November 20, 2019
by: Alpheus Llantero
Trigger warnings: depression, honest mental health
The first time I realized I was far from home was around the last week of September, where I walked off the LX in a thin raincoat and first felt what the chill of 56°F was like. There was a slight drizzle and I rushed to swipe myself in the Lynton Towers, my body heating up to the comfortable warmth of the indoors. It was on this day that I learned the importance of layering, and I was fortunate enough to have an abundance of hoodies at my disposal.
I thought about the cold one day this Fall. I was walking back home and my face was slightly numb, and I thought about how I never thought about how odd that felt. The little near-microscopic strands of hair on your cheek just gently tugging at the air and how whenever you open your mouth a mist emerges and whenever you exhale there’s an almost-invisible mist too. Then you feel the back of your calves tingle and suddenly both your legs are cold, while your body is snuggled up under layers and layers of sweaters and hoodies. One part living, one part dying.
That’s exactly how I felt during Halloween last year. There was a slight drizzle. My face was numb and my legs cold, my body straddled with a cashmere coat I impulsively bought over an actual winter jacket. And I was crying outside the Honors College because I realized I should be going back to my hometown in Zambales, lighting a candle for my beloved dead lolas and titas. And I would go to the beach and bask in the light breeze and maybe this time learn to surf because San Felipe is a surfing town. I would be back in Manila just in time for the family tradition of heading to Loyola Cemetery, pick up some puto along the way, and head to Pancake House.
The next day I went to church, even not believing in a god, and lit a candle. I prayed Our Father, three Hail Marys, and Glory Be, just like granny would do. When finished, I opened the door out to the wind gusting in and I felt the numbness again.
I think I was studying when the clock rolled back an hour. “Hey we have an extra hour!” I said as if I thought that would mean anything for the paper that I would never finish on time. If I think past that point, I really was losing time. The temperatures would dip to 20° and I would not go out and night would fall at 5 o’clock and I could not get up. My roommate, who I hated, would yell at me “Get up! You’re always sleeping.” To his credit, he was just spitting me cold, hard truth.
Maybe it was my fault that I opted for the thin cashmere coat over a durable winter jacket, and maybe I was just getting lazy. That’s what I was: lazy and irresponsible. That’s why I couldn’t get up or go out. So I hit up a friend, “I need a winter jacket!” And off we were driving to Menlo Park. I picked out a pricey Hollister all-weather jacket with fur, thinking that should do me good for the entirety of college. I was satisfied, and felt comfortable in my ventures outside.
I realized though that I was still lethargic and I could not be bothered, and yes, I would go out but not with any ounce of purpose in my bones.
When I first got to Rutgers last September I sought help from CAPS, as I could never get that help in the Philippines. On this one particular appointment in November I filled out the PHQ-9, a quick depression assessment. After a session they sent me off to EISS or the Emergency Intervention Support Services, that little known Rutgers outpatient program for suicidal kids. I don’t know what it was that got into me, and maybe it’s genetic and in my bones, or maybe adjusting is hard. I was probably just weak because I couldn’t stand the cold.
Maybe I put too much meaning into The Cold. For me it represented everything that I had lost and everything I had left behind. But really, it’s petty—it’s a number on the thermostat. And I had dreamt of the day that I would leave the tropics and experience the four seasons. It wasn’t everything like I had imagined. Because of course, I was sick of lugging around three t-shirts in my backpack in anticipation for the unbearable heat and sweat of the outside. And maybe that dream of The Cold was really the dream to get out; one day I would go back to the country to which I am a citizen of and maybe life would be better.
I’m privileged. Most Filipinos will never see snow. Most Filipinos will spend their lives toiling in the heat of the sun. So what more could I ask for when mid-November the snow starts falling and I get into my first snowball fight? What more could I ask for, to be in the United States of America? How could I ever be sad over The Cold, when The Cold represents the aspirations of the Filipino people back in the motherland? To be in The Cold means to escape poverty, to get a good education, to be able to support a family back home. As a Filipino citizen living in America, I was living the American dream in a fine education system.
Yet, The Cold is lonely. The Cold is unforgiving, when you’re in your room when the snow falls and the sky is dark, and you realize all your friends have gone home over the weekend. Don’t bother hitting anyone up. Back home it’s three in the morning, don’t call or they’ll get worried. That’s when you realize you’re truly alone. Yes, the support is there. It is present. But it’s not something that feels like it can be sustained. For as shitty as the conditions are and as abusive as your family might be back home, it was constant. Loneliness strikes when the constants aren’t there.
I try to find constants now. Though this is cheesy, every so often I walk back and look at the stars and think, hey, we’re under the same sky. I hope my constants, whoever they are, are looking up too because then we’ll be seeing the same things, and maybe, even if it’s a stretch, it’s as if I never left. Every so often, I’ll look up at a blue sky, and think it’s a Zambales shade of blue. It will be 25°, and I’ll be nowhere near a beach, but it’ll still be a Zambales blue.
I wish I could take the move easier. I see all my Fil-Am friends and think damn, they’re the same skin color, same blood, same culture, but they’re taking New Jersey so well. I wish I could be like them, because maybe if I were I’d be a little less sad. I wish I didn’t have an accent because aside from my uncomfortability with The Cold, my voice is the surest indicator that I am a foreigner. But then I look to my friends who also made the move to the East Coast with me; I got friends in colleges across the Northeast. And I look to them and also see that they too are sad, so maybe it’s not only me that is taking this migration business bad. They too are struggling. And they too feel that they would rather die than live in America. Sometimes, the American dream feels like the American nightmare.
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions represented in this post are personal and belong solely to the author as indicated by the byline and do not represent an official endorsement by the Rutgers Association of Philippine Students of the aforementioned views or opinions of the author. Any views or opinions expressed by the author are not intended to malign any person or organization. The Rutgers Association of Philippine Students is a nonpartisan student organization.
Comments