remembering rehill

Apartment 505 on 373 east main street is now beginning to look like home to us. We moved in afternoon of Monday, after getting very little sleep because the three of us came from graveyard shifts. The day after the big moving in, we got identical muscle aches which were obviously from lugging in most of the stuff we had accumulated in the house we fondly call Rehill.

Rehill Avenue is the name of the street where I spent a lot of my firsts in the usa. It is where my first residence is. A two bedroom, 1 bathroom, 2 car garage house with the basement as the laundry area (na ginawang laundromat ng mga kasamahan naming pinoy, the time when the washing machines in the apartment building died out on them.) I spent my first few days in Rehill with two other girls, Cathy and Joyce. I celebrated my first “imported” birthday in that house; burned the telephone lines of Rehill communicating with my folks and sister back home and my old friends who were here in the us way before me; and of course, how can I forget? I saw my first snowfall through the glass window of that house.

Now, we still go to Rehill, but only to get some of the stuff that we left behind. It’s kinda sad to see it empty. It used to be filled with half empty balikbayan boxes waiting to be filled up, my fresh laundry that needs folding, joyce’s order catalogs for scrub suits and dvd’s, mga kalat ni Cathy (he he he)....shit! 3 months na pala. Three months of being enveloped in the warmth of that house... literally! Thanks to it’s old fashioned heating system. I will miss the stationary bike by the window, the heavily stained couch which we covered with a fitted bed sheet and the trips down the basement to tend to the laundry. I will miss Rehill.

Years from now, each one of us would get our own house (wish ko lang!). I know that whenever I would be passing by that street, I would be reminded of the memories we had at Rehill. The fun, the hardships of being homesick, the adjusment, the sleepless nights and the girl talks (or was it sex talks?). oh well, it was fun while it lasted.