Moving on up

When I arrived here in Cambodia on April 2004, I only had a luggage, which was just natural because I was just on holiday. Three months later I went back to Manila, decided that I would give life in Cambodia a try. It was my first time to live away from my family, my first time to be on my own.

I lived with friends for a while until saving enough to find my own apartment on November of the same year. My first apartment was a one-room flat that was on the second floor (the equivalent of the third floor in the Philippines). I immensely enjoyed shopping for things I needed for my new home. But aside from the basics, I didn’t dare purchase anything else. My freelance career was just budding, and I had a feeling that my flat wouldn’t be my flat for a long time.

Eight months later I moved into my second flat. This was bigger than my previous flat, with two bedrooms, lots of windows and an L-shaped verandah that faced the quiet street. I had with me three boxes of household and work stuff and a luggage containing my clothes. 

Four years later, I found myself moving again to a new flat. A friend is moving back to Manila to study and the flat he shared with another flat was too much to resist for me. I had, after all, lived in it in my first few months in Cambodia, and I liked my time there. Also after 4 years of living alone, I found myself wanting to share a household (not in the romantic sense) with someone. I just didn’t realize that moving would be such a colossal production.

Think of how Cecile De Mille must have felt while The Ten Commandments was being made. Or Mother Lily when Peque Gallaga was making Once Upon A Time.

My present work schedule allowed me just a few days to prepare for this move. In between travelling to the provinces for field work, I packed four years of my life into cardboard and plastic boxes that defied my calculations. My procrastination slowed me down as well, as I tried to sort things that I wanted to get rid of and those I wanted to take with me. I ended up taking them all.

Of course, it didn’t stop me from playing with the meters of bubble wrap I used in wrapping my things.

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