I like your eyebrow piercing,” she said. Her eyes were glued to mine, eager.

“Thank you, would you ever get one?” I asked. “No,” she said.

Her answer was swift and awkward, and left me a little discouraged because, at this point, I still didn’t know how to talk to people. She turned on her heels, walking away, but later on in our friendship she told me she was so nervous she didn’t know what to say.

When we moved into our dorms three weeks later, we were both surprised to find we would be living next to each other. I thought it was fate and ever since, Ami has remained one of my closest friends.

Away from the emptiness of my home, Ami had pulled me into the brightest of worlds.

Once, she dragged me to a rooftop across the street from our dorms to watch the full moon. It was just the end of winter and we were freezing. It was Frank Ocean’s Seigfried playing in the background and the warmth of Ami holding my hand that kept me together.

Across the street, lights glowed from the windows of our dorm building. We went down the rows and columns of windows, trying to pick out the details of each room and imagine what each life inside looked like. One window was a group of sweaty frat boys throwing back cases of beers. Another was a sad-eyed girl making a lonely call to her hometown friends.

For a moment, I imagined how they saw us, me and Ami. Did we seem strange? Were we glowing in the moonlight?

She nudged my arm with her elbow, the fullness of her laughter pulling me back to Earth.

With Ami, I could forget about my loneliness. She never made me feel stuck and she never tore into me the way my family did. In this world, I was the best friend and the happiness.

After my freshman year in Wisconsin, I returned to California to find a better fit for my educational plans. Even with miles of land separating us, I stayed in touch with the gentleness Ami had shown me.

Pain has been spotlighted in my life for so long, but I’m at a point where it doesn’t need to be. Whether I’m alone, with Ami, or anywhere else in the world, I can let go of my feelings of loneliness.

I can launch off that window sill, eyes pointed toward the sky, and fly.