Making a Home Out of Someone

“[I] couldn’t get myself back home, so I decided to make a house out of someone.”

I’ve been moving around since I was little so it’s natural for me to associate the concept of home towards a feeling instead of a location. I’m a sentimental being, and attaching that concept to a feeling have shown me the beauty of letting evolution run its course — that is until my words decided bite me in the back.

Both the pandemic and Bandung has stifled my need to just be. The way they both impose their presence without a care for the way it boxed me in have been the bane of my existence. So, I’ve been doing the most to ensure that I feel like home in this temporary place I’m chained to, and then I met this person.

The air of assurance and confidence they hold when we started talking more was definitely something I noticed— I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t what attracted me to them. I was (we were?) looking for a human connection through the Internet, but as time pass by (and the pandemic becoming more unbearable) we decided that it was necessary to meet and see what the future holds for us. Life always finds a way to put barriers between our plans, but perfection was not on our side so we had to agree in the middle and meet in whichever way was available. It was the first real human connection I’ve had in so long and that’s why it resonated with me so hard.

As much as I romanticise the idea of “letting evolution run its course,” there have never been a time where I didn’t want to be Miss Havisham from Dicken’s Great Expectations. The strong desire to stop time has never left me. The reason why it started to hurt is because I made a house out of them and we’ve now passed a forking on our path — repeating yet another cycle of building a home and being forced to leave it behind.

I bought and read a book whilst thinking of them; I kept the receipt of the Gooma they bought me. I kept all of that because it’s the only piece of them I have left. I gave it all to them in hopes that it will allow me to respect their decision to part ways. They have never been explicit with how they felt about me, but I hope feelings were present. I hope that I have made a home out of someone who felt for me — even for a fleeting moment.

There will always be a part of them in me because they unexpectedly made me feel at home after years of feeling like I have no place to call mine. I bid them farewell when we met for a blood donation run, in hopes that perfect timing will coincide with perfect place in the distant future.