Tag: moving boxes

21/52: Home is Wherever I’m With You

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Photographs of my daughters, once a week, every week, this 2014. Week 21.

21/52: Dawn & Rain

21/52: Dawn & Rain

Once upon a time, my husband and I lived in a roof top apartment. It was our first home, with just enough living space for two and a huge outdoor area that held some of our most memorable experiences as a newly married couple. We had a lot of memories in that rooftop, until we got pregnant and had to move to a bigger space on a lower floor.

Visiting the roof top apartment now, this time with our two little girls, makes me feel a little nostalgic. It wasn’t long ago when it was just the two of us, and now, we’re four, and wow there’s really no stopping time from moving forward.

21/52: Dawn & Rain

21/52: Dawn & Rain

21/52: Dawn & Rain

21/52: Dawn & Rain

As someone who’s moved from one place to another far too many times in the past decade, I’ve come to terms with the fact that houses are temporary, and “home” is that which you bring with you wherever in the world you go. Home can be a place, and it can also be a person, or a group of people, or a collection of memories. But home is not confined to a place, I guess that’s why a new house or a new city or a new country doesn’t instantly make you feel “at home”.

That’s kind of what’s going through my mind every time we go back to the roof top. It doesn’t feel like home anymore. The vines have grown unkempt, some of the plants have dried up, the walls are dirty, the windows are dusty. And yet, in the midst of the strangeness of what used to be a familiar place, I hear Dawn & Rain scream and laugh and run around while their Daddy chase them, and suddenly, there it is. My home, right there with me.

21/52: Dawn & Rain

21/52: Dawn & Rain

Today as I post this, Ivy is on her one-way flight to New York to join her husband there for good. And maybe I’ll rant a handful about that in a separate post, but in a nutshell, her departure is making me think about how temporary most things are in this life. Babies grow, children get older, people leave and move and start a new life elsewhere.

I once wrote about saying goodbye, and the realization remains true:

Change involves pain, and pain forces us to grow. It causes us to see situations with eternal eyes, and teaches us the art of letting God do His thing. It helps us loosen our grip off tangible things—people, places, routines; and causes us to embrace the more important things, the ones that last forever—friendships, memories, lessons learned, love that transcends space and time.

I’ve struggled about moving my whole life, mostly because I’ve become a little too attached to places, to people, or to the memories associated with them. I hate saying good bye. I don’t like packing. Moving scares me and I wondered many times why I kept doing it.

But something about my best friend leaving, and now having David, Dawn and Rain in my life, that gives me this new-found courage, this quiet assurance. The assurance that wherever in the world the Lord takes us, whether we stay or move, whether friends leave or we leave.. we’ll be okay. As long as we’re together, home is wherever we go.

More about Project 52 here. View all posts in this blog series here.

Day 30: Home is wherever I’m with you

Rhiza15 Comments

30/30: Anything goes! After almost two months, this 30-day project has finally come to an end. And although it took me double the time to finish this one, the fulfillment is still the same as (if not greater than) the first time I did it.

And so our fairy tale wedding was over. It’s going to be the quickest day of your life, one of our Ninongs said. And he was right. We said goodbye to single life, boxed up my gown and his coat, went off to a quiet honeymoon just within the city (we reserved the out-of-town getaway for later), and the spotlight started moving slowly away from us, leaving us in our own little world.

Coming back from our honeymoon, we spent the rest of the week moving into our humble apartment, which soon became our very first home. Home. I just love the sound of that. 

Moving in is actually not a new thing for me. I’ve been apartment-hopping for years and I’ve had this love-hate relationship with packing and unpacking for as long as I can remember. But this time.. this time, it’s different. This time, I have someone carrying and unpacking boxes with me. This time, I’m not alone anymore.

Blue. Lots of blue. But of course we had to take our wedding motif home. (:

I absolutely enjoyed this time of our life together—cleaning up, unpacking our stuff, shopping at home depots, moving furniture around, making our own house rules, and seeing everything come together and fall into place. It’s a tedious task, but seeing the result of our hardwork was truly worth it all.

Now, coming home and spending time at home are my favorite times of day. Although our apartment was trespassed a few weeks ago and our most priced material possessions were stolen, nothing could take away the warmth and the love that our home is made of. The fact remains true, that God did not only bless us with a beautiful wedding, He also blessed us with a beautiful home. (:

So.. before I give in to the temptation of ending this with “and they lived happily ever after” (No? Too late?), allow me to sign this project off by sending some link love to our awesome wedding suppliers:

30-day Challenge, Round 2, over and out! (:

Thoughts About Packing and Pocket-Sized Mothers

Rhiza3 Comments

It’s hard to keep up with my life sometimes. I relocated from one apartment to another in the past 5 years faster than I could empty out boxes from my previous move, I would repack my bags even before I’ve fully adjusted to a new place, and I would say goodbye to neighbors, landlords, and caretakers before I’ve even memorized their names.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the thrill that comes with starting over, checking out real estates, holding a plane ticket in my hand, and being in places outside the comforts of my zone. It’s just that.. I’ve never really been anywhere that far. No matter how much I loved all my solo adventures, I’ve always found comfort in the fact that my mother is just in the next city, or that my travels don’t usually extend longer than just a couple of days.

And can I just say, I hate hate hate packing more than anything in the world?? Also, having to say goodbye to people I love. I wish there’s a way I could skip those parts. I wish I could just magically transport everything in my life and take them with me wherever I go. I wish mothers were like pocket-sized mirrors so I could take mine from out of my pocket whenever I start feeling lost, alone, and in need of directions. I wish there’s a way I could put all my loved ones in one place so I won’t have to pack, say goodbye, adjust and readjust all the time. I wish, I wish, I wish.

