The booming sound of screaming and laughter filled my ears as I pinned my little sister down to the ground and tickled her endlessly until she forgot the reason she was going to tattle on me. My fingers furiously moving along her neck, stomach, and feet as she kicked and laughed as she told me to stop. The rough beige carpet left tingling burns and impressions all over our skin, resembling those identical to sandpaper as it leaves grooves on surfaces. By the end of the heated tickling session, pains were left from laughing, kicking, and carpet burn, I felt as if it is was an effective way to handle all of my problems involving my siblings, until now.

My sisters are all older meaning tickling will no longer do the trick. Alternatively, all I am left with is the yelling and cursing of my siblings whose words do not make me smile as their laughter and joyful screams did many years ago. When the invasive voices of one of my sisters say, “I am telling mom.” all I can do is hope for the best and make a case defending myself in twenty seconds, maybe.   Those once ecstatic sounds of laughter and shrills of excitement still remain in my thoughts as if those moments were only yesterday and they are my one escape from the stress I experience everyday.

Although I hear yelling instead of laughter, and cursing instead of compliments, my mind fills with those few good memories of making my sisters laugh hysterically and I become engulfed in a warm fuzzy feeling similar to when you drink hot chocolate once you come in from the frigid, Serbian like, outdoors on a gloomy winter day.

Today was unlike most, I woke to the sound of ear piercing screams and laughter that would have caused a stir in the entire neighborhood, if we were not enclosed in our horrific pink, 1800’s house. I briskly walked downstairs and hurried along the creaky wooden floor board to my parents room. As I approached the door the sound of the cackling and screeching dramatically increased and I knew something was going on. I placed my hand on the cold, brass knob and twisted making the door hinges squeak as they brushed past each other. My mom, stepdad, sisters, one of my dogs, a pig, and both my cats were piled on the queen sized bed, laughing endlessly, not even acknowledging my presence. Maybe it was I who wasn’t laughing enough.

I tend to keep to myself, locking myself away in my room to read, write, and listen to music but during all that, I had lost sight of spending time with my family as well as laughing with them. I had began to think that the problem was my family screaming at one another mercilessly but maybe it was I who needed fixing. The sight of five people and four pets all piled on one bed, all laughing together, that is a sight of pure happiness. The problem I had grown to believe was myself, not my family and even though it was something that needed to be fixed. Looking back on it now, my problems seem to lie within me and I can only change that. My entire life I was surrounded by the screaming of my parents, or so I believed. The problem was not my family, it was me, I was just never around to see it. My intentional isolation led me to jump to a conclusion that wasn’t true.

Today, I am the one laughing. I spend more time with my family and I have stopped isolating. Life isn’t always what we perceive it to be but when we take a step back and evaluate the situation, we realize that maybe we are the problem and that is the major thing I learned from my family thus far.