RP2: Home?

When reading and discussing about Migrancy, Modernity, Mobility by Martin Manalansan, the word home and what it meant always came to my mind.  For me, home represents the qualities and actions that I make in order to find a space where I can make myself feel more comfortable and where I can be myself without having that fear that I am going to be judged or that I am going to feel uncomfortable at any given point while I am there in that space. The actions that I make must be the actions that I am able to do everyday and that I have no complications or difficulties in making those actions or practicing what I am comfortable in doing. Home also means to me that I have knowledge of my surroundings and that I am able to communicate properly and efficiently within my community and with my peers that I interact with everyday. Although there are situations that can’t be altered like the constant trail of people living in poverty and the violence that grows within the community either by choice or by force. Many people that I know have to fight to survive everyday of their lives and the only to do that is by making the choices that they believe is “best” for them and for the people that they want to take care of. Many of them don’t worry about the consequence that might bring or how it will affect them because the only thing that they worry most is how they are going to survive for that one moment that they are struggling to stay alive in the present. They don’t want to live in the future because for them, the future is not promised because everyday they are at risk in losing everything they had worked so hard for and it could be gone in seconds and that is why those seconds, minutes, hours, and days that they have left on being able to breath, they will do whatever it takes in order for them to make themselves feel at home and be able to stand up proudly and say to the world that home is the city that they represent.  Home does not need to be something tangible or visible because home is whatever you want it to be and what you feel you can go back to and feel the same way as you did when you left. Many people feel that leaving their home will help them grow as a person and that they will one day come back and help fortify their home and make it a stronger foundation than how it was when they left it all behind. The comfort, the warmth, and the security in living in a home is something that is always challenged in our everyday lives because everyday brings in new challenges and obstacles that want to destroy or break apart that security and comfort that home brings to everyone. Home is something that I can’t describe to people because I have only found pieces of a home everywhere I go. I can’t say that a specific place or person is my home because my home is spread out in the people that I meet because just as home can be built with hardships and accomplishments, it can also be destroyed. Whenever I meet someone and continue that communication with that person, I find a piece of home in them because something about that person makes me feel comfortable and whenever I am happy and enjoy my time with them, that is when I feel I have found a building block of creating my home because my home is where I can freely express myself without regrets or remorse.