Home

Once I dreamed with traveling to Japan and living there for a year. Then I shortened it to six months. Then I said I would only do it if it was in the company of either my best friend or my significant other (strictly selected to leave everything and go on this trip with me). Now I’m thinking I’d stay there 3 months tops and that I’d better work my ass off so that I can travel with enough money to foresee an early return.  My wanderlust only seems shunned by the prospect of other concept that I didn’t seem to yearn for much before: home.

Months away from finishing my internship in Sardinia, I’m already cherishing the idea of “home”.  It has nothing to do with how much I am enjoying my time here since I can now see how much I’ve grown professionally and amuse myself with how much Italian I can actually understand. The social part is going well: I have Italian people I care about, and I already have my “dudes” who bring a lot of warmth in the displeasing Mediterranean winter with no heating.  The need of home is a calling from the inside; my inner voice is telling me my big next project is that if I haven’t found my place in this world it is about time to start building one.

I don’t think I’ve solved most of my issues in life, and the concept of home remains one. I had a wonderful house in my hometown, and the happy memories of my dad, my mom, my brothers and sisters and a full house abundant in laughter and love. In what it seems a blink of an eye, my older siblings moved out and started their lives. Then in the brink of the adolescence, my father dropped the bomb that we were moving to the capital, and hence starts the darkest chapter of my life yet. San José never felt like home, in spite of all attempts my family made to make it so. Life was all about work and society for my dad, my sister made friends, I made some friends, my mom had the hardest time finding a footing in the shadow of my dad’s social success. We drifted apart, and that’s how my dad’s death found us: separated, unknown to each other, and without having been able to make our San José residence a home. It took us a long time to pull together all the pieces as it seems we were new to life itself. My dad could have lost his way a bit toward the end, but he provided shelter. By ourselves, we made a great advance reconstructing our lives, but I remember feeling lost. I travel countless times to my hometown during that period, trying to see what remained of the home feeling for me, but there was no attachment, no familiarity, nothing. There I was in life, pushing forward with my studies and searching for a path, but homeless.

Whenever I dream about past, present or future events involving a home, my unconscious always recreates my first home as the setting.

The next episode of my life is written on a much happier note. I started traveling and discovering the world was immense. For nearly five years and heading towards the sixth I have not stopped moving from one place to the other and neglected the need of a home for the thrill life was giving me. I grew unaware of simply indifferent to my sense of homelessness. That is until I moved in my best friend and we made our rented apartment a home in equal proportion. That place provided me with warmth I only vaguely remembered, and it was until I decided to take this internship in Italy that I realized I had a home again. I’m happy I did realize because then I spent all the time I could inviting friends, throwing parties, organizing evenings of movies and popcorn or simply curling with a book or a video game in the beanie bags of the living room. After all these years, I felt amazing to have a home again. And then I took a plane, and this is how I keep on destroying whatever stability I find in life in the belief that that’s how I push myself to be better.

Now, however, life finds me like Bilbo Baggins, craving for home and the annoyances of the relatives after a great adventure.  I’ve seen enough to decide on the kind of future that I want, and the focus is hardly what society would expect from someone young who has proven to be productive. It’s hard to get the idea across because most of my friends are still in the adventure stage, wanting to eat the world and building their careers. I have noticed a big divide between them and me: they feel like they will always have a place to return to if plans in life didn’t go that well. I, instead, cannot say the same.

I have suffered  a dramatic priority shift, , and all I can think of now is the pleasure of building  some walls and see them slowly turned into a reflection of who I have become. I want to think what color I want to decorate my room. I want to plant a tree and watch it grow. I want to build a tree house. I have often felt so disappointed on where this world is heading that I’d much rather start building a shelter where all this race for money, fame, and success is worth nothing: a place where I can feel safe and make the people that really care feel welcomed. A place where freshly made coffee and chocolate cookies are never in short supply.

