(3 mins audio listen on Medium @FLO Mystic) It was naive of me to think that I would just get on the plane from Ninoy Aquino International Airport to O’hare and everything will unfold for me like how I had imagined. Narrate it in such a way like a fairy tale. The story of my life didn’t quite express myself in the way I had dreamt of. Miserable is the adjective that sums it up in the company of my loneliness.
The high I felt riding a plane went away quickly. As a teenager migrating to United States from now considered a developing country, it felt like I’ve made it. Not sure on the detail of what making it was, but it felt I have arrived somewhere that wasn’t part of my destiny and was only a dream. It felt luck in some regards. Eighteen hours flight, I was wide awake. I could not wait to get to my destination.
The excitement mask the depth of my internal reality. I found a new home in this country and this state is now my home. I cannot deny that I start to feel uncertain, insecure, lonely at the realization of these facts. My mother whom I’ve been separated most of my childhood isn’t the one I was missing. I don’t know her. And in that moment I felt, I barely knew myself.
The intensity of what I was feeling in my internal reality was unbearable. The best solution I can think of is to get rid of it. I’m either going back to the home I knew or this new life that is forming will need to end.
I felt unseen in my experiences and inner reality. I did not felt understood. I felt like a true alien in a foreign land. I felt I did not belong where my feet stands. I felt lonely and the people around me did not feel like the community nor comfort that I seek and need. I want to hide. I wanted to die.
I never knew how to process my thoughts and feelings. I don’t remember being empowered to feel and embrace them growing up. Get rid of them is a sign of strength. I do not know where they came from. They rushed in as soon as my feet arrived to this place I now have to call home.
I felt forced to get it together and figure it all out. So it happened so fast. Finally I found company with my loneliness. Strangely I felt some relief in my withdrawal. The weight of my existance has become harder to carry. The darkness inside of me was the protection that surrounded me. Running away with no intention has ease the rush I felt powerless to stop.
This is now my home. This is where I reside and belong. Everyday I want to end the cycle, struggle, and fight. Everyday I feared to die, though that is the only clarity that makes complete sense in the company of misery.
It was a long ride back home.
Not to the land I perceived was home. Journey Back Home to Self took nearly 3 decades. I am alive writing this today, writing to myself, reminiscing on the young women who was troubled, miserable, lonely, misunderstood, unheard, unseen, not held space for to just be herself.
I used to say, “I do not know how I got here.” Today I tell you, I know exactly how. I did not take the easy road not because I had a choice. I did not have an easy track to tread. But I am present here today, damn proud I walked my authentic path.
FLORENCE LEONARDO 