ramblings of an undisturbed mind
the title of this blog pays tribute to some site i came across with recently. it's nothing special, really, but it reminded me of what i wanted my blog to be: a space where i'd post frequent, brief, random, at-least-mildly-interesting messages. somehow, however, frequency and brevity have totally escaped me. the interesting part, i'd say it has its ups and downs. but, hey, random, i've been... at least grant me that.
got home yesterday. home is sort of a funny word for me. i call monterrey my home but for the longest of times i've felt like i don't belong here. ever since i came back from france, i always felt like i wanted to leave, like people here didn't understand me. of course, i was 17 back then, but the feeling lingered until i finally left when i had just turned 20. none of my apartments in philly ever felt like home but every time i went on holidays, i'd get this sense of relief, of relaxation, of being home, as soon as i saw the philly skyline.
it shouldn't be surprising that after i graduated, and after accepting my job offer in new york, i decided to rent a house in jersey as opposed to a tiny, stinky, rathole in manhattan. and although that provided me with some quality of life that my manhattanite colleagues couldn't simply enjoy, the 8 hours per day i spent in that house, mostly sleeping, could barely justify my calling it home.
it was only when i moved to dc that the place where i lived finally became home. i spent quite a lot on furniture and made an effort to feel comfortable there, make it cozy, eat in, have some wine, spend one whole weekend lying on my couch just watching movies and eating popcorn, invite people over. my great roommates, my 9-to-5 job, and the chill feeling of dc only made things better. no wonder it was hard to leave that life.
the way things evolved back in monterrey just made me become even more attached to my newfound dwelling and also made me feel even further apart from my ever so distant birthplace. my mom sold the house where i spent my entire life. it didn't make sense for her to live there anymore since both my sister and i were living abroad and would probably not come back for a while. my mom didn't need a 3-bedroom house and would definitely benefit from selling this property, which, albeit of modest size and built, was located in a rather posh neighborhood. the money would be enough to buy a smaller house and some other property that she would then be able to rent. it made perfect sense. yet, it meant i wouldn't go back to that street where i grew up, where i knew all the neighbors and stopped by their places to chat, to play, to eat, where i used to go back and forth from my house to my grandparents' to my other grandparents' place then to kike's, my first friend ever, and then to the park where i hung out with my cousins on saturdays, where i played hide-and-seek with my neighbors in the summer, where i burnt anthills, where i had unforgettable nocturnal conversations with chapo when we took breaks from studying for a final exam, where i climbed trees, had fights, jumped ramps in my bike, and hid in the bushes to surreptitiously watch young maids and their boyfriends make out while la señora was out. instead, next time i went home, i would stay in a 2-story house (never thought i would dislike 2-story houses so much), sleep with my mom in her king-size bed because the only other room was my sister's, not take out my clothes from my suitcase because i had no closet space for them, explain to my friends multiple times how to get there, not eat in because i couldn't even find anything in the kitchen--and because both my mom and my sister had become vegetarian! where am i? who are these people? i would ask, then i would forget about all that distress when i finally reached home. my home.
got home yesterday. home is sort of a funny word for me. i call monterrey my home but for the longest of times i've felt like i don't belong here. ever since i came back from france, i always felt like i wanted to leave, like people here didn't understand me. of course, i was 17 back then, but the feeling lingered until i finally left when i had just turned 20. none of my apartments in philly ever felt like home but every time i went on holidays, i'd get this sense of relief, of relaxation, of being home, as soon as i saw the philly skyline.
it shouldn't be surprising that after i graduated, and after accepting my job offer in new york, i decided to rent a house in jersey as opposed to a tiny, stinky, rathole in manhattan. and although that provided me with some quality of life that my manhattanite colleagues couldn't simply enjoy, the 8 hours per day i spent in that house, mostly sleeping, could barely justify my calling it home.
it was only when i moved to dc that the place where i lived finally became home. i spent quite a lot on furniture and made an effort to feel comfortable there, make it cozy, eat in, have some wine, spend one whole weekend lying on my couch just watching movies and eating popcorn, invite people over. my great roommates, my 9-to-5 job, and the chill feeling of dc only made things better. no wonder it was hard to leave that life.
the way things evolved back in monterrey just made me become even more attached to my newfound dwelling and also made me feel even further apart from my ever so distant birthplace. my mom sold the house where i spent my entire life. it didn't make sense for her to live there anymore since both my sister and i were living abroad and would probably not come back for a while. my mom didn't need a 3-bedroom house and would definitely benefit from selling this property, which, albeit of modest size and built, was located in a rather posh neighborhood. the money would be enough to buy a smaller house and some other property that she would then be able to rent. it made perfect sense. yet, it meant i wouldn't go back to that street where i grew up, where i knew all the neighbors and stopped by their places to chat, to play, to eat, where i used to go back and forth from my house to my grandparents' to my other grandparents' place then to kike's, my first friend ever, and then to the park where i hung out with my cousins on saturdays, where i played hide-and-seek with my neighbors in the summer, where i burnt anthills, where i had unforgettable nocturnal conversations with chapo when we took breaks from studying for a final exam, where i climbed trees, had fights, jumped ramps in my bike, and hid in the bushes to surreptitiously watch young maids and their boyfriends make out while la señora was out. instead, next time i went home, i would stay in a 2-story house (never thought i would dislike 2-story houses so much), sleep with my mom in her king-size bed because the only other room was my sister's, not take out my clothes from my suitcase because i had no closet space for them, explain to my friends multiple times how to get there, not eat in because i couldn't even find anything in the kitchen--and because both my mom and my sister had become vegetarian! where am i? who are these people? i would ask, then i would forget about all that distress when i finally reached home. my home.
posted by adrián at 02:12
1 comments