So many popular sayings weave the complexity of the home idea in very simple terms that I’ve disregarded them as overrated my whole life: “Home is where the heart is” “There’s no place like home”. For very long, my rebellious side associated this as an American imported value for the working class to build their cages and remain comfortable while productive for the bigger machine of capitalism. For a very long time, I associated home with the Christian values of raising a family. Now I think I see things on a different light. It’s not an universal truth, but I, I that have been given this life, need a home to cure my soul.  

I am taking the next few months to make the best of the youth and the carelessness that I still have left, but soon after I’m done with Italy, I’ll start building my kingdom in this world, one brick at the time.

First of 2015

2015 has arrived, and my most realistic resolution so far is not holding back. Last night, I overcame a headache and finished one more chapter of the fantasy novel I am writing. There is no certainty on when I will publish it, but this is the year I will take my main character to his long anticipated final destination. Mostly, last night I reminded to myself that if I put my mind into it, I can do it.

I had a few entries scrapped in the last months because they were a little depressing and hardly reached any point; there lies the very reason on why I’ve left this blog idle for such a long time. I wrote a grim note on the “every man is an island” idea: one is isolated, one is limited. Being on an island seemingly left behind by the world was stirring all kind of dark clouds in my mind. I decided not to continue making metaphors on that line because they were not really helping my mood and focus, and I’m glad I did. One can also be an island that dances; one can be an island that remains in one piece after the most wondrous storm.

Rather than become an island drifting astray, I’m a sturdy one that will endure time.

I wonder when this need of proving myself to others will end. I grew up in an environment when my every day behavior was a subject of not only my parent’s approval but also the church’s. Over the years, I have come to love that time of my life for the good it left me, but I’ve come to blame it for the dependence of other’s say on my life that if left. Ironically, every new chapter is the same: there’s always something about my looks, my social status, my inexperience, my age that makes people believe they can underestimate me. In my century, people often talks about bullies as an archetypical manifestation in one person, often overlooking how often they assume the role themselves. I’m tired of being bullied by people with big names, much more so by people who have accomplished nothing. Right now, I’m in the middle of a social experiment where I can see on people’s faces all the tags they –consciously or unconsciously- put on me. I have come to be in terms with it. Nothing no one says truly defines who I really am. Those who perceive me as something I am not are simply too blinded by their own ignorance. The people that are ok with who they are and truly accept others make me very comfortable. They are too busy building dreams on their own to invest any energy in putting others’ to test. I’ve come to learn that the animosity they direct to me and others says more about them that what it says about me.

As soon as I started working in my Italian over here, some people told me that I needed to “avere fiducia in me stesso”, to trust myself. The meaning of that instruction has grown immensely lately. In the first days of this year, I made the promise to myself that I was going to trust my abilities and my judgment more. Now, I will add to that the adamant determination of not leaving room for others to undermine my history of personal success. Partially orphaned while still a teenager, I had to learn all by myself how to find opportunities to grow. Next time someone is against what I stand for, all I have to do is remember that it has been 11 years of fighting, but not only fighting: winning.

I really despise that self-vindication remains a topic.  Something is terribly wrong with this society that demands that you show that you are funny, that you are happy, that you are socially successful, that you’re in a never-ending row of achievements. It serves as a poor consolation that even famous people have to explain their success. If the world is cruel enough to bring someone down from a pedestal, not much sympathy can be expected toward you when you climb up one step.

I don’t need to be on the so called “top of the world” to know that I’ve made it. I may not have found the key to the door to success, but I have found the knowledge to build one for myself. I share Thoreau’s fondness for simplicity but an eye for the shiny things of the world. Somehow, I’ll find my way to get both… or die trying.

This is where the change of calendar finds me: not in a corner intimidated, but in a constant ascend, one that remains invisible to others. I might as well start rapping about knocking bitches down! Dear world, I’m not consulting you anymore. I am not asking for your permission either. I’m celebrating the best legacy of the evolution of the human intellect and exercising my free will.

I also learned another little cheeky phrase in Italian: What people have to say about me “non mi frega niente”, and as Taylor Swift sang “I’m just gonna shake it off”.