Home alone. Alone, At Home.

A great friend once told me that living alone could be addicting. I guess being independent in a far away country for 5 months would really make you love it because you make decisions on your own and you understand what you want for yourself with the least influences that there could be.

So, I spent 3 whole days on my own. It may not be 5 months, but it did make me realize a lot on how I want myself to be. I have had these therapies already but in such a different way—I had to go through a lot of reflection and deflections, but this time I had a full experience of living on my own. So to list down my realizations, here are some of them.

1. Living alone has its perks.
American flicks would always depict that a household without parents is a household filled of parties. Though almost all the people I work with were kidding me of having a house party, I simply did not. For one, there was a lack on budget, preparations (being the event manager that I am) and for reason that you would only read in number 2. I spent nights alone in my room since I spent most of the days that my parents and siblings out at the shop. To make me feel as if I was also on vacation, I took out the comforter I had since high school and depicted my room as if a hotel. I had the time of my life taking my baths without anyone disturbing if I’ve paid the latest supply delivery at the shop, or if I was going to eat lunch at home, plans for the day, can you close tonight questions etc etc. I watched TV, watched the news, read the papers and immersed myself in some magazine reading (I’m now a fan of real simple!) I talked to Pierre before going to sleep and since I came from closing the shop, and will eventually open the shop the next morning, I didn’t even stay long over the phone with him.

After the latest weekend event with my folks, I wasn’t even sure if having Pierre around would be most comfortable for them especially when they were away. House rules states that I couldn’t have him around the house when no one else is around. My mom said that visiting hours are ok, as long as it is in the shop and that we are good. Of course we are. We had our usual Friday and Saturday dates at the shop, we really love our long conversations over cups of tea and shared a devil’s food cake, cookies and muffin to garnish our usual how are yous and how was your day talks (ok and talks about food food and food!).

I also got to reading the prophet and it did taught me allot especially about children, love and marriage. These made me realize a lot on how things are in my life and how things should slowly be. I was rattled the whole last weekend. Crying myself to sleep for reasons only, perhaps, my hormones could understand. But reading this book made me calmer, stable, and making me fully understand what life is. That there is a time that we have to stop thinking that our parents are just there to be parents, that they could also be friends to them if we try to be a friend to them as well. We are hen, after all, children of life.

These are probably the perks of living alone, but what made me miss my family is that no one was there to be questioned if what I was wearing was ok, if things were doubled check at home, and conversations over dinner. And of course taking shifts on closing and opening the shop.

2. I can never cook. (a comedy!)

Since it was 3 days with 2 meals each to think of ( I don’t take breakfast because.. well I wake up so late), I tried to remember what my mom told me there was in the freezer that she left for me. There were porkchop, chicken, ground pork, a can of cooked raviolis from santis, pre-colonial fruits (we fondly call durian and marang) and left over food from the past days (home made prawn salad!).

So day 1, dinner. Raviolis! I was looking at the can’s instructions and saw that I could make it au gratin. So I did what the instructions told me—add butter, top with cheese and put in oven for 5-6 minutes. Viola! I have dinner--- and the lunch the next day. So I told myself, hey anj, not bad!

The real story on my culinary misadventure starts on day 2’s dinner. I swear, even my friends knows that: it is worse to leave me alone in Pluto, I mean the kitchen. I know a lot of cooking methods from the reviews I give pi, growing up with culinary vocabulary from nora daza and negosiete and hearing new cooking terms through the experiments of my mom, but after these 2 days, I have concluded that cooking is not really for me. Though I take A LOT of pleasure consuming its end product, the whole nine yards of preparing and adding that salt and pepper to taste is not really the ANJ. Yep, my dinner of day 2 and lunch of day 3 made me want to apologize to the porkchop and the chicken because it was as if they were murdered the second time.

But I have to say, cooking is fun. Even if minute dinners and reheating is what is meant for me, I have to say I had fun thinking of simple lunches and dinners for me. Good thing that no one was around to at least pretend to be amused that I was cooking.

3. Careering Career is a must
I also took this time as well to reset my career and bring out that check list if I was still growing with the chosen career path that I am taking. With the various responses that I have been receiving on email, it’s making me consider a lot of other career paths as well, though still connected to what I am doing now. I just praying right now that these will fall into place. But I want to experience a lot of what I have in mind. But the café management is not deteriorating my self growth as I am still expanding my horizons with other projects and part time work.

So those are just three and there are so many other things that are just hard to put into words. These 3 days made me realize that there is a potential in myself that I could actually live alone and run a household (with a cook in tow!), That I could actually manage my own life and live it for myself. Though it was only three days, making it a bit longer would also make me rationalize and realize my potentials as a person with the world.

Yep, I have to say living alone is addicting. It has its perks and its lows. But at least I know that if this life would bring me to a place where I have to live alone, I know I can survive.