“Home isn't a place, its a feeling”

“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.” 

― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care


I am lucky.

I am lucky, because I have more than one place I can really call home.
I am lucky because I have people in many places I can call family.
I am lucky because I have friends, some since my tender childhood and some that came later in my life that never left my side, wherever we are in the World.
I am lucky I grew up in a beautiful countryside my children are able to experience every year.

Charles, my eldest friend and I, in my parent's garden.

When I moved to the Philippines, it was a natural move. I felt it was the next step I had to take. It was not hard, not heartbreaking, not challenging. Just natural.
I was not escaping a hard past, a relationship or a terrible country.
I was exploring and taking a step towards my independence and most importantly, I was making my own choice.
My parents raised us to be free to choose what we wanted to be (even though now, they may have doubts it was ever a good idea: it was, really).

Once I moved here, I never thought I could feel the need of coming back home.
I am happy here, I built my life here, grew my family here.
And even if I loved my country for the beauty of it, I left a country that was going through an economic crisis and where opportunities for people my age were not really great.

Playing at the park in France

I was never homesick. Just extremely happy to go home every year and enjoy great time with family and friends, amazing food and beautiful road trips. I was enjoying being a tourist in my birth country.

I felt like I had the best of both Worlds.
And I still do.

Once I gave birth to Alia though, things started to shift very slowly.
I rediscovered France with another eye.
I started feeling a pinch of homesickness every time I would think about something I used to do or eat at her age and how I wanted her to experience it.

Daddy Yo, Alia and Gaia in Anilao

The first two years of Alia's life, we kept going to France and visit only for a month. But when Daddy Yo went to work abroad for the first time, Alia and my pregnant self went to visit my parents. I was planning on staying a month but when complications with my pregnancy came, I had to extend another month. When it was time to go home, I realised it was the first time since I left my birth country that I stayed such a long period there. And on top of that, we did not travel around like the other years, we mainly stayed in the home I grew up in. It gave me a great amount of time to see friends and hang out with family.


When Daddy Yo went to work abroad for the second year, I thought: I really enjoyed being in France for two full months! Usually, we were only staying 4 weeks, travelled around for 2 full weeks and had very little time to see all the people we wanted to see. We would manage to squeeze in one dinner or lunch with every person we wanted to spend time with, which was not enough to really get to enjoy their presence and catch up with them.

So that second year, I decided to stay two months again. And the end of these two months came so quickly. Of course, it was awesome as we were going to visit Daddy Yo where he was working, so it was one more family adventure. But, all these trips and plane alone with two children wore me out. I went home exhausted and kept on being sick. Dengue virus was the last warning my body was giving me to make me understand I was tired and needed a little rest.

Playing in a wooden playground near a pond in France

This year, we took the decision to only go to France. No visit to Daddy Yo, which was a big and hard decision but a wiser one. And I asked my parents if they minded adopting me and the two girls for three long months. It felt amazing to be there. My mom was freshly retired so I had extra hands to help. My sister and I never had such a great bonding and she spent some great time with her two nieces. We got to spend so much time with my family and I got to spend much time with childhood friends, old and new friends. I even received, over a weekend, one of my very best friend who was visiting her in-laws from Australia. I have not seen her for 9 years and our children (who are the exact same age) met for the first time. They instantly became such amazing friends, it was heartwarming to see!


We had the opportunity to enroll Alia to kindergarden for the two last months of school year, so she could have activities and improve her french. Schools in France are free and mandatory so any child with a French citizenship is welcome anytime to join a new school. It has been a great experience for her! She is now speaking fluently in french to me, had a great time visiting the farm, playing with kids of the village where we live, getting to know the customs in France.

First day of school with warm clothes, new language, new classmates: Fun time!

School fair in Alia's school

I also spent some quality time with some very dear family members who are sick.
I may live on the beach and enjoy life where I am, but as an immigrant living far away from my own country, I am missing things out. This includes being present for your loved ones when they are going through hard time, sickness, problems, depression, or are just getting old. And it sometimes feels so heavy and challenging. I do sometimes feel like I am not fulfilling my role of friend, grand-daughter, cousin, niece...

 



We got to enjoy quality food, organic vegetables, good quality meat, amazing cheese. Food that I am not scared of putting in my daughter's body thinking of all the hidden antibiotics and GMO that might make them pubescent too early. Alia and Gaia took some poney lessons, rode the carousel endlessly, ran in the fields, went to the cinema to see beautiful indie children movies, visited a farm, baked with my sister, made a fire in the chimney when it was cold, jumped in the inflatable pool when it was hot, ran around and played with friends, mowed the lawn with their grand-dad, gardened and planted and watered flowers (and picked a lot on the way), played piano, learned how to behave in a restaurant, enjoyed food, food and more food, had a road trip in Switzerland to visit more family...

