ShawnMendes entered Wattpad.

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[>>Play Understand<<]

~

I'm praying that I don't forget where I belong
And every time I ask myself
"Am I turning into someone else?"
I'm praying that I don't forget just who I am
I really wanna understand
I just wanna understand

2016.
I am tired. So damn tired.
Do you know this feeling when no matter where you go, everything and everybody reminds you of something?
A bit cryptical, but that's how I feel right now. Packing my stuff into boxes out of brown cardboard, I feel like even the trees in front of my window know that an era is going to an end.
Mandy Riverdale's leaving England.
She's not gonna live in Suffolk anymore. She's not gonna live longer in the country she was born in.
I pack a set of frames into the box. They are pink and red and filled with pictures of my family. My mother's red haired young version is shining next to my father – black haired and impishly looking. They both were married a winter years ago at exactly this place, and several winters later they signed the divorce papers on the same place.
I can hear them arguing downstairs in the kitchen. It's all about the "Who's gonna take care of Mandy"-thing. I don't want any of them to win. Cause when one wins that means one loses either. And it means, that the war they started quite a lot of months ago ends just as our happy family got to an end.
I put the next thing in the box. My instax camera. My uncle gave it to me last birthday. He said: "Life's so fast, Mandy, and I want you to have something you can save memorable moments with. You don't need to share everything on Instagram with the whole world. The world doesn't need to know when you're happy. What matters is, that you're happy."

My uncle kinda got experience with photographs and people all over the world wanting to know what he does all the time.
I then and now really appreciate this present.

My parents still argue.

I freeze.

I go to the window, the camera in my hand, and climb over the balcony. I know every step to do this and it's absolutly safe – as far as I can tell that for myself. – I slide down the rain gutter, land elegantly on the soft snow-covered ground and knock off the white gold from my clothes.
Yes, it is really cold.
I walk off the house to take some pictures.

While making these photos, I tell myself: You're not gonna let them change you.

Mandy's camera roll [winter 2016, starting right before moving to Canada, Ontario]