A bit exhausted & fed up after months of tending to tourists, and adding to that a beastly mood swing, I assure is caused by the full moon, my husband wryly tells me one night that I have "become French," and continued saying, "I knew we shouldn't have lived in France!" Maybe it's because I was freaking out for more than an hour trying to find parking at 21H00 in this touristy town or because my colleague at work drives me nuts. But with the way he says it, he might actually mean it, with a smirk. And yes, I suddenly had to wonder what is being French & what is being Filipino, and what does it really mean? I didn't want to know.
Although I know it is important to understand French women & its relation to being a Filipina, I won't go into too much details & just focus on how these seemingly innocent words can make you once more wonder about change & life as we grow older. We all go through it. How many times have you wondered about how much your life have changed? The alterations & growth, the casual truths & distortion, the movements & displacements: change and change is a double edged sword - it can cut you or it can cut for you. Every decision we make incurs change & in every change, how much a part of you is really you?
While some are more subtle than others, we somehow get lost with the many changes we experience. Sometimes we even unconciously become a whole new different person we almost cannot recognize. Good change or bad change - how relative are our changes? As relative as our reaction to our current environment & when you've been transplanted, changes are a bit opaque. There are the cultural differences, the adjustments & our ability to adapt. Then you learn & there's the rest of you. How much a part of us have become our host country? How much Filipino can we be in a different environment?
Being in a different world is full of hard learnings for me but the rewards are great and somehow, no matter how you would like to conserve your own convictions, some will still slip away to your new world making you see things differently, but without compromising your beliefs. And with all the learnings, your old world will see that change in you - nag bago or others ka na (you've changed & you're not like us anymore). I didn't become French for trying to live in my host country & I'm not different just because I experienced something else than my old world. In learning comes growth & then comes change. I used to be so many things that now I am not & I am some of the things I never thought I'd be. These are the versions of myself that were all developed through experience from two different environments. A little less & a bit more of me.
This year has been so much of a lot of things. I never stop in amazement on how my life has changed. Looking forward to my new world brings me lots of hope. Looking back at the world I was & am comforts me. But growing up is a spiked accomplishment. But I know I want to be where I am now.
Mon mari, je serai toujours Philippine du coeur car tu me rappelles d'etre une.
Although I know it is important to understand French women & its relation to being a Filipina, I won't go into too much details & just focus on how these seemingly innocent words can make you once more wonder about change & life as we grow older. We all go through it. How many times have you wondered about how much your life have changed? The alterations & growth, the casual truths & distortion, the movements & displacements: change and change is a double edged sword - it can cut you or it can cut for you. Every decision we make incurs change & in every change, how much a part of you is really you?
While some are more subtle than others, we somehow get lost with the many changes we experience. Sometimes we even unconciously become a whole new different person we almost cannot recognize. Good change or bad change - how relative are our changes? As relative as our reaction to our current environment & when you've been transplanted, changes are a bit opaque. There are the cultural differences, the adjustments & our ability to adapt. Then you learn & there's the rest of you. How much a part of us have become our host country? How much Filipino can we be in a different environment?
Being in a different world is full of hard learnings for me but the rewards are great and somehow, no matter how you would like to conserve your own convictions, some will still slip away to your new world making you see things differently, but without compromising your beliefs. And with all the learnings, your old world will see that change in you - nag bago or others ka na (you've changed & you're not like us anymore). I didn't become French for trying to live in my host country & I'm not different just because I experienced something else than my old world. In learning comes growth & then comes change. I used to be so many things that now I am not & I am some of the things I never thought I'd be. These are the versions of myself that were all developed through experience from two different environments. A little less & a bit more of me.
This year has been so much of a lot of things. I never stop in amazement on how my life has changed. Looking forward to my new world brings me lots of hope. Looking back at the world I was & am comforts me. But growing up is a spiked accomplishment. But I know I want to be where I am now.
Mon mari, je serai toujours Philippine du coeur car tu me rappelles d'etre une.
