On moving out to move on

What do you pack to pursue a dream, and what do you leave behind?
—Sandra Sharpe


Last week I officially started my new life living on my own. Yeah, i know it took a while but at least I finally did it. I now live at a 3rd floor flat called Leopalace21, where residents are mostly the "not permanently settled" - students, long term vacationists, long term appointments, still dont know what to do with life, etc. The setting is a single's pad, with all the convenience molded into it. It is has an above average cost for such a small 28sqm flat, but quite makes up for the furnishings like an IH stove, modular tub and bath with built in clothes dryer - yup you get to hang your clothes dry in the bathroom, video intercom- which I really dont find useful unless i'd love chatting with a visitor that way. The location is quite perfect too as it stands just right accross a chain of small-scale malls. I can actually walk my way to the electronics store and bookstore at my pleasure...and I'd be there too frequently, that the staff may soon get to greet me with my name!

This moving out thingy, although a bit late for Japanese and American standard, (I am turning 34 on Wed, arghh), can be virtually unobserved in the Philippines, as siblings often stay with their parents before marriage and sometimes even after. I would assume financial capacity playing more part in it more than culture does bacause family members can utilize finances better if they can share expenses. Of course those who can afford it would find themselves living separately from their parents. So i'd debunk that generalization that Filipinos are a very close knit family... they would, if they could get away from each other as this is how nature intends it.

I moved for a lot of different reasons, to find myself, to look back, to learn life in a different perspective. Into each life one must find himself at a crossroads, one leading to the beaten path of comfortable redundancy , the other an immeasurable distance of the unknown - i'd choose surprises all the time.

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
-Sidney j. Harris