Move

I watched Dr. Strange last night. In my new “flat”. I’ve moved out of our “house”. It was barely a house anyway. 

I think I told you before about me acquiring land and wanting to build a proper house for my grandma. Part of the reason why I was so intent on doing so is because I badly wanted to leave our house. The house where I used to stay at in the past year was in Manday. It was my grandma’s uncle’s house and he left her with it after his death. We moved there in 1997. I never really loved that house. I don’t have fond memories of it. It has been more than twenty years and it is now on its last stage of dilapidation, methinks. It was a house on stilts along a tributary of Pulangi in the 90s. Through constant renovation, half the house is concrete but the other half remains wooden. The river has also dried up through the years. That house that used to be “almost near the middle” of the water is now on its banks. I never learned to love it. And I realized that since I arrived there January last year, I never had time to be properly alone. 

The past few weeks had been really stressful. For a variety of reasons. Work. Family. Money. Society. Environment. One common denominator though: people. I have been exposed to these kinds of stressors before so it is not really new. Except that this time, my tolerance to it has grown weak. And I realized, it is probably because I am mentally exhausted. Not a day goes by that I do not get annoyed or pissed, and that is taking a toll on my mental health. Of course, when one’s mind is unhealthy, they easily get annoyed or pissed. Sort of a vicious cycle. It is horrible to a point that I can no longer feel anything but have recurring death wishes in one day. I avoid people no longer to “feel recharged” but because any minute spent with them is chipping off my sanity. I am scared of hanging around people because I get easily annoyed and I do not want to lash out on them. I needed to get away from people for a while. Not specifically from anyone but from everyone. I needed to be myself. I needed to feel alone and to immerse myself in solitude without worrying about how other people would feel about it. I needed to be quiet. Not just with my mouth but with my brain as well. I needed a space where I can be alone and unjudged. It sounds easy to refrain from talking to people; but living in an extroverted country like the Philippines, silence is equated with discomfort and the quieter you are, the more people will hound you for it. I could feel the constant company of people even when they are not around me---through irreverent phonecalls, annoying text messages, and incessant questions of "are you okay?"---and it has exhausted me beyond my imagination. 

So I thought, I need to spend long hours with nobody but myself. I needed peace of mind and peace of mind turned out to be a rather costly 4k Php a month studio “flat”. It has a floor area of less than 12sqm but it looks perfect to me. It was bare so I still have to put stuff on it to make it livable. It has only been two days since I moved in but I feel so much better. I’m still not in my 100% healthy state but I could say that it is improving. Part of me does not want to apologize because there is nothing really to apologize for but still… sorry. I'm sorry, world. I’m sorry I’m not very well. I hope I’ll be well soon. I'm going to be well soon.