    

                                                        

I was also in France during a very painful time for all of us. Terror attacks.
The past ones that happened, I was in the Philippines. I felt lonely. It was just an awful event that had happened in the news for most people around me. And even if I could talk about it with Daddy Yo or a few other people, it kept on following me every second of the day for weeks.
It happened in my streets, to my friends, friends of my friends. I was far away. I could not hug them. I could not join the protests and the walks and reflect on what happened in the streets of the district I called home for 6 years in Paris.

A fire in the chimney to warm our hearts and soul

When the attacks happened on July 14th and a few days after again, it felt horrific and scary. But as weird as it sounds, I was surrounded by people who would talk about it and share my feelings. It did not drive me as crazy as the attacks of November and January 2015 because I could unload what I felt with people who felt the same way. I was there and I could share my pain. And my pain was lighter just by sharing it.

Yes, I have the best of both Worlds. And I want to keep it this way.
But it can also be challenging to jump from one World to another.
This is when you realise you can also be homesick for people.

The beautiful Eiffel Tower a few days after the attack in Nice, France.

Our World was finally complete

Being a mom of two is some hard work. And I have been busy at it for the past two years.
As one of my last post explained, this pregnancy has been nothing short of a rollercoaster of emotions. I think it was so overwhelming that I needed a break to process everything that happened and mostly to enjoy our healthy baby girl.

We also needed space to become a family of four. So we could allow Alia to find herself in this new configuration. And we had to learn how to become parents of two.

Now, I miss writing about them, life and things going through my mind.
I guess I have to start where I stopped almost two years ago.

Gaia Mayari was born on November 8, 2014 at 3:23am.

She came exactly a year after the Super Typhoon Yolanda hit the Philippines. And she came like a typhoon herself! Fast and painful!

Her first month celebration came on a typhoon day, no kidding..

I will always remember two month before I gave birth. A woman from Manila was in the Island to give some healing sessions and readings. I signed up. When she saw me coming, she did not know I was expecting a baby. She explained me she could not give me a healing session in my state as the emotions that will go through me might affect the baby. But since I was already there, she offered me a reading through cards, for the baby.

I never saw this woman in my life and she did not know me as well. And here she is, telling me my daughter will have a great connection to the Earth and the Moon. And that she is a healer and a Crystal child.

I knew about Rainbow and Indigo children but never really read much about Crystal ones.
But I was amazed as the name we chose for our second daughter was Gaia Mayari.

Gaia means Earth in the Greek mythology. Gaia is the Personnification of the Earth. She is ancestral mother of life.
Mayari, on another hand, is the Goddess of the Moon in the Filipino mythology.

I went home and read about Crystal children. The first characteristic that always came in everything I have read was their large eyes with a communicative and intense stare. The rest of the characteristic of the Crystal children, I would have to wait until she was more grown-up to check if it applied to her, I thought.

The day she was born, I could not stop looking at her immense eyes and her intense and very soothing stare. We were in for a great ride, I said!

It felt so much easier the second time around. I was already used to waking up at night all the time, I didn't take a long break from breastfeeding. It all came naturally.

But the challenges were different. Dealing with two children, giving space to the first one but taking time to bond with the second one.

Of course, there were days when I would put Alia and Gaia down for a nap, close my eyes 2 mins and wake up 2 hours later. Or those evenings when I put them to sleep, think about the movie I'm gonna watch once they are asleep and I wake up for the next feed of Gaia at midnight.

But luckily, Gaia is was an easy and quiet baby. Or maybe she surrendered, giving space to Alia while gathering enough energy to take the space she deserves!

I remember when Alia was born, I couldn't make the difference between days and nights. Each day was the same routine. Alia was feeding every hour and half or two. Plus she was a happy spitter! Puking at every feed because she didn't know how to stop eating! By the time I would feed her, she would puke then go back to sleep with a smile. Then, I would change her diaper and her clothes, change my clothes. Time to go back to sleep, she was awake an hour later to feed again.

With Gaia, it seemed so easy! Since she was born, she was sleeping for a span of 4 hours.
For a few weeks, she was even sleeping 7 hours straight at night. BLISS! Imagine me putting the girls to sleep and running downstairs to open a bottle of wine and a box of chocolate! BLISS I tell you!

Alia was so happy to have a sister. She was her property, her baby, her Gaia, her little sister.

She even scream at the pedia for touching Gaia without asking her first!

The big problem is when she was giggling so much and trying to lift her or squeeze her in a hug. Or pull her little legs to get her closer to her. Every day, we had to learn how to hold our breathe and she had to learn how to handle her very fragile baby sister.



 I used to be so scared to have a second baby. Scared not to be able to love her as much as I loved Alia. Scared not to be able to make a second baby as perfect and beautiful as Alia.


Now, I found out the heart of a mother expends in a magical way. It can hold so much love. When I look at Gaia, she's so perfect. The same way Alia was. Yet they are so different.

Motherhood can easily blow you away more than once it seems! It never gets old.