Places I call home

I was born in Bacolod City, but hardly remember a thing from there. I stayed there less than a year after birth and had my first birthday celebration in a small town called San Marcelino in Zambales. Not much that I remember from there either.

My first memories came from another place, this time in Balanga, Bataan. I was maybe a few months into my first year when our family had to move again to this place. My dad wasn’t home most of the time and only came home from work during the weekends, but all the memories that I had from this place somehow involved my dad. These memories weren’t too significant, though. I couldn’t remember any of my birthdays spent there, nor any trips to any resorts or parties.

There are probably just 3 memories that I could think of in that town (now a city, mind you!), one involved my dad folding a paper airplane for me. I was seated on this shiny red waxed floor tearing up pieces of paper, my dad picked a clean piece up and folded it up maybe 10 times. I watched transfixed, wondering why he hadn’t just torn up the piece when he finally licked at the tip of the plane with his tongue and let it fly inside the house. I could only imagine how fascinated I must have looked as I crawled my way to where the paper plane had landed. I was so smitten with the plane that I think I tried to eat it. Of course, that didn’t really work out so I just tore it to bits as I did the others. The other two memories were of a flood that ended with a witch-hunt for this giant snake that entered our compound and playing with our family dog. Strangely no memories that involved my older sister, maybe she was adopted. Hahaha!

And then the whole family had to pack up once again and move to Mandaluyong in Metro Manila. This was where I learned a whole lot playing with the neighbor’s kids a variety of fames that somehow always involved sewer water from the canals that lined our streets. My mom was understandably unimpressed of course and I always came how to the joyous screams of my mom calling on my name to come back home to her loving slipper’s underside.

Growing up in that same neighborhood for the next 8 years saw me through a lot of milestones. My first kiss came from playing house with the neighbors’ kids, me the drunken dad who was to “rape” my wife. My first pages of porn came atop the neighborhood pool hall where I and my friends had our unofficial clubhouse. My first decapitated cat’s head we found at the ruins of the old noodle factory during a raging storm. We played around with it for a while until we got bored and simply chucked it inside a passing passenger jeep. First school day found me wailing just outside the classroom and looking out the window for my aunt who sweetly stayed the whole time outside the classroom of the local public school. Two more sisters came during our stay in this neighborhood, as well as an army of aunts, uncles and cousins who seemed to take shifts staying with us at our home.

It was a sad day when we had to move from the neighborhood where I grew up. My dad had been lucky enough at work to earn enough to buy a new home, still in Mandaluyong but on the other side of town. I was 10 years old then, with no friends and scared stiff at the prospect of sleeping in a new house that was rumored to harbor ghosts.

More firsts followed since moving to this new home. The first death in the family shortly after we moved in, we received a telegram (yes, a telegram was all we had back then) informing us of my grandfather’s death. The first time I saw my mother red-faced with tears on her cheeks was while holding on to that telegram. The whole family hopped on a plane the next day going back to my birthplace.

First experiences with a telephone, cable TV, driving a car, a red mark on my report card, entrance exams, life long friends, girlfriend, alcohol, cigarettes, graduation and a lot of other memories. The next 15 years of my life always came home to this particular house.

Finally moving out of this house after my first job was a sweet moment for me. I spent the first night of my independence with my closest friends drinking and just hanging out in a bare house in Las Pinas City where I would live with my housemate for the next year and a half. This was a phase of discovery for me, having to live independently of parental financial support. I had to scrape on my meager paycheck, living on a day to day basis sustained by noodles and eggs. During this time I was abruptly faced with a myriad of responsibilities which weren’t there before, but I was quite happy and content with my new found independence.

Eventually the two bedroom house became too small for both of us, which prompted my decision to move closer to where I was working after a year and a half.

My next home was right on an edge of a rice paddy. I had staved off a small amount of money and made this house a real home, buying up furniture, appliances and other household items one at a time. To save that extra bit of money, I had took on some housemates from work. Eventually they overran me and I moved back to my parent’s house for a year.

After being miserable for a year, I moved out again and got an apartment two blocks away with my then girlfriend and her brother. This is where I have been staying ever since then, over a year now. The relationship ended and now I live alone in this same house. It is a bit of a blow financially for me but I am really happy with this place. I haven’t quite filled up the place yet but it has everything that I need.

In my lifetime, I guess I’ve moved around quite a bit and I know that in the future I would be moving from home to home even more. But with each new home, comes more experiences, more firsts and more milestones. Though I am happy with where I am now, I just can’t wait for what new home waits for me in the years to come.