I am 23, and sometimes it feels like my life has been one long pause button.

When I was little, home was never a place, it was just wherever our bags landed. We moved so much I stopped asking how long we’d stay. My mum and dad were never really together, not in the way other parents are. They were more like two storms colliding in the same small room. Their words were loud, sharp, and constant. My stepbrother and stepsister would sit there too, all of us pretending we couldn’t hear what was impossible to ignore.

Then one day my dad was just… gone.

After that, my grandad became the closest thing to steady. His house felt like quiet. Like safety. But cancer doesn’t care about safety. When he died, it felt like the last solid thing in our lives disappeared with him. We couldn’t go there anymore. There was nowhere solid left to land.

Not long after, we lost our house. Bailiffs took the things that proved we existed there — our clothes, our furniture, our normal. We were left with almost nothing and nowhere to go. I remember the feeling more than the details- the hollow embarrassment, the fear of not knowing what tomorrow would look like.

Hostels came next. Different rooms. Different walls. Same uncertainty. You learn quickly how to live small when you have to pack your life into a few bags. You learn not to get attached to views from windows.

Now we rent a room in a house that isn’t ours. One room. That’s our world. Freedom feels like something that belongs to other people. It’s hard to build a life when you’re not allowed to spread out. Hard to dream big when you don’t even have space for your own thoughts.

Getting a job feels impossible these days. Applications disappear into silence. Hope shrinks a little each time. I don’t have friends. I don’t really have a circle. Most days it feels like I’m standing still while the rest of the world moves forward — careers, relationships, holidays, laughter in kitchens that belong to them.

Stand still.

That’s what it feels like. Like I’ve been pressing my feet into the ground for years, waiting for something to shift.

But here’s the thing about standing still: you’re still standing.

I survived the shouting.
I survived the leaving.
I survived the cancer.
I survived the bailiffs.
I survived the hostels.

I am still here.

Maybe my life hasn’t moved the way I thought it would. Maybe it feels small right now. But standing still doesn’t mean I’m not alive. It doesn’t mean I won’t move one day.

Trees stand still through winter too. It doesn’t mean they’re dead. It just means they’re waiting.

And maybe — just maybe — so am I.