How does one say goodbye to a place you’ve considered your second home for the past nine years? I look at the underside of the upper bed of my double deck and my mind is taken over with all the thoughts, ideas and feelings I’ve reflected on and the memories I’ve made for the past nine years. And that is just the underside of the upper bed above me! Don’t get me started with the cabinet, the window, the other room, the stairs! Oh dear – the refrigerator! Haha!
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34G practically represents every period of my life after high school – it’s freakin’ one-third of my life. It’s even longer than my childhood and teenage years! Next to our Pampanga home, there’s no other structure in this world that I stayed longer in. I’ve experienced and learned so much from it that all that I am, all that I say and do these days is an influence from my stint at this legendary Aguman apartment.
Throughout my bests and worsts, 34G was as constant, secure and dependable as the best of my friends. It’s the second safest haven for me.
My housemates (and their annexes, haha) were pretty much my second family. Most of my best circle of friends in my entire life I have met courtesy of 34G. Starting from the older “kuya’s” and “ate’s” I’ve learned to deeply look up to, to the younger “wali’s” I have grown fond of taking care of, all of these people have touched and continue to touch my life even as some of us are geographically very apart. These are the kind of people I will always miss when I don’t get to see them often, and when I do, it feels like I’ve only seen them the day before. These are the people I want to grow old with. When you share an apartment with four or five other people for years on end, you get to share your life as well.
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Now 34G, in all its sovereign glory, was not always a peaceful place. Every now and then conflicts would arise. Resolving these minor misunderstandings taught me valuable lessons on maturity, selflessness, consideration and most importantly, responsibility.
Maturity because being away from home and your family teaches you how to be independent and there are many things you have to handle on your own. Selflessness because looking out for other people will make doing things for them come naturally. Consideration because a lot of it prevents five boys from killing in each other when they get on each other’s nerves. Haha! Responsibility because it takes real effort to turn a drab two-storey apartment into some semblance of a home you would love going home to and make sure that all affairs are in proper order.
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I wrote the excerpts below about 34G for our organization’s website almost four years ago:
“When I moved in to 34G, I was the youngest, most naive, dependent and innocent housemate. But I was surrounded by the best set of older brothers and sisters so I learned and mastered the ways of the world (and of the org) in no time. Like I always say, ‘I learned from the best’.
“They say familiarity breeds contempt. Yes, it’s true. But it comes with the territory anyway. No other experience has taught me more things and lessons in life than living with the organization’s best people. So yes, the pros definitely trump the cons – to the words of Simon Cowell – by a mile.
“I admit though, there were many times when I wanted to move out for a number of many different reasons (mainly mood swings). But at the end of those manic episodes, I’ve always realized that I cannot do it. I thought, how could I possibly deliberately cut myself out from a place that has actually helped define a huge part of my being.”
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Leaving 34G was no mean feat. I had to pack and move lots of stuff to my new place – it was raining and all my bags almost didn’t fit in the car. But leaving was heavier emotionally.
I became a part of 34G and 34G became a part of me. And in wherever amazing palace, or God forbid worse shanty, life will take me someday, I will carry that 34G part with me – always.
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