down and out, up and coming

Guess who's in Greenhills right now, two minutes away from slashing her wrists with the tips of her precision tweezers because everything's on sale and she can't afford to buy anything. Three guesses - the first two don't count. What makes it harder is that Greenhills reminds me of the little shops in Siam Square, where I was a little over two years ago, shopping my shallow little heart out. I went to Bangkok in June with one suitcase and left in July with three, and now my heart bleeds for my old credit card, which I cut up once I started working because I didn't want to "accidentally" spend my parents' money on my random shopping sprees.

It's funny what you discover you can live without. Two years ago I was a snivelling, depressed mess of a girl who had just spent almost four months of her life living out of a suitcase as she moved around her various home countries. I reached Manila again in August of 2003 and promptly fell apart, crying in the arms of a boy who had never known any other home, any other bed, any other city except the one he had grown up in.

(There are bridges you cannot build, much less cross, no matter how much you think you love someone. Sometimes, remembering how that was like, I find it hard to imagine myself with anyone anymore. It's hard to fall in love with fragments.)

He wanted me to move back to Manila, but I was hesitant: My family will be moving soon, I said, because at that point we thought we were going to be leaving for the US in less than six months. At the time, I thought I could not live without my family - I was deathly afraid of ending up living in a place where I could not readily call on my mother when I got sick, my dad when I got stranded or ran out of cash, or my sister when I was bored or lonely.

It's been two years, and here I am. This morning I saw my mother off at the airport; she's moving to LA to work, and the hospital she's working for has already arranged to have an apartment ready for her so that she can ship her belongings straight there. My dad's preparing to leave, as well, because they don't like being apart and anyway, he has a friend in DC who's keeping an office space open for him to base his consultancy work from. Freakchild - she's finding her way in Manila, somehow, I think. Friday night I was standing along Roxas Boulevard, chatting with my batchmates while we waited for a cab, and one of them asked me Aren't you sad that your mother's moving away?

I laughed at that: Not right now, I admitted. Although watch this space, because in about two months it will probably hit me and I'll start walking around like a zombie.

In Cagayan de Oro about a year ago, I went white-water rafting. At one point along the river, we stopped, got off, and climbed a steep path to a rope bridge that was suspended some ten to fifteen feet above the river. Now what you have to do, said our guide once we had reached the bridge, is jump into the river from here. Conceptually, it wasn't difficult - there were little boys jumping off the bridge, dressed in nothing but flimsy shorts, and there we all were bundled up in sports gear and life jackets. Then you found yourself standing at the edge of the bridge, looking down, and suddenly jumping didn't seem like a very smart thing to do at all.

Don't look before you leap! our guide advised. If you start calculating distances and velocity, you'll never make it off the bridge. And, he added cheerfully as an added incentive, I'm going to jump too so I'm sure as hell not going to help you climb back down.

So there I was, standing at the edge of the bridge, clutching at the ropes on either side of me - the very last place I would ever have chosen to be, considering that I am terrified of heights. Don't think! the guide yelled, still sounding inappropriately chipper, and I briefly considered kicking him. Then, mid-thought, I stepped off the bridge and spent the next few seconds simultaneously hurtling through space and thinking Oh shit, I haven't even written my last will and testament yet, I wonder if my mother will ever forgive me for willingly trying to kill myself through adventurism -

and SPLOOSH, I hit the water, sank like a stone, and flailed my way up. Once I made it to the surface I started spluttering triumphantly - mainly because I'd done something completely illogical and terrifying and downright stupid, and survived it.

When I was thirteen, less than two years after we moved to Manila, we moved house and changed schools in the same year. For a year after that, I kept on dreaming that I was falling - that I was running along the edges of a precipice or a cliff, chasing something, and that just before I reached it the ground would crumble beneath me and I would tumble into empty air, falling. I always woke up gasping, afraid to go back to sleep, because when I did I would always find myself in the same dream, over and over again.

That's how I feel right now, all the time: as if I am running, falling, landing unexpectedly in a safe place, then repeating the cycle. Sometimes I think it's funny that people think I've made it, that my younger friends ask me for advice, that people have the general impression that I know what I'm doing. It's a case of the blind leading the blind: I can only tell you what I'm doing - I can't even tell you if it works, and let's not even talk about whether it'll work for you. What I do know is that I'm learning - sometimes in very abrupt and unexpected ways - that I can exist without certain people, certain things, certain comforts. It's not always fun, but it's perpetually interesting; after the initial shock and pain and depression, I always turn back and think: I didn't need that after all, how surprising.

For everything I lose, I receive something in its place - I still go back to that line from time to time, reminding myself. I don't think I'll ever stop being afraid of losing things, of losing people, of change in and of itself, the way I never stopped being terrified of falling in that recurring dream, no matter how many times I had it.

On the other hand, I don't have to be afraid of reaching my future empty-handed either.