Life as I Know It

I had a lunch date with Mama.  Of late, we had this impromptu merienda and/or lunch dates.  Ever since I moved back to Cagayan de Oro, she always manages to find the slightest excuse to come down from our part of the mountains and appear unannounced at the office.  It doesn’t surprise me anymore if I suddenly get a text from her saying she’s waiting for me outside (I am relegated to the far end of the backroom office, thank God for that J).  And by far, the winning excuse was to bring me the rosary she thought I left during my last weekend at home.  (By the way, it turned out the rosary isn’t mine.)

I’ve been counting the months (really I’m doing a daily count) since I left Manila. It pains me to say that over these 3 months I have not fully adjusted, especially with the fact that now I am living with my family. On weekdays I stay with my brother. On my free weekends, I go home to the mountains.

For the longest time, I was just a visiting family member.  I see my family only on Christmas breaks.  These of course are days of bonuses, fancy-wrapped gifts, impromptu parties, endless gabfest, and extended festive moods.  And more importantly, these are vacations are so much like a honeymoon – dreamlike and short-lived.

Now, being with my family 24/7 is another story.  Life is this corner is a lot different than what I was used to.  I knew it’s no bed of roses.  Still, I’m surprised and frustrated at the realization that I can barely handle it!  And it struck me that it is easier to live with a stranger than share a roof with your parents or your sibling.  What a terrible thought, some people might say.  But this is as honest as I can get.  And I should say I’m an expert when it comes to housing issues. 

I grew up in this house.  Although everyone can attest that it barely resembles the one we used to live in.  (My mama has a hobby of knocking down walls and moving doorways and windows.)  But strictly speaking, for the first 16 years of my life I lived nowhere else.  But the next years were quite different.  If I was so grounded to one spot before, I was a rolling stone after.  I lived in a relative’s house, an all girls dorm, a coed boarding house, a classy condo, another place that my friend Maan calls a ghetto, and some apartments.  I lived with a bunch of strangers, squatted for months at a friend’s, survived in an empty (read no sofa, no ref, no tv) 2-storey apartment all by myself.  And life in those places was as extreme as the not-for-fainthearted communal living to the SATC-ish lifestyle. 

If I am an expert “dweller” as I claim to be, why then am I having the hardest time staying in one roof with my family?  I don’t have a straight answer for that!  There’s a lot of oddity in a family.  Or perhaps I am the oddball myself.  All I can say is that living with strangers is easy because you can shut them out whenever you feel like it without feeling guilt.  Living with friends is easy because you are always on equal footing with them (and they think the same way).  Living with relatives is easy because when you can’t stand each other anymore, you always have the option of packing your bags and not seeing them again, ever.

At big brother’s house it’s another kind of living where my role is an interloper.  A family member and yet I do not really belong.  My eccentricities are tolerated.  Up to what degree, that I will have to find out.  It’s not so hard living there (hmm I’m just saying this because I know he’s bound to read this hehehe).  Really it’s no sweat living with a brother, 2 impressionable nephews, and a sis-in-law your age.  You just have to learn how to stop grumbling about picking up their stuff (shoes, socks, clothes, etc.) where they left them.  Or washing the dishes after they ditched you in the morning (all of them are rushing to school and to the office).

Now living in the house that Rosemary built is something else.  It is no doubt the only place that I can call a “home”.  But strange as it may sound, it’s the one place that I am most vulnerable.  What’s with the place anyway?  It’s certainly nice to look at.  In many ways, it’s a lot cozier than what I previously put up with.  So why am I as cranky as I’ve never been?  Why is my “maldita” instinct so suddenly fired up?  I can almost hear my mama saying “hay day, nagalaon ka lang”.  So am I really morphing into the stereotypical grouchy old shrew?  Maybe yes, maybe not!  (Wait of course not! It’s unacceptable hehehe)

What I do know is that it’s hard to live in a house with two grand old dames, each of a different generation, and each lived a life unique from each other.  Having been away for so long, life unfolded in another manner for me as well.  No wonder we don’t share the same wavelength.  We look at life differently and who’s to say which one is right or wrong?  I missed having a healthy argument because almost always someone ends up feeling hurt.  Being the youngest, there is always that issue of respect for the elders.  It’s crazy how an offhand comment about house paint can turn into a dramatic dialogue of “haven’t I done anything that you are proud of”?  Or a subtle hint about my neckline turns into a “can’t I be my own person in this household” tantrum.

Yes, life in Rosemary’s house is not easy, for everyone who lived there I think.  But maybe that’s what families are all about.  You can’t live with them.  You can’t live without them.