Purple Butterfly

A Place I can Call Home

Monday, November 28, 2005

Am on my 4th day for my 5 days rest day. I Have been restless since this morning cause I am not used to sleeping at night and waking up during the day hardly without anything to do for an entire day. So I asked my makeshift roomie to lend me books, that way I have something to divert my mind to. It worked for a time but I finished the entire book yesterday and am on to my second book. I loved the second one especially cause it's a true to life story of Dr. Paul Brand, how he started as a young boy living in the outskirts and hilltops of India, how his parents were a missionary and helped an entire mountain-village and how he began as a surgeon and how he dedicated his life to help out lepers. But I've had enough of reading and my eyes hurt now. I decided to drop by the office for the sole purpose of blogging and checking emails.

Blogging has become a friend to me, it has become an outlet where I can express my thoughts through writing. Blogging also became a way for me to connect with people who are far from me and it has kept me sane sometimes when I feel like screaming on top of my lungs. I love the idea that someday, if I were to remember certain parts of my life or to read my life, I can scan through my blog and relive those moment/s. It would be like reading through a book about the authors life but only that, the author is none other than me. I can even share it with people I love or I have this dream of sharing my blog to my future spouse to let him know how I lived my life even before I met him. Just the thought of it excites me.

What brought me to blog is this feeling of unbelongingness. Let me openly talk about where I have been living and how it has affected me. I've been to 5 different places since I came here to CEBU. The first place of course was a week stay at Golden Peak hotel, sponsored by my company, we were only given a week to find a suitable place to stay while we are on training, out of desperation, I agreed to stay in a room that was clean but had to share it with 4 other people who also worked in the same company. I thought I had found the perfect place, but I was wrong. I was not comfortable sharing an entire room with 4 people. They were really nice and one is a friend way back in college but I screamed for solitude. I decided to move out after 3 weeks and when I informed the landlady, she got furious and demanded that I find a replacement cause they require for their tenants to stay 6 months to one year. She thought she could fool me so I called my folks and they taught her a lesson to never mess with their daughter. I moved in with a close college friend after that, I was really comfortable at first knowing that I share the room with someone I know and comfortable with. There was an adjacent house for rent with 2 bedrooms so we decided to rent the house and shared it with 3 other guys while my friend and I stayed in one room, aside from the fact that the landlord or should I say the land gay was terrible, I wasn't comfortable having her bf around the room and occasionally sleeping beside my friend. I hated those days when I just wanted to crawl into the bed and finding him there. I decided to transfer cause it didn't help that the land gay was cruel and clearly out of his mind. But without enough funds, I asked my church friend who stayed in a house ten minutes away from where I worked if I could temporarily stay with her for a week or a month, depending on how long it would take me to find a place to stay. But her gay sister who moved out of the house and lived with her lover offered for me to stay and just help out with expenses. I knew then that there was a family feud between them and I didn't want to go between it. I didn't really welcome the idea at first. But for the first few weeks I stayed there, I have already grown accustom to the place, I have learned to adjust so I decided to give it a try. Then I said to myself that I finally found a home away from home. Not until... recently, this sis of my church friend was so fed up with life, her failed family, her failed relationship that she had a sudden outburst of rage. No one was really there to cushion the blows but poor me. It was nothing physical but words can run deep and deeper in ones thoughts and into ones being until it becomes like a poison, slowly and painstakingly killing from inside. I never felt so out of place as that day, I felt nothing more than a cockroach. It had a toll on me emotionally, it made me wanna go home, made me wanna leave everything behind. Only my makeshift roomie really understood how I felt that time cause clearly no one was there to witness the whole event but she and I. luckily for her she was on her way to work and I suffered the rest of the blow myself. I felt embarassed. I decided then on to find a place where I can be alone or just share it with just one person. I never wanted to transfer from one place to another. I like the feeling of belongingness, that despite of the constant heartache of loneliness and homesickness, I can be in a place where I can just be myself and no one bossing me around. It happened the second time and this time, she talked with my church friend. Even she had the feeling of packing up her things and go.

So today, that's exactly what I did, I packed some of my things and left those stuff that I need to use for the next couple of days or weeks. There's something about packing up that is almost symbolic about it. While I was folding my clothes, carefully arranging my things so that they fit, I can't help but realize that I was packing up a part of me, a part of my life. Somewhere in those clothes and in those things was me. I felt a mix of joy and sorrow at the same time. Joy because of the hope of a new life for me, and sorrow because of the people and the memories I will leave behind. I find that it's never easy to leave people behind, especially those who have become a part of me. After some time, the people that I share the house with became my family. They were not always there to comfort my nagging pain of loneliness but they became an anchor when my world swirled uncontrollably around me. They offered stories and more than just stories, they shared a part of their lives with me. To me, a mere stranger, who has nothing more to offer than a meager income. I welcome the thought of leaving, I welcome a new space for me to grow. Joyfully and sadly, I am growing, I am establishing my own life that I need a bigger space where I can extend my roots, for my leaves to unfold, for flowers to bloom and for fruits to bear. This is a fact in life that we meet people along the way, some stay with you for a while, others just pass and while others leave you, they find a way to come back. I've learned to accept that simple fact in life. Although painful and sorrowful at some point, I find it much easier to go on in life treasuring fond moments with them.

Butterfly Tales
10:15 AM

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