Sunday Scribblings: Why I Live Where I Live
This week’s Sunday Scribblings prompt asks why I live where I live. This is actually harder to write about than a lot of other prompts I’ve written on. So this is me attempting to answer honestly and vulnerably.
I live in one of the most populated cities in the world in the fourth most populated country in the world. I was born here, and so I think people assume that this is home for me. Of course! It’s only natural. Right? Over the past fourteen years, I have come back over and over again in my writings and journal entries to revisit this question of home. Where is home for me? I am reminded of a quote I read and saved somewhere in the recesses of my disorganized note app:
It’s funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you always think, ‘I want to go home.’ But then you come home, and of course it’s not the same. You can’t live with it, you can’t live away from it. And it seems like from then on there’s always this yearning for some place that doesn’t exist. I felt that. Still do. I’m never completely at home anywhere.
I started writing about the concept of home in 2008, when the idea of home is still firmly lodged in the place I grew up in, with its skyscrapers and traffic-laden streets. It took me a few years after that, but I ended up writing another piece on the idea of home in 2012. By that time, I had let go of the idea that home is anchored in Jakarta. I realized I was confused. I felt homeless. I felt untethered, living in a city I have fallen in love with, yet realizing that my connection with the city of my birth will never be truly gone. Within less than two years of that post, I left the Emerald City.
That move was probably one of the most difficult decisions I had to make. It was the right decision, but it was very challenging. I left it until the very last minute to sort, sell, and give away the things I had accumulated over seven years. I even kept things in storage with the hope of one day, sooner rather than later, moving back under the shadow of the Space Needle.
The story started out with my graduation from my Master’s program in the summer of 2012. I felt like I needed to find employment that suited my new credentials. Preferably something not in ministry to supplement my ministry. Preferably something that paid better than the lovely job I have had for the past seven years. The economy was improving, but it was still a struggle. I was applying for positions I was overqualified for, but to no avail. I think I only got a total of three legitimate interviews during that process.
I was starting to get frustrated, and I was reflecting on what all that meant for me. I believe the big soul-searching reflection happened on a snow day in January 2013. I had the post-New Year’s Day blues, and I was sitting by myself on the couch, exasperated by the situation. I remember saying to God, “Do you want me to go home? If you do, I’ll go home.” I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t bitter. I was just… accepting.
God rarely ever speak to us audibly, and he didn’t do so in this instance. What I remembered from that statement was a sense of peace and completion. And just like that, I decided to go home. I didn’t have details figured out. I just have resigned myself to the fact that I will be moving back to Jakarta. I didn’t want to. I wasn’t excited about the prospects of moving back in with my parents. It was hard to think about leaving a home I had built, connections I had fortified, to come back to a place where I had to rebuild. I knew, though, that it was time.
Even though I had that knowledge and that resolve, I didn’t tell anyone. I think I still hoped God would reverse the decision. April of 2013 solidified his decision. A few days after my birthday that year, I received a phone call that my dad had suffered a heart attack and had to go through surgery. My parents nonchalantly told me, after the fact, that they lost my dad at the operating table for about three minutes. I got all this information a couple of days after. That night, on the phone, I told my mum, “I’m moving home.” She didn’t think anything of it. I think she chalked it up to shock. I knew better.
After the surgery, my dad had complications that resulted in him having to go through dialysis twice a week. I started making plans to go home. I arrived back in Jakarta on October 14, 2013, a day before my dad’s fifty-sixth birthday. His last birthday.
That first year back was tough. My dad was going through a lot of pain, and I was trying to adjust to life in Jakarta. The combination of moving back in with my parents, staying in my old room, and not having a job made me felt like I was an eighteen-year-old again. That wasn’t a fun feeling. I threw tantrums. Mostly at God. Ok. I might even have acted younger than eighteen, but I had too much pride to throw these tantrums in the presence of my friends. I remember my first Christmas back. Mum found me sitting on the floor of my room, sobbing, saying, “I want to go home.” I wanted to go back to Seattle.
But I stayed. I stayed home and faced the amalgamation of feelings that come with the daily decision. I felt like I didn’t have a choice. At that point, the US wouldn’t grant me a visa. I felt pinned down like a thumbtack to a map on the wall.
So I rebuilt. I rebuilt connections. I met people. I built a home, one day at a time. One connection at a time. One social event at a time. Before I knew it, I’ve made a life of my own here. When people ask me why I live where I live, my answer is that God wanted me here at this point. I will be where my feet are. Today, this is home.
Now, readers, I use that term loosely. I’m open to different interpretations and suggestions of what it is or what it could be. One thing I can say, though, is I’m here. I’m still here.
May 24, 2020
