The dinner carried out for a while. They continued to have multiple conversations, some pleasant ones and some others that affected me more closely. I participated a bit in the talking but then satisfied myself in digesting and listening to them.

Even after finishing eating, I left after a reasonable time so that my family wouldn’t sense my annoyance and weariness. I love them dearly but I wish we could have a meal without mentioning the same aggravating issues.

I took my plate to the kitchen sink and went to my room. Even though my family was clearly well off – it was not the palace kind of well off. My parents own a four bedroom house big enough for our whole family and they didn't deny themselves anything, didn't count their holidays or daily  hobbies. The house was a gift from my paternal grandparents and the rest was due to my parents’ hard work : my mom in economics and my father in law.

I climbed the steps to my bedroom. All the bedrooms were upstairs, mine, my brother’s and my parents. The last one was used as an office for when my parents were working from home, a storage and an additional bedroom for overnight guests. All the other rooms : kitchen, living room, dining room and both bathrooms were on the ground floor.

I had a double size bed, which head was tucked to the left side of the room. At the foot of the bed, was a comfortable storage bench. In front of it was my wardrobe, which was half filled with clothes and half clothes with books. Just next to it, was my chest of drawers which contained schools and music supplies, games, my electronics and tons of random objects.

Leaned against the farthest wall of my room was a desk adorned by photographs of my family and friends which overlooked a large – and the only – window of my room. It was adorned by dark red curtains - I honestly didn’t remember the last time were washed. Standing again the desk was my guitar, which I rarely put on its designed rack.

My dad liked the guitar and music in general – the old fashioned 80’s music at least. He initiated me when I was a kid and I went feral about it until the passion died down. 10-year-old me could do multiple compositions in a day, eleven years later I didn’t have any inspiration anymore. Nowadays, I would be lucky to have the motivation to play it for five minutes before not liking it.

In the last three years, I had barely played. I had taken my guitar  and set myself to play my favourite notes and sing the praises of love and romanticism but I would stay mouth opened and hands frozen.

I didn’t have it in me anymore. The melomanne boy in me seemed to erase himself day by day.

I still enjoy the sound of my dad’s music though. I am probably not objective but he is the best artist aI know. When I complimented him he would always react the same way.

« You don’t know anything about talent Jove, I wasn’t as skillful as you at your age love »

Disregarding his inability to take a compliment, his response never made sense to me because whether or not we had different skills he was my best artist.

We used to do a little concert with just the two of us. It usually was just the two of us when it came to music. He is really reserved about its artistic sides and mostly showed it to the family. My mom and brother did see us but didn’t really engage with us about it. I must be the only one except him to know all his melodies. He had made multiple for me.

He bought me my first guitar when I decided to compose a serenade for a girl in my English class. He encouraged me to express all my feelings and open myself through tunes and words - to disclose parts of my heart and soul each time I strummed the cords.

Each partition was a way to know each other and to explore each other's minds and communicate ideas, fears and yearning we didn’t have the vocabulary for.

And, when I stopped liking it, he didn’t force me. He didn’t say anything actually and I just found comfort in listening to him.