Last Saturday marked the first year passing since our move to the True North (strong and free!).

I'm not very good at remembering things like that... anniversaries, milestones, events, what have you. My own birthday sneaks up on me sometimes. It was hard, though, to ignore what last Saturday's occasion meant for me as both an immigrant and as a person still trying to figure things out (whatever that phrase may mean) because of some queer timing.

You know larger Forces are at work when this 1-year anniversary comes up during a long-awaited reunion, and it did strike me as such when I realized the coincidence. Some of my closest cousins visited from Manila for two weeks, an awfully bizarre time from when they emerged from customs until our moseying around at departure, trying to delay the inevitable. This was a family that I'd grown up with, cousins privy to nearly the whole spectrum of my personality. They were there during the buck teeth, during wild hysterics in Christmas presentations, during my strange fixation with the role of CEO playing office...

It couldn't be helped that in every place we brought them to it was always at the back of my head to wonder about what they're witnessing now. Not the wet, new land the ___-es are in, but what this wet, new land has done for (or to) the ___-es. Here was a chance to step back from my tired point-of-view and survey things with new eyes, new appreciation. It put forward the very question of how much I might've changed in the year we were apart.

A friend asked me the same thing on my pseudo-birthday. How different did I feel since the time I turned 19?

So many valid answers, but I gave none. At the time, all I could think of were changes of adaptation, those I necessarily had to go through to find my footing in the new setting. What I felt he was asking for though were changes of resolve, those from lessons learned and from genuine knowledge of self, which I felt I didn't have.

The last two weeks forcefully brought up those changes of adaptation to mind. I could now navigate the public transportation system with relative ease. I can manage at least some small talk. I walk faster. I am now able to go through the motions of those that brought us around last year.

But what kind of changes have I gained from resolve?

This is a list I'll be adding to as I go along figuring them out.

1. Realized I'm the only thing keeping me from my God.
2. Begrudgingly admitted to myself that I do not know anything. At all.
3. Stopped caring for middle ground. Acknowledged there's always a side that needs to be picked.
4. Can almost tangibly feel my limits (in all of its aspects: mentally, physically, emotionally, etc.). A terrifying idea that gives me the willies.
5. Takes greater effort (with varying degrees of success) to be more honest to others and to self.

(Note to self: Noticed some changes in the cousins too, of course, but was immensely glad that in them, I can always be home again. Although, I'm wary to use the word "home" anymore... but that's for another time.)