Cleaning Chronicles: Two Third Culture Kids

    For work, I am currently cleaning houses with my mom. After I left my job and used up all my savings, I knew I needed to do something for money and I knew I could not go back to an office. I was not in a place to work with children and provide them my best self, and I definitely was not sure I wanted to continue with classes to apply to a nursing program at UC Davis.  We could call it "burn out", but truthfully, it was bigger than that. The pandemic was like being forced to face really harsh realities about the way that I was living my life and the things that I was chasing that I thought would make me happy. 

    I think that what I was experiencing was a mid-life crisis at 27. 

    It made me ask, "what the fuck happened?"

So four days a week, while I clean, I ask myself just that. I listen to podcasts, I think about future goals, I listen to music, I think about books I have been reading and how I might be able to incorporate it to my life. 

I have had to ask: why do I want this job? Is it for the prestige? For others to consider me worthy? Successful? Intelligent? Does it make me happy? These questions have been at the core of my personal reflections. 

This past week while cleaning at one of our regular services, the homeowner, Alice*, came up to me and told me she wanted to introduce me to the person trimming the trees, Marcos*. I had mentioned to Alice that I've been trying to home Merlot and she said Marcos might be interested or be able to pass it along to people he knew. (Merlot is a kitten that was found in dire need of help)

Marcos was polite, with a large bright smile, kind eyes, and pleasant conversation. Alice started telling us, me and my mom, that Marcos was actually a neighbor from around the block. That she knew his parents, that his parents had faced a big scare because of COVID-19, and that she,  Alice, lost her husband Tim* to it as well.

The conversation got deep fast. Book recommendations started flying as well as movie recommendations, but then Marcos and I got to talking one-on-one and I was deeply moved and felt incredibly connected by the paths we are currently on. 

Marcos by schooling, is an accountant, who was doing well for himself before the pandemic. Except he too felt that shift of energy; the shaking of the foundation that had been set. We both came from immigrant parents, with really strong cultural ties. We both were raised with a religious background and steady practice of it. We both felt the push of capitalism, and the intricacies and far reaching consequences of such a system that values things more than people. That makes us commodities. So similarly to me, he took his job that paid well, and he quit. Currently he's landscaping while he works on himself.

But the more we talked, the more we kept coming back to the light bulb moment we had: it wasn't just the jobs. It was so much bigger. And the loneliness, and angst, and the unknown; we both felt that. 

It was the rude awakening that not being ourselves, not living our real truths, not loving who we are without shame, without the weight of the "que dirán" is absolutely fucking crushing. 

And it is absolutely futile to keep trying to make a system work for us that never had the nurturing of the human spirit in mind. That did not prioritize connection to land. To self. And especially not to one another.

 I am not sure if I will see him again; I hope I do. But in that moment, I knew I was not alone. I was not the only one and I was reminded that there is magic in revisiting the old stories we have let set the course for our futures. 

We are beyond capable of all the things we imagine, and we do none of it alone. 

*All names have been changed.