Bye Bye Manila

I am truly surprised at how sad I feel to be leaving the Philippines. From my living situation to my working situation to the people I just began to craft friendships and relationships with, Manila has been really good to me. It may have only been three short weeks, but it feels like forever, and in a good way. It’s really amazing how quickly I felt at home here, and how comfortable I am here now. As I went through the ridiculously-familiar motions of packing, moving out of my apartment, saying goodbye to people, and preparing myself mentally to fly somewhere again, I was reminded of how difficult it is to pick up my whole life and start over again – and more importantly, how I don’t enjoy it nearly as much now as I did before.

Not to say that I ever liked saying good-bye to friends or packing my entire life into a backpack – but the pangs of loss seem stronger now than ever, despite the fact that I’ve only been in Manila for such a short time. Hell, I’m not even leaving behind any deep friendships, just a handful of promising potential ones that I’m sad I won’t get a chance to explore. It’s all the more stunning because I think it’s pretty fair to say that Manila as a city is really nothing to write home about. Hot, polluted, crowded, dirty, poor, chaotic – there’s a lot to not like about Manila the city. Yet, Manila the life, has been really good for me. I was talking to my friend before leaving and I mentioned that somehow, staying here for three weeks has not only given me a chance to recharge physically and financially, but has really somehow mended my soul. Even if it was just for a brief moment, I somehow managed to lose that sense of rootlessness. I could live here, I could fit in here, people could miss me here – it’s possible that I could belong here.

Is it really Manila though? While there is absolutely no doubt that the people here are really open and welcoming, the office I was working at was prestigious and comfortable, and the lifestyle was luxurious without being unaffordable, I do feel like maybe it’s not the Philippines itself or my situation here at all. Instead, I think it goes back to that whole “roots” issue and that sense of “belonging” somewhere. The more I think about it, the more I think I have some sort of deeper complex about belonging to a community. I couldn’t even begin to tell you why, or what the psychological roots might be, but I think there’s definitely something there.

At the same time, I think it’s probably something quite normal too. At some point in life, I think most everyone probably gets tired of floating around and not belonging somewhere. Even my friend Matthieu, whose life and career demands he and his family be in a new location every 4-5 years, needs to find that sense of stability in order to really be happy. He may be the ultimate floater, enthusiastically tied to this lifestyle of constant resettling, yet he too desires to create that community and sense of place in each new location. I don’t aspire to having Matthieu’s form of nomadic life, but knowing that he faces the same challenges and needs that I face does make me feel a little better – and of course, knowing that he is able to figure out a way to make it work in all of the places he has lived does give me hope. I have yet to find that emotional state where I can deal with the sense of separation in the same way as he does (or for that matter, the same way as Son and Trang or any number of my other friends who are global,) but I suppose I am becoming more numb to it.

I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing – or if it’s even something I want. Instead, I think perhaps it makes more sense for me to not constantly build and tear down, but instead, to build lives in multiple places that I will always return to. I am coming to believe more and more that I would like to settle in a couple different places in the world, splitting time between places and communities – where, the sense of separation is never permanent and the sense of belonging never fleeting.