In a couple of days, I would start stuffing my suitcases again (when I just settled back home, ahh, the story of my life!). And while this is just a trip and not really a permanent change of address (at least not yet), my mind reels with all the preparations and adjustments and homesickness and emotional attachments that are going to strike me from all directions.

It’s tiring, all this moving around, and I’ve contemplated whether or not this is the kind of life that I wanted one too many times.

On the upside, I’ve somehow acquired skills that let me cope more easily whenever time calls forth big and small changes in my life. I’ve learned to acknowledge that all these years of temporarily changing addresses, and being in situations where I have to figure things out on my own, are God’s way of making me strong and preparing me for more permanent things.

You have no idea how much that excites me and scares me at the same time.

One last stop

Rhiza4 Comments

I know I said my next blog would be when I’ve already settled in, but you know how it’s like when it’s the last day of something, you can’t help but take a lot of photos and/or try to translate what’s going on inside your head to words and sentences because somehow, you want to remember this one last moment?

Sometimes I wonder why I subjected myself to this self-inflicted stress of moving from one place to another in the past 5 years. 7 apartments in 5 years, 8 if I’m going to count this homecoming.

LOL. And I’ve documented 5 out of 8 of them too!

So yep, it’s the 8th time I’m putting my stuff inside moving boxes, and every time I do, this little voice inside my head would go, “One last stop, Riz, just one last.”

I’m done packing, and I’m savoring this last night.

If I’m going to be really honest with myself

Rhiza9 Comments

There was this moment the other night, at a family get-together, that got stuck in my head. My mom and her sisters, Nanay Maura and Tita Aida, talked with hushed voices as they watched over Isaac sleeping on the sofa with them. A bunch of cousins were in the dining area feasting over ice cream and bibingka. One of my nieces, Daphne, sat at the foot of the couch where I sat, drawing on her sketchbook, oblivious of me watching her from her back. Tito Ben was by the piano, softly playing Somewhere in Time. Kids ran around all over the place. It almost felt like Christmas.

And there I was by the couch, breathing it all in, enveloped by the comfort of the familiar, the peace that comes with being around family, love that needs no words.

Coming home to an empty apartment, on the same night, was the perfect contrast. I dropped my bag by the couch where a bunch of my other bags started to pile up. I stopped by the kitchen sink to wash dishes that accumulated over the past, okay, 3 days. I took out the garbage, checked if the doors were locked, turned off the lights. Finally, I dressed down to get ready for bed, and carried my laptop with me as I went. I knew then that it was going to be one of those nights I would lie awake in the dark wondering, “why am I living by myself again?”

I think this is my elaborate way of saying, I don’t want to be alone anymore.

May 28

Yep, that’s it. I could’ve just tweeted that, huh, seeing that it’s under 140 characters anyway. But I somehow feel the need to explain that line to myself, hence this blog. (Sometimes, things become clearer when you think out loud.)

I feel like I’m starting to outgrow this independence already. Of course I’ll never trade the past 5 years that I lived on my own for anything. God has blessed me so much during this time — I enjoyed my independence to the fullest, found fulfillment in my career, traveled to places I never thought I’d see in this lifetime, learned to be accountable to myself.

But I think it’s time to come back home and spend time with my family now. I miss living with siblings I fight with, and my mom’s cooking, and the chaos that is our neighborhood in Caloocan. And I’m missing out on Isaac’s growing up, too! Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself by saying this, after all, I’m still not sure how I’m going to do it, I don’t even have a room there anymore, but oh well, I’ll deal with the logistics later on.

The countdown to my homecoming begins. (Got that, Mom? I’m coming home.)

I want to fall in love

Rhiza8 Comments

Two, three years ago, I made a firm declaration in front of some friends that I was never going to leave the Philippines in this lifetime. That’s not to say that I don’t want to travel and explore the world, I do, I’d love to travel as much as my resources would allow me, but leaving Pinas for good to settle somewhere else was, to me, non-negotiable.

And then New York happened in this life of mine. Shortly after, Sydney.

Sydney
Me with my cousin Dots and my godson, Jonah, on a hill overlooking the Sydney Harbor. November, 2008.

I came across this post Ala Paredes wrote on her tumblr:

In the mornings, when I join the mad rush of people commuting to work, and I’ve been on the train for an hour on my long journey from Western Sydney to the North, I feel uplifted when my train makes its slow crawl across the Harbour Bridge as if it were holding it’s breath.

I see the metropolitan sprawl beneath me, see the Opera House, the ships coming in, and wide expanse of sparkling blue ocean kissing the horizon and think,” Wow, I live and work in this city. You’ve come a long way from day one, baby”.

..and I can’t help but siiiigh and wish I could write the same expression of love.

I fell in love with Sydney when I was there in 2008. I can imagine how it’s like, the morning that Ala so eloquently described, walking around Circular Quay and seeing the Opera House and Darling Harbour as part of a normal day and not just some tourist-thing to do.

I just.. *sigh*, I want to live in a city I’m in love with and constantly falling in love with. And no, please don’t look at me like I’m betraying my own country. I don’t like feeling this way too.

I wish I’m not struggling to choose between loyalty to this city God placed me in and the curiosity that maybe He planted this aching desire in my heart and I’ve got to at least do something to pursue it. It’s a constant struggle that’s tearing me apart every single day.

Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels this way. /rant