America is Not Everything

I would like to think of a good introduction for this, but the title says it all. Well, at least for me.

I know a lot of people who dream of coming here to start their lives anew. There's nothing wrong with that. Just some words of caution: If you can't find happiness where you are, you won't find it elsewhere. If  you see happiness as a treasure chest buried somehere, then you're in for a never-ending chase. Good luck with the adventure.

My fascination for this place lasted until my husband left for work barely a week after we got married. By then I came to realize that places can only mean as much as the people you share it with, the way we like to differentiate a house from a home.

America is a far cry from the third-world country I was born and raised in. But not more beautiful.

Sure, I could buy the biggest bottle of Cetaphil here, drown myself in gallons and gallons of fresh milk, Starbucks and Coke, and maybe even be able to own a car in the near future, but something tells me that even after I've acquired all of these, I'd still be sitting on my carpeted living room floor asking myself, "Now what?"

In this country, it's so easy to believe that you need the things that they offer. Hand creams, ass wipes, apple-flavored M&Ms and Chewy Chips Ahoy. Things that you've lived without all your life. They're being sold here for a few dollars or just a swipe. And you feel good, you fall into the illusion that your life is getting better, just because you can afford the things that you wouldn't dare put in your cart back then.

You slide into what I call the American bullshit. My mind suddenly gave birth to this term in one of my many encounters with fellow Filipinos who I would mentally laugh at (and not guiltily so) for being so Donya Victorina. If you're Pinoy and you don't know her, I pity you.

I find it really funny--how some Filipino immigrants can be so unaware of how stupid they look when they try to be so high and mighty in front of others and act as if their lungs never knew the smog in Manila.

They would immediately strut with their Michael Kors bags and daunt me with their slang upon learning that I'm a newcomer. I, in turn, would happily play along, hoping to death that they can now tell the difference between you're and your.

I remember when I was a teenager and my parents would talk about relatives or family friends who were already abroad and say, "Maganda na buhay nila ngayon, asa Australia (or America or Canada) na sila."

It's not a lie, but it may not also be the truth. The same way America can give you a good life, but not necessarily a happy one.

Money comes easily around here, but goes just the same. People work their asses off to pay all the bills that come from both necessities and vanities. And with all there is to have, sometimes, it's not even enough. My father-in-law would always tell me whenever he comes home from work, "Eto Chang ang buhay sa Amerika, mas masarap pa buhay ko sa Pilipinas."

I couldn't agree more.

I would trade all that I have now for a Sunday morning at home. Anytime. Life was so simple then, but so happy. I miss waking up to the sound of my mother coming home from the market with the best breakfast in the world: tuyo, mais, kalamay, taho and hot pandesal. All three of us would rush to be the first to get Mama's basket because that way you get to choose the biggest portion.

Always as I eat breakfast and we play whatever song we like on the computer, I'd tell myself, "I have my parents, Nanay, my sisters, and we even have a dog. This is enough. Everything I need to live is inside this home."

Sometimes I wish I could bottle up those moments, so I could immerse myself in them whenever I feel the need. All I'm saying is that you don't need more in life. And you'd eventually figure it out.

So why am I here? I went here to be with my husband. Although I do not regret getting married, I do know that I can't live here. It just sounds so sosyal, where I'm at. Best background for instagram pics. But like I said, it's not everything.

And that thing you learned from Wizard of Oz? It's true.

There's no place like home.