PLEASE ALLOW 5-7 BUSINESS MONTHS.

The balikbayan box arrived one night. Five months prior, my family and I shipped it out from Maryland, headed for Iloilo. The delivery guys wheeled it from the truck and into the house. It sat on the living room floor until the next day.

It was a lot to face — a huge box, packed dense — the kind of task that had to be completed all at once. From unwrapping each item, to washing the dishes, to finding a home for each thing, to cleaning up all the trash afterward. So we tackled it the next day after lunch, when the three of us were fed and energized.

Knowing I had limited space in my luggage caused me to pack and repack probably a dozen times. In terms of necessity, I had to consider warm weather clothing, skincare and beauty products that wouldn't be easy to find in the Philippines, and my tech — my laptop, my camera gear. Things that added extra weight to the suitcase, fragile ceramics and sentimental yet nonessential items, had to be shipped in the box instead. My logic was simple: pack whatever I'll need to use immediately during these next few months, everything else that can wait goes in the box.

What I left behind were things we already had in our house in the Philippines — kitchenware, bed sheets — and things I wasn't going to need in a hot climate country. My winter coat, heavy jeans, anything too formal. Provincial life here is casual, tees and shorts and flip flops. Even though that's not my style at all, I still brought my skirts and dresses, just in more breathable fabrics. That wasn't the only thing that would make me stick out. There's the height. The fairer skin. The English coming from a face that looks like theirs, catching them off guard. I don't dress like the locals here, but dressing in the clothes I like is how I've been able to still feel like myself. Even in a change of scenery and amongst big life adjustments. The suitcase unpacked itself over a few days. The box would take five months.

During that in-between period, I appreciated the things that were available to me. My mom curated all the dishware in our house, and our taste overlaps in a lot of ways. So from her collection, I gravitated toward the styles that I liked, and used them often, while waiting for my own pieces to arrive.

Seeing my own ceramics after five months felt like I had carried a piece of my old life here into my new one. I knew I wasn't going to find Anthropologie-style plates and mugs in Iloilo. And I wanted personal touches around the house that told a story — something cozy, artsy, mine. So I cleared space on our open shelving for my favorite drinking glasses and matcha ceramics.

I finished unpacking my cute dishware and collecting the newspaper packaging from the floor when I sat down next to my dad, staring off into space as I waited for him to pass me the next thing to put away. "Close your eyes," he says, I hear a smile in his voice. I close them and automatically hold out my hands. I feel something lightweight with a soft texture. "AHH!" I yelp with wide eyes and a laugh. There were two stuffed animals in my hands — a light brown teddy bear I've had since I was seven, the only surviving childhood toy, and a Pompompurin wearing a strawberry costume, crocheted by my sister. I turn them over to check if they're damaged at all, but the bag I'd stored them in kept them intact. I smile and squeeze both of them in my arms. I briefly abandon the unboxing task at hand and walk around the house, finding a resting place for my friends.

I arrived in the Philippines not knowing how to speak Tagalog or Hiligaynon. Six months in, and the fluency is still in transit.

Latin dancing is far less popular here than it is in the States. The salsa, the bachata — still on the way, no delivery date in sight.

Driving a car or taking the metro used to be ordinary occurrences for me. But now they're memories with arrival times I'm still tracking.

I still browse local dance sites, searching which cities offer latin socials, daydreaming about a trip just to dance again. There's an empty shelf space next to my bed. I haven't filled it with anything. And I'm not sure what to put there.