Homesick.
Today is December 31st of 2021. The last day of the year and the day that made me think of everything that happened in my life. Not just this year but even to the years before. A lot happened in 2021, from happy memories to broken nights that I had to spend alone. From remarkable achievements to the feeling of inadequacy and insecurity. From having big dreams to losing it all in the span of 5 days. So much happened in 365 days. So many things are changing, and now in the last day of the year, one more fundamental thing has to change.
I’m currently in the process of moving. I’m leaving behind the house I rented for four years with my friends and I had to find another place to live. Honestly, this house feels more home to me than my own house back in my hometown. It’s a humble house, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, a living space, and a carport that we turned into storage. I moved here in 2017, after a year of living in a small “kos-kosan”, it was a breath of fresh air to be moving to an actual house.
Memories are made here, from drunken nights with a group of friends to countless nights of mental breakdown. Yet I loved this place with all my heart. The rundown ceiling, the cracked windows, all the imperfections that showed an old house; but I don’t want to trade this with anything else. My small 3x4 bedroom with the French posters and the bed I rarely made up is what comes to mind when I think of the word “coming home”. I love everything about this house because it’s my safe place, it’s my shelter when I get so tired of the world and I just want to shut myself down for a few moments.
Mostly I loved the freedom. Renting the whole house means no noisy landlord that will check up on you or neighbors that will talk shit about why there were so many boys coming and going from a house full of girls. Hah. I did my fair share of bringing back different guys every night when I was in a bender. Nobody would care if I come home or not, or even if I do, who did I go home with. Nobody would care if we want to bring home rowdy kids and have drinking parties all night long. Nobody would care if we stayed up all night and worked on the dining table until morning came. Nobody would be mad or talk because we understood each other. We have separate yet similar lives that make us more understanding of each other.
That house will forever remind me of youth. Remind me of spending my 20s as a single woman trying to understand adulthood and finding her place in the world. I was there as a hopeful college student with big dreams; I was there in my darkest times feeling lost and lost every day; I was there as a recently graduated jobless kid, and the last; I was there as a career woman who barely came home. A lot of transition and life phases happened in this house. I made this house a home, with what little I got and who I’m with.
When I think of home, I will forever be reminded of those sleepy mornings, cooking breakfast for my ex-boyfriend, while he was still asleep in my bedroom. Reminded of those late-night grilled cheese and drama marathons. I will remember the group studies with my classmates, the day-to-day hangouts while we do our college paper. I will remember taking naps with my best friend or ordering McDonalds at the darkest hour. I will look back to sharing five bottles of Amer and cigarettes with my friends. Ah. What a life. What a home.
I’m counting down minutes by minutes, hours by hours, and day by day until I have to leave. Leaving the house behind, leaving the memories behind. Leaving the feeling of home. I gotta say I feel devastated and wish I never had to leave. But time passes, life goes on, and people move on.
Now I have to start a new year in a new place, with no one from my previous life. I’m completely alone and what I have is only shredded memories of how it feels to have friends, companions, lovers, and how it feels to be loved. It felt like home. I was right before, home isn’t necessarily a place, it’s a feeling. A feeling I haven’t felt in a while. So now I’m left with the feeling of homesickness even though I haven’t really left.
Saying goodbye to 2021 hurts, but come next year, I wish it would be a better year. I hope 2022 is the year I could finally come home again. Wherever it is or with whoever it is.
