The average Filipino household today still consists of young adults, if any, living with their parents. Typically, children don't leave the household unless they get married or find work that calls for relocation. With marriage statistics getting less and less in the last decade, this has all the more held true. There's also a segment called "boomerang" kids, or those who return home after having left. Reasons vary greatly but for most Filipinos, tradition simply holds.
Being away from home for more than a year now has been a tough ride. Someone up there heard my introvert prayers and granted me a single-apartment type room in the student dormitories when I first came in. It was just a walk away from the university, and I had the small kitchen all to myself. I don't have a car, of course, and most of my food shopping would be just by foot since transportation is not exactly cheap. I can if I opt to, but seriously, I would not spend 2 Euros for a 2-km ride. Social conditions are not perfect, and the student dorms only granted us non-Europeans a one-year contract --- we had to search for housing in the private market once that gets terminated in the summer. I had all the factors leading to a bumpy search for housing --- I'm a non-white student who comes from a developing country and who doesn't speak very good (not even good) German. Even the locals here compete for a decent private housing that would not cut their budgets largely. Not only once did I bid against locals and of course, we all know who got the deal. And the university did not help at all either. Angels are all over, however. I was able to move to a town about 11 kilometers away from the university, which is basically the stretch from Pasig to Pasay City. I obviously need to take buses now, and I need to wake up earlier and earlier as, similar to the worsening traffic in Metro Manila, the jam has been worsening in the highways too. Sometimes, buses don't come at all. When they declare a transport strike here, lines really get paralyzed. The weather sucks of course. Nobody ever gets used to winter, not even the natives (that's probably parallel to us never getting used to hot summers too). Budgeting is a challenge because of high rents and transportation costs. Food prices are surprisingly the same with Manila in general, which hurts me. Imagine we pay the same price as a developed country when our wages are f*cked up? But I must say that for someone who has never been away from home ever in her life, it's not exactly the budgeting nor the social conditions that has been most challenging for me --- it's taking care of myself.
I may be emotional at times, but I'm not the homesick-y type of person. I'm not a princess, either. I can cook (something edible, at least lol) and I know my way around house chores too (though I would give the crown to a good friend who's like the queen of dish-washing and house chores 😁). The problem is, I have been with my family quite too long that in my mind, the only time I would do all these things is when I will do it for them. Or for other people. It's not a bad thing per se, but in my case I just cannot do it when I know I'm not doing it for someone else. Yes, even cooking. A few months after overcoming the first hurdles, it has become a big deal for me to feed myself that I sometimes just did not eat at all. My psychological state went pretty bad, and academic pressure just worsened things. A lot of you would probably advise, just buy instant noodles or a take-away! Well, my strict adherence to the diet that I have been used to was another thing. I can NOT just eat anything, any processed thing, that I'd rather just not eat at all! Some might suggest, invite friends over and cook lunch together! Well, sometimes people drain the hell out of me so I fear that instead of eating lunch with them, I might end up eating them instead. Obviously, my bad choices recoiled. I developed a condition that is just one strand away from ulcer. That was the time I told myself, no, this is enough.
It was only then that I understood what "charity begins at home," in its most nuclear sense, really meant. Some people say that self-love is appreciating yourself more often, knowing your worth, acknowledging your strengths and working on your weaknesses, buying yourself some nice stuff from time to time, and rewarding yourself for your accomplishments. But for me, it probably goes several steps further back. It's nice to do things for other people, but I had to remind myself that I am as important as they are. As the Buddha said, compassion includes the self. For how can we actually consider other people's welfare when we are weak and literally dying? The thing is, you have to be stronger than your mind. It's so easy and convenient to stay where it's comfortable, but really, comfort is a huge temptation. Every single time it crosses my mind to skip meals, I say no, I will make a nice and fresh meal for myself today. It sounds quite embarrassing to be writing about all this, telling the world that I'm only realizing a fundamental lesson very late in life. But I guess I've also stopped thinking about what the world would say anyway.
Today, I have turned cooking from an obligatory task to more of a creative diversion. I rarely struggle now with the choice between cooking for myself or not. The struggle now is planning my meals in the most cost- and time-efficient ways, a task which a good friend back home helps me with. Perhaps it's preparing me to run a household in the future? 😆 Whatever it is, I'm just glad to have one big monkey off my back now. #
Hand-made chicken nuggets for lunch today.
Not so healthy as it's fried, but it's fresh
and preservative-free!
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