Yes, the title is a Florence + the Machine song.
Starting to pack my things in a big box was harder than starting a paragraph for this entry. While piling up my books and documents, I was like in a state of daze. My brain’s train of thoughts remain parked at one of its stations. I felt like a packing machine made for house movers. The moment imaginary fingers snapped between my eyes, I have packed two boxes already.
My sister and I chatted while putting our clothes in a larger box. We laughed while reminiscing moments that each stuff reminded us, especially the earliest memories with the house while it was being built. We ranted endlessly about our aunt who sold our house for such an unreasonable price. We were sad that our father’s siblings felt no attachment with our big, blue house at all. We packed and packed, until only the memories of our childhood remained intact inside our home and couldn’t be contained in any kind of box.
Our beautiful big blue house was our castle. Its yard full of plants and trees was our kingdom. The roof was like a mountain’s summit to me, allowing me to see the whole neighborhood while the sun sets. Every nook and cranny was clean, thanks to my paranoid father. The floor consisted of white marble blocks huddled tight, cold and hard. Each door’s knob was busted and all locks not working so each one had hook locks attached to them. It had two bathrooms – one blue and one pink – both with flush-less toilets and water-less showers. It was a spacious home crowded with figurines and displays which my grandparents and parents amassed through all these years. My relatives call our house “Nova”, adapted from the name of the place where it is situated. It was a spacious home filled with memories of love, remorse and struggles.
To be fair with our aunt, the house was up for sale even when I was in my late college years. Our family, including my father’s siblings with their families, were in a state of bankruptcy after our grandpa died. We did everything we could to elongate his cancer-stricken life which is already on the edge by selling our family businesses and loaning money from several people and banks. Our grandpa refused to sell the only remaining property we owned that time, which is our house. It was like he’s telling us that we can only sell it the moment he’s resting beneath the ground.
When they confirmed our house was bought, I spent a big portion of my savings and got myself a decent camera. Capturing every corner of our house was an attempt to etch each of it in my heart. I don’t want to forget what I saw while growing up, and every photo I took was filled with messages only the ones in our family can decipher.
Now residing at a smaller house, I would always tell myself to quit dreaming. Quit dreaming about returning to the house someday. Sometimes I find myself lost in thought – silently trying to recall every sound of each of its doors which I’d memorized. I close my eyes at night and imagine myself walking inside it as if trying not to forget how it used to look like in our regime. How I ached at the fact that we are under an unfortunate star, a star that makes you lose when it seemed like you are winning. For some, it was only a house, a material thing which can be replaced in time. For us, or at least to me, it was a being that once lived among us. It was, and will remain, a part of who I am today. It’s as if I felt it crying – telling us that after all the damages it endured through these years, we’ll just abandon it for such a price it doesn’t deserve.
But then we had to leave. We had to lose you to save the few remaining strands of our family’s bonds. We had to start anew, to escape this quicksand that’s been sinking us for as long as I could remember. This is a part of a journey, too, and from being a summit, you are now just a jump-off. Hope seemed to be a stupid lie, but we still reach for it.
Closing this post is easier that saying goodbye to our big, blue house – a moving-on process wherein I’m clueless as to when it will conclude.
Bum Voyage! 