ASSURED SHORTHOLD TENANCY AGREEMENT

Please note that this tenancy agreement is an important document. It may make you see what home could mean for you for the period of any fixed term and beyond.

1.Property

‘The inventory officer will meet you at the flat’, the realtor says. Your best friend helps you move the only three luggages that travelled with you from Manila to London. You say goodbye to the serviced apartment that became your temporary home in your first month in this busy city. 

You’re not sure what to feel about the thought of the past twenty-eight years fitting into just three luggages, but you’re pretty sure you’ve not left anything behind in any case.

You get the keys and the lady shows you around your new place. The sight of the grey sofa irritates you but your landlord will probably be pissed if you throw that away. Not that you had enough savings to buy a new one. But you still head to the newly-opened IKEA in Oxford Circus to shop for pots and pans anyway.

2. The Tenant

Your teacher asks you to write down what you want to become when you grow up. I want to move to America!

You spend most of your school nights in Tumblr, writing, longing, imagining a life in a big city. A life where you go to parties with friends. Getting drunk. Never having to ask your strict parents permission to go out.

Uprooted your life, that’s what you did. You moved out at fifteen. You moved out at nineteen. You moved out at twenty-eight. You just longed for more. More. More.

More life. More freedom. More opportunities. More boys.

But you keep finding yourself in rooms you don’t belong. In rooms where you want to keep yourself small. You keep finding yourself calling Mama crying, telling her you miss her. Practically begging her to come pick you up.

When you lost her to cancer, you felt like a marionette that lost its strings. What did Pinocchio do when he lost his? You can’t remember, but you pack your bags and reeeeeally pray London is the answer.

3.Repairs

3.1. Everyone warned you about the winter. It’s gonna get depressing, they say. The sun setting at 4pm will get to you, they’d even add. But what no one told you is that the sun sets at 10pm in the summer. No one warned you on how it could mess up one’s circadian rhythm. How most nights, you almost always end up counting sheep. Like when you were a kid, you proclaimed yourself an insomniac and you asked Papa to sing you a lullaby and pat you to sleep.

Scrolling through Tiktok, on the grey sofa, at 8pm with the sun still brightly shining, the tinnitus in your right ear seems to sing out a repeating tune:

a friendless unlovable loser
a friendless unlovable loser

If one can take a Vitamin D pill when there’s not much sun in the winter, what does one do when there’s too much sun in the summer? 

You pick up your phone and download Breeze.

3.2 Your first Breeze match takes you to an eat-all-you-can lasagna place. He tells you he loves to cook. You go on a whole rant on how cooking for one person feels tiring, decision fatigue on the meal plan and all. He tells you to try Hello Fresh, a service that sends you pre-packed ingredients weekly.  

For reasons you could not recall, you end up going with him to the Simmons bar in Shoreditch. On your third cocktail, a woman comes up to you and says you two make such a cute couple. You can’t help but feel giddy! How you’ve only seen these in the movies, where these kinds of things happen. What in the romcom! But you both tell her it’s just your first date. Invite me to the wedding, the lady says. You invite him back to your flat and he pushes his tongue inside your mouth the moment your bums hit the hard cushion of your grey sofa.

Of course, you didn’t realize it at that time, but you won’t see him again after that. 

Yet you still find yourself opening a green Hello Fresh box up to this day. 

And you bring that piece of you from that night in Shoreditch. From that version of you, who almost felt THIS could be home. And you go on your way.

4.Housing Benefit

4.1 Mama did all the cooking growing up, her meals always comforted you in one way or another. Humba for when you ace an exam. Paksiw na Bangus for when you get back from uni and just want to live like the old times.

You had no choice but to learn how to cook. As time went on, you’ve even gone to love the peace that comes with it. You’ve grown fond of taking photos of your stovetop set-up, a pan that never seemed too big and your iPad playing an audiobook.  

No one yelling at you.

No kitchen anxiety. 

No calories to count.

It’s almost like you’re actually living life for yourself.

