Us, here and in other places.

After yesterday’s post, a friend pointed out to me how I had turned a tangent into the main part of my piece, and I felt really embarrassed welp. I will work towards making my blog posts and wandering thoughts a bit more structured.

…

I wrote in my piece about my transnational identity that a part of my coping mechanism was to use romantic language in describing how I felt. I would use phrases like ‘a wandering soul,’ because it sounded interesting to me. However, while these may sound dramatic, they would sometimes feel like just the right description.

In any case, my point in mentioning this is to focus on how my transnational identity has affected my everyday life – not just in overly profound ways, but in little things, like how I describe my experience to other people. I’ve so far talked generally about relations and looking at them in a specific temporal and spatial framework – however, I’ve mostly talked about the macro relationships. I want to acknowledge the micro, so to speak, relationships in this dynamic as well. This includes my intimate relationships – by this, I mean to include all types of intimate relationships, from friendships, chosen family, to romantic relationships.

I don’t really know how to talk about this, quite honestly – especially without making it sound dramatic. But just – and bear with me here as my writing structure becomes shaky again — being caught in the diaspora, in a literal way between multiple places and in an abstract way between multiple identities, relationships get messy.

This is not to say that ‘messy’ is bad – these messy experiences can become something that you share and are able to bond over. For myself, the messiness has become a critical aspect of how my worldview has been shaped – being strewn over multiple places and identities is commonplace, and I end up talking a lot about this in my relationships and bonding over it.

However, the distance, both in terms of place, identity, or whatever metric – it may become a trying point in a relationship.

I guess this is the thought driving this piece, and I’ve finally managed to capture it in written words. I carry it around with me always, as I make and sustain the relationships I have, literally strewn around the world.

Welp, I hope this doesn’t sound so dramatic.
– Phebe Manaog