No Permanent Address

"I have no permanent address," I told the guy who was doing a background check for the motorcycle. I struggle with what to put in that field whenever I fill out some forms. I hate filling out forms, it forces me to become a pathological liar, even in that strange 'religion' field. I realized that I might have probably lost all my chances of getting my own transportation at a relatively cheaper price monthly. I would have preferred to buy this in cash and there would be no questions asked. People like cold cash, do they? Especially in this part of the world where money makes people say no more.

A quick realization hit me yesterday as I told the guy that I really have no permanent address. If I lied, they will still find out that I am a homeless bum in her thirties. If was honest, I would still lose my chances of winning the damn precious thing. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Either way, I'll live. It sucks to be poor and still living.

"Where did you grow up?" the guy was still forcing a normal life out of me through text. Perhaps he is aware that I badly need my transport and that he badly needs his commission. A total stranger might have a slight concern for me, not that it matters to me, not that I crave for humanity. I was not afraid to be honest with him if that will allow me to get his sympathy and with a diabolic ulterior motive of getting something material.

Where did I grow up? I guess you can say that I grew up everywhere. I can grow out of a cow's shit like a magic mushroom. I'm quite adaptable which makes me a diabolic person. I gave the guy three different places or cities with the last where I really stayed longer. He must have been thinking, such a sad life of not belonging somewhere. Little dialogues popped into my head suddenly. I imagined that I was telling this guy over a bottle of cheap beer the tragic story of someone who has no permanent address. That label's initial is infamous around here as it means the rebel or leftist group who really has no permanent address. They live in some remote jungles around the country waiting for some random hostage or something. I think I could pass for one of their leaders who are out here looking for prey to wear the bright red bandana.

My mum was too sad to live in our supposedly permanent address when my Dad passed away. I was three and was hurled to different apartments in different cities evading the high mental cost of staying in an all-too-familiar place. As I've seen it while growing up, wherever you go, there you are. You'd be lonely wherever you are if you are really lonely.

There was nothing much that I can do as I was just an obedient child to adult. My mum developed this thing for shallow happiness and began shopping and spending whatever little money she had to cope with loneliness. It was her happiness first, a present-focused life. At first, I was not seeing the sense of it all as a rational and selfish adult-child. We moved to a different place again at some point with barely anything on the table. As an adult, I began to understand the reasons behind it all.

The other house is now owned by my Dad's brother, for his family lived in the same patch of land beside the river. He has promised to pay us instead of going through all the trouble of transferring the title from my grandfather's name to mine. I remember my mum kept on nagging me to follow up on the piece of dirt or whatever Dad left for us that could be rightfully ours. Shopping money probably. At the time, she was too annoyed to call her in-laws herself. I was bogged down with adult responsibilities, what can a child know about such things?

The thing about lands as we all know, throughout the history people have no mercy. The conquerors took advantage of the weak and manipulated the natives in order to take their lands full of riches. Not that I want to sound like a bitter poor person, but in a way, that was what happened to us too. Time has passed and it's now too expensive to transfer the title's name. It was probably set up that way, who the fuck knows? I am prone to be taken advantage of because I am still a nice person at the end of the day. Someday I will have all the money to get the land back, not that I need it still, not that I want to sound too psycho-ambitious for my age catching something down the rabbit hole. Retribution is my motivation. Pain is my ammunition. I want to prove something to them, to myself. To tell my mum that I finally have gotten the land back and I'm sorry that it took so long.

Nothing is impossible, isn't it? I have developed a long-term diabolic memory that it has become a curse, an inner demon waiting to be unleashed. I am aware that the demon needs to be killed but I must confess there's an intense pleasure for keeping it alive somehow.

I'm a nomad at heart. I remember walking back to our small apartment in a different place. All the kids who were from that neighborhood looked at me like I was not from there, there I was walking like a typical outsider. Not participating in the normal kids' activities made me subject to bullies, a kind of a given thing anywhere. I was high up in my uppity high horse yet with a grumbling stomach. I didn't like kids when I was a kid but I probably had a temporary trusted friend or two in every place. You still need somebody to tell to that you don't like kids without judgment and all. They all vanished when we moved out again. I envy those who have childhood friends or any familiar place where they belong. Deep down, it pains me to listen to someone who narrates an autobiography over a drink, "I am from this town and everyone knows me." See, I don't have that kind of story. It's like trying to make something underneath the pile of rubble. My mum didn't like our neighbors either so I guess I am a woman after her own heart. She used to coach me not to notice the commoners and to go straight home after school. Ignore the rest of the world. I didn't understand why I had to grow up to be so entitled despite our poverty. We didn't have a scene.

I had traveled and lived in other countries for the past 4 years. Hitchhiking, crashing strangers' homes and trying to belong. I was taking my nomadic life seriously, living up to my no-permanent-address lifestyle, the leader of the rebels. I was so used to being an outsider, oppressed, stereotyped and all that. "I don't belong here," that's a line from a 90's song, that's my blurb. There was some kind of a lonely freedom in it. Don't get me wrong though, it's not all that bad in this world. It's a hit or miss perhaps, but it's not all that bad. Think of the 10%. I am also used to being treated kindly and special, honestly, people I've met in my travels were the only ones who made me feel special. I will forever be grateful. I am used to being used to everything which is technically nothing. I am used to nothing in particular until detachment has become quite a curse too. Detachment to the goodness of places and people. I am just a passing show for all I know. Beautiful things can lose its charm.

In my mind, I chugged the last bottle of cheap beer and finally told the motorcycle credit check guy "that is my permanent address." The last house. That little house where my mum passed away. That was where all my rebellious and nomadic realizations were born. That was where I badly wanted to get away from it all. That was my home.