4.2. Mi casa es su casa, you tell your best friends when they visit London a few times. You’ve come to love the grey sofa that you once considered an eyesore. And the way it can get converted into a bed, and how it makes the living room feel like a whole bedroom of its own. 

Months later, you celebrate your 29th birthday on that same sofa. Your friends’ faces lit up from the warm orangey light of a lamp you once thrifted. You post a photo online and try to respond to each and every greeting. Best wishes from the friends you made from book clubs. From the lovely people from that yoga studio you frequent. From work colleagues that turned into friends. 

You’ve been dreaming of living alone. And you loved living alone. But mi casa es su casa, a house, when it’s lovingly shared, becomes a home.

4.3. When you were a kid, Mama wanted you to be a nurse. That’s the easiest way to move abroad, she says. You know you’ve disappointed her when you didn’t go that route. But you’re in London now. You just wish your Mama lived to see this day.

When the clock hits 7am, you sit at your desk and write for an hour. You fulfilled Mama’s dream. And you tell yourself, it’s now time to fulfill mine.

4.4. On the third day you awoke in Switzerland, you find yourself sinking in the air mattress again. You’re staying at your best friend’s house, who bought a new duvet to make sure you feel at home. As you pump the airbed again, you just can’t help but long for your firm bed in London. There might be a hole in the air mattress, your best friend says. That’s something to be pondered about. Something to be said about pumping air into an air mattress with a hole.

When you arrive at your flat after the holiday, you immediately open Uber Eats and order a bucket of Jollibee Chickenjoy. Before you open the door for the driver, you pretend like you’re talking to someone as you shout ’the Jollibee’s here!’. Can’t let a stranger figure out you live alone.

The Jollibee receipt says you’re a loyal customer. With a banging total of 26 orders. The chicken doesn’t taste exactly as it did back home, but Uber Eats seemed pretty confident about your loyalty.

5.Tenant’s Obligations

5.1. You can’t help but question why it felt too wet this time. You head to the bathroom to clean up and feel the embarrassment go up to your head as you see blood on the tissue. Tucking yourself back to bed, you tell him ‘I suddenly got my period’. 

You put a pillow between you to give him some space. 

‘I’m sorry.’ 

He pulls the pillow out and he hugs you towards him. ‘Don’t be’, he says. 

The acceptance, when you were expecting rejection, shocked you. Is this what it feels like to come home?

5.2. You hug him for the last time, and you feel his hands embrace you back with the same ache. I’m still glad I met you, you say. You’re not really sure if you meant it at the time, meeting him meant pain, losing him feels like another round of homesickness. 

He is a whole foot taller than you but you can still see the water rising in his eyes from a foot below eye level. You swallow the lump on your throat and fight back your own tears as you say goodbye again and lead him to the door.

For the first time in forever, you call your sister. You just need someone who would understand. You break down, eating every word, retelling every single detail of how you got dumped.

You tell her, ‘Can you not drop the call, please, I don’t want to be alone.’

‘It sucks that your heart had to get broken for you to realize this, but we’ve always been here.’ 

The sun set at 4pm that evening, but you poured yourself a glass of wine as you sat on your sofa, and prayed you won’t end up counting sheep that night.

5.3. You put on the pair of sunnies you once thrifted from a flea market to cover your swollen eyes. Back from Columbia Road to buy yourself flowers, you hold the now-empty bottle of the Hardy’s wine you’ve been nursing for the past few nights. You fill it with water and mumble to yourself, ‘ah the gift that keeps on giving’. You cut the green thorny stems slightly slanted and place them piece-by-piece through the bottle’s mouth. 

The pink roses complement the red books you have on your shelf. 

The tinnitus in your right ear never went away. But it’s singing a different tune now.

This house gon’ love itself
This house gon’ love itself

6.End of Tenancy?

A frequently asked question: how much do you pay for rent for this place? You lie a bit and deduct a hundred quid from the real price. Even then, you still smell the judgement. As if this home must be justified. As if the numbers have to be explained.

Still, when your realtor says, ‘Your lease is ending. Do you want to renew?’

You type in a response: Happy to.

Written By Marionnette Diaz