i don't like remembering, yet i do.
i find myself so confused.
memories bring me back to yesterday, while today i find i am propelled towards tomorrow.
this is how you get out of sadness, moving your feet forward a day at a time and seeing what happens. then a small token of remembrance -- and it's back a step again.
but i guess two steps forward with only one step back still shows progress, even if it is minute.
i want to go back, but at the same time, i don't.
nothing will ever be as it was.
although i have grasped that again and again, there is still that twinge of sadness upon remembering.
i don't expect you to understand, not fully, unless you have been in my shoes and looked down at a country beloved with clear glassy seas from the window of an airplane, not knowing when or if you would ever return. i don't know how much i now consider it my home, but the Philippines was where i lived for 15 out of the 18 years of my life... and the other three years were arguably... more like vacations for me anyway.
yet, i never belonged there and always longed for a place i would find that feeling.
i belonged with mks, with others like me, but never fully with the people -- there was a barrier of language, color, and culture. and although my culture is not fully American, it is also not fully Filipino. i don't belong. that is one of the hardest things ever. sometimes i wish i could be one of the little flowers on a wallpaper design. i wouldn't be alone, and i wouldn't be different, and for my sameness, i would be accepted. yet, i was born to be different, to think differently... and to not fit in. because a philippine-born and philippine-raised girl is not supposed to be blonde with fair skin... she is not supposed to be deficient in her knowledge of Tagalog... she is not to have American parents and have an American passport... someone born and raised in the Philippines... well... they're generally Filipino. I know the national anthem... and know several words in Tagalog but was never taught how to piece them together into sentences, thus my Tagalog sounds very idiotic.
i speak and write English well, or at least can, when prompted to do so, i have white skin, blonde hair, and an American passport. am i not American? yet, i don't know a lot of the common language or slang here... i don't know how an American is supposed to react or respond in social situations. i don't know what is ok to talk about and how deeply a conversation is allowed to go. i'm still getting used to how small talk works... and don't really feel like i've had a real conversation with someone unless barriers of insecurity have been torn down and honesty is laid bare. but i'm not really American in my thinking or way of doing things. i know what it is to be stuck between cultures... and i can usually understand well those who are between cultures... they are in the same shoes that i have to wear... (generally flip flops in my case... or as i would say in manila, tsinelas)...
and so in this place where i am coming to accept my situation and learning how to live as an American would, i still find myself not feeling truly... American... and not feeling truly like i belong.
and then i remember or am reminded of times filled with joy and people who really understood me, and i am torn between now and then and find my eyes brim with tears as they are now. i can't shouldn't and thus don't want to go back... and don't even want to remember sometimes because it is so hard to bear,
but yet, i know that in moving on i don't need to forget. the memories can be mine, even if i can't relive those memories.
what is hard is remaining content with the now while still finding pleasure in the past... gleaning joy from both worlds and coming out of that time satisfied that where i am is where i should be right now.
and i think it is where i should be.
an art major with a Bible minor on a gorgeous campus in LA... just seems perfect to me.
finding out how to use my passion for God -- that is irreplaceable.
learning how to live in this place that is sometimes so foreign to me -- so amazing, even if i come to it with some reservations.
meeting amazing people who daily make me smile, what more could a person's heart desire?
1 comment:
beautifully and eloquently stated. IN many ways we are people with our feet planted firmly in mid-air! Not in an unstable way, but in the sense that our feet are never quite rooted in our places of abode - we are there, and yet not fully there, as if we hover above (not meaning that we are better than, just not fully connected) the places where we live, and love. Never the full connection of being rooted, yet we are present, and in love with the place, the people, etc.
I left my place (Australia) 26 years ago, and at times my heart still aches for it. Now I am in another place not my own, with children who are going through the same things. It is a sweet pain we experience in many ways, yet a pain nonetheless.
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