This Isn’t a Depressive Episode — This Is What Home Feels Like

I’ve been back in Hawaiʻi for almost a month now. The place I tell everyone is home. The place I used to dream about when the snow wouldn’t stop falling. The place I told myself I missed.

But now that I’m here… I’m not so sure I know what home even means.

Is it supposed to feel like this? Like pressure in your chest the moment the nostalgia sets in. Like your gut is drowning in a storm that no one else seems to see. Like your heart is taking its time remembering how to beat.

Is home the place you feel safest, Even when the walls echo with voices raised too often? Even when the foundation is so thin and brittle it feels like the whole thing might fall? Even when “I’m sorry” is a phrase used more like a Band-Aid than a bridge?

Because if that’s what home is — Maybe I’m not confused. Maybe I’m not spiraling. Maybe this isn’t a depressive episode at all.

Maybe this is just the reality I was raised in. Maybe I’ve simply returned to the version of me that once lived here — The one who was quiet, but hurting. The one who was well-fed, well-dressed, well-taken-care-of — but starving.

Starving for softness. Starving for affection. Starving for someone to sit beside me, hold me, see me.

I remember the nights I used to cry myself to sleep in this very room. I remember how loud silence could be. How I tried to convince myself that comfort didn’t matter because I had what I needed: a roof, a car, a phone, a uniform, a seat at a good school.

But none of that taught me how to speak when I was hurting. None of it made me feel wanted — not really.

And the strangest part of all? Despite all of that — or maybe because of it — I somehow became this: a hypersensitive, emotionally available, openly affectionate human being.

No one modeled that for me. No one sat me down and said, “This is how you love without condition.” “This is how you cry without shame.” “This is how you tell the truth and still feel worthy.”

But somehow, I became her anyway. The girl who still says I love you when it’s hard. The one who hugs a little longer, who holds space for others even when she feels like she’s disappearing.

And maybe that’s why it hurts to be back here. Because Hawaiʻi is home — but not the kind of home I needed. Not the kind that raised me to feel safe in my softness.

Still, being here is teaching me something. It’s reminding me of the girl I used to be — and how far I’ve come since I left.

So this week, I’ll write her a letter. The first of many. Letters never sent, messages never spoken, apologies never made — until now.

Because this summer, I’m not just back in Hawaiʻi. I’m back at the beginning. And I think I’m finally ready to make peace with it.

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To Kealohapauʻole,

You’ve lost sight of who you are somewhere in the void. Somewhere between surviving and smiling for the sake of others. Somewhere between performing strength and quietly breaking.

You’ve done everything you could to keep yourself afloat— and yet, you feel like a stranger inside your own skin. You eat. You sleep. You wake up. You do the things you’re supposed to. But you’re tired of just existing.

You sit with yourself for hours. In silence. In noise. In thoughts that spiral. Sometimes wishing you could just turn it all off. Not because you want to die— but because the weight of staying alive like this feels unbearable.

You’re tired of being strong. Tired of being the one who gets it, who holds it together, who doesn’t ask for anything because “others have it worse.”

You want to leave sometimes. Just disappear. Start over somewhere no one knows your name or your past. Somewhere you don’t have to carry the burden of who you’ve been or who they need you to be.

And still— you show up. You move through the days. You carry everything they never saw. Everything they never asked about.

You’ve forgiven, yes— but the memories still scream in the silence. The trauma still plays on loop. And the cries for help? They’re still floating in the air, unanswered.

You did survive. But no one tells you how lonely survival feels. How empty the quiet gets when there’s no one left to perform for.

I’m sorry you were taught that life is survival, that love is conditional, that help is not accessible.

You deserved more.

 And you still do.

With ʻUhane From Me to You,

ʻUhane Hawaiʻi