My husband Pipo and I went apartment hunting today. As our lease in our humble yet lovely start-up home ends in November, we are now exploring our options. We both agree that we'd prefer for our money to go towards the monthly amortization of a home not borrowed but owned, and thus we are looking for a convenient, cozy, and reasonable space for our little party of three.
He is reasonably excited about one place we've been to. I, on the other hand, feel a little bit lost, a little bit blue, and a tad bit heartbroken.
I was a nomad as a young girl, and got used to setting up house in one place, loving it, then saying goodbye. In the United States, we lived in houses in Houston and apartments in New York before finally returning to the Philippines. Upon our return to our home country, we moved between family compounds and family houses on both my mother and father's side. Back then it all seemed like a wonderful adventure to me, exploring a new place and asking myself "What exciting new thing may I discover here," or "Will I meet a kindred spirit," or "Will they have the most delicious SOMETHING (anything - be it sweets, chicken, street food) here?" As a child, I didn't mind the moving from place to place, not one little bit.
It was some three years after our return to the Philippines that we put down some roots and moved to a place that was to be - more than any other place we had ever lived - home.
It has been seven months, but I still feel a dissonance when I must fill in my address or when I must answer where I am from. To give my current address as an answer seems wrong or incomplete, like it will never explain who I am, or explain why I am the way I am. It will never explain why I can still carry on a normal conversation while a noisy airplane flies overhead, or why I will promptly interrupt this conversation to whack you on the head then salute. It will never explain why I am so good at finding my way around places with winding, confusing streets or why even the best, gourmet chocolate cake you can give me will never be good enough. It will never explain my itching desire to high five priests I run into, or burst into singing and dancing in church. It will never explain why I find it so easy to laugh, so easy to love, and why it is so easy for me to believe that magic and fairies and Neverland exist.
Some three months ago, my final family ties to this home were cut as my parents and siblings decided to relocate up North as well. And as both Pipo's and my families are now in the area, the best and most logical choice is to settle down here.
It is difficult that with this path I have taken, I am moving farther away from the place where I formed my best and most enduring friendships, where I met my weird and crazy best friend and soul mate, where I laughed till tears ran down my face. It seems wrong to be so far from the place where I first met God, where I learned to speak in front of an audience and sing and dance as I never had before. It is painful to be away from the loving hearts who accepted and welcomed and rejoiced in Sophie, even when I had doubted that they would forgive a former youth group leader who had a child out of wedlock. It feels strange not to exist in the space where Make Believe was born, and where so many others who dreamed and knew the secret to eternal youth spent time with us to play, make magic, and create. It feels like a betrayal when I think of wanting to be there, but thinking of it as too much of a hassle. How can the place where I loved and dreamed and laughed, be in the same sphere as a hassle? It is unthinkable.
This place is so much of who I am and I am afraid that being elsewhere will change me, and that it will change everything.
Yes, I am a nomad and an adventurer and have been so for a long time now. But on some sad rainy days, I am really just a boring and stubborn old dinosaur missing her old cave.
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