Independence

After my grandfather passed away about two weeks ago in which an almost week-long wake followed, I somehow found myself "stuck" at my parents' house.  I guess the string of events would generally ease me into this state of quite refusing to go back to my apartment; likely reasons are as follows:

1) After the funeral on Friday I went to a reunion Saturday night, and then by Sunday it was already the pasiyam.  I got lazy driving back to Manila when I had the chance, say, by Monday.

2) I was overwhelmed with the fact that I did not work for more than seven days, and those days were not spent on some exotic holiday but in grief and in the freezing funeral home.  The state of overwhelm somehow led to, uh, a suspension of disbelief, as how a favorite phrase from college goes.

3) I feared my grandfather would show up in my apartment (whooo).

Anyways, after more than a week of disconnect I finally decided to go back to my humble abode.  I have to admit, a significant reason I did not want to go back was that my apartment was a huge mess; I had not cleaned it for at least two weeks due to my absence.  It was a good decision to give my parents' househelp additional income by contracting her to do a major clean-up.  So right now, I am sitting in an apartment that smells of Pledge, Lysol, and *sniff*sniff* another Pledge product.

Being here, being now, I am then again  in this niche of being "independent".

This thought somehow occurred to me: what is my issue with independence?  I think I was merely in the double digits when I was already told that I was an independent kid.  I was probably ten and I was already independent.  I am trying to remember now how I got to be this thing, this state which supposedly-admirable women are supposed to characterize.  I had a pretty strong personality as a kid, and I liked to learn on my own (with some constant nudging from my grandmother) --- independence.  As early as grade school I was so curious about a lot of things that I learned stuff from my aunt's Mills and Boon collection and (gasp) Anais Nin's Delta of Venus --- independence.  No, scratch that, that was not independence, that was going through other people's stuff and accidentally reading erotica.

Hmm.

Somehow I reached the point in which I sensed that being independent was not admirable at all, it was a liability.  It made me feel quite isolated.  Sure, I do like to do things on my own, that I can and have travelled alone (and I will, still), and at the moment I live alone.  Because of these things, I surprisingly amaze people.  Yes, I live alone (ooohh), yes I have done Southeast Asia mostly alone (ooohh), and yes I usually feel guilty every time I hear Destiny's Child's "Independent Women" (hah).  But are these things being independent, really?

When I moved out I was expecting some form of freedom to the degree of a Sex and the City episode: lunching with the girls, having DVD marathons, throwing a dinner party, etc.  Yes, this entire "living alone" thing has highlighted this thing called independence.  I pay my bills, I pay the rent, I cook for myself, the works.  I laugh on my own whilst watching TMZ, and I get lonely alone too (haha).  Independence.

Spending all these days at my parents', playing with my nephew, annoying my sister and my mother, and having someone cook for me and wash my clothes made me think that at the end of the day, that was what I wanted: to be with someone, to be with family.  I did think that if what I really wanted was company and family, then why the hell did I move out in the first place?!!

Tricky, huh.

As I drove away from my parents' house, and exited and entered the freeway, I thought of my grandfather; see, he and my grandmother generally raised me.  I grew up in their house in Manila.  I slept between them when I was a child.  My grandmother made sure I did my homework, and my grandfather made sure I would laugh at his jokes and his attempts to entertain me.  My grandmother passed away when I was 23, and recently, my grandfather was gone.  When I moved out of their house my lolo was almost bedridden.  For several months he was starting to fade, he lost his senses, he lost his sight.  I could no longer talk to him, and every time I visited it would truly broke my heart to see him.

I think somehow I finally felt that the child in me, that kid who would become me, was now an orphan.  And to be honest, those years are my favorite years so far.

I stayed at my parents' because it made me feel like I was somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, and somebody's aunt.  I needed to make sense of my independence especially I am in this critical stage of transitioning.  I moved out not because I wanted freedom; fortunately I've always had that.  I moved out because I wanted to build a relationship with myself.  This is not just an experiment; this is the life I am choosing to have, right now.  Even though I do want to have my own family, and to be with company and such, at the moment I just want to be somebody to myself.  And yes, to quote Bridget Fonda's character in Cameron Crowe's Singles: "Being alone... there is a certain dignity to it".

I think losing my grandfather --- and my grandmother --- has made me realize that I am an adult now, and that it is my time, it is going to be my era, it is now my turn.  I am independent not because I moved out, or I have a strong personality, or I can do things alone.  I am independent because I am embracing the process of fleshing out who I am from a long line of history, of roots, of relationships, of dependence.