moving out, moving up

I get a call from my dad. We chat about things. He wants to know if my brother is going to my cousin's wedding later next month. I say, he's not because he has a retreat. My dad wants to know why my brother has so many retreats. I think my dad forgets that when I was in college, I had just as many retreats and in high school it was basketball games. But I think he thinks it's different with my brother, since these big family gatherings are the only times he gets to see his only son.

Then he moves the topic about how my brother is looking for a new place. My father doesn't understand this either. Why would my brother want to move just because they raise his rent by $50/month, when he only has one year left? My father doesn't like change. In some sense, he's a man of least resistence. He's an accountant, a numbers and cents/sense kind of guy. To him, $50/month is worth not having to move. My father doesn't like moving. He worries I think that my brother won't have a place to stay and that his friends will only let him stay at their places for so long. There's friendship, and then there's overstaying your welcome.

I don't think my father understands that when your friends are still in their 20s, especially early 20s, sofa crashing a few weeks here, a few weeks there is part of the college culture. At that age, it's typical for people to be "in-between" locations. When people get older and start having significant others, partners and kids, well, that habit starts to look more like "your friend's a bum". But for now, it's a tolerable.

I can understand why my brother wants to move. His three other roommates have all graduated and left. I wouldn't want to stay there either. My brother is in his "Super Senior" year which is always a tricky place to be. Feel kind of "been there, done that" yet have to stay focused to get through and wrap up this one last year. My brother is moving, because his life is moving to a different place. A place where he's one foot in college and one foot out. A place where he'll make his transition to being out of college.

My dad forgets that both my sister and I both had these transition places. A location that is close to campus, but a bit further away, a bit more "grown-up" than the ones before. A place that is "nicer" than the junky "college" places. Maybe I should tell my father about a friend of mine who moved once a year, every year for 5 years. I watched as she continually made significant changes in the kind of life she wanted to live, thus requiring yet another move. It really wasn't about money per se.

My father left the Philippines and has moved twice in the 30+ years he's been here. I think he's forgotten how he lived in the province, then his aunt's place, then Manila when he was a young man. For his life here, his life has basically been the same, a man with a family.

There is a natural desire to have your immediate surroundings reflect the kind of person you are and want to be. Sometimes, you just have to rearrange the inside of your place to make the changes you want in your life. But you can only change so much on the inside, because sometimes, the changes are just so big, you need to move to make this big change to change your life. To give yourself a chance to evaluate what you want to take with you and what you should leave behind. No, my brother is moving for a lot more than just $50 a month.