Ahh, Here You Come

I was the last child to leave the house, and the moment I realized that, I felt the burden of leaving my parents so soon. It was hard for me, I knew that. But I didn't give myself any chance to think about it. That was what got me through the whole process of leaving. And I know it was harder for my parents. It was my older sister who left first. She left our home after giving birth to her twins. Although she still lives in the city with relatives, everything changed at home. My younger sister was next. It was, I must admit, too early for her to leave, but it was what she wanted. She left for Cebu to pursue her 6 year college education there. My dad cried himself to sleep for several nights. The day they helped my sister transfer her things to Cebu, my dad couldn't take it that he left in the middle of unpacking her things and went straight to the port to get on a boat for Dumaguete. And then for four months after that, I was the only child left. September wasn't coming as fast as I thought. The waiting was precious. Everything became real all of a sudden. Tangible. And there was mom and dad, dutifully ignoring the fact that their children have to leave sometime in their lives. But my leaving would be the hardest of all. And the farthest. A few days after I left, mom got around to cleaning the house and storing the computer in the garage since nobody would use it anymore. She found a piece of scratch paper underneath the computer stand. It was a copy of an interview of Dr. del Carmen by me for a publication. She read it and broke into tears. It was her moment to finally realize that I wasn't home anymore. That she could no longer ask me to bring her to her office every morning. She told me this on our first skype conversation. I felt a lump in my throat that time but I just kept grinning. It was love. And it was tough. I wanted to tell her something important. I wanted to tell her to never doubt how she and dad raised us up. Look how far we have come at this young age. I am old enough now. If something happens to me, it will be my fault, not yours anymore.

I had my first encounter with homesickness a few nights ago. Two nights ago to be exact. It came out of nowhere. I knew I had to face this sooner or later, but I didn't expect to deal with it this early. I was in bed, after a day of grocery shopping. Then I came across my old phone I brought with me. I found myself in the galleries section in the menu, and looking at pictures of home and family. And then there was this nice picture of me with my sisters that I stared at for so long that I had to press some keys many many times just to keep the backlight turned on. It was a picture of us taken at a restaurant in a mall, eating to our hearts content. We looked very happy in the picture. We were very happy then. It was Christmas break and we had money to spend. And then something came over me. The fact that it will be quite a time before we can do that same exact thing all over again. We liked going out together. We liked eating together. But we can't do that now with me here in Japan and my younger sister barely home all year. And then I told myself, ahh, homesickness. A sort of assurance that it was a normal thing. And then I allowed myself to cry. And then I said in finality that I must get a grip of myself. I got up and cooked dinner after that.

I think now that that episode had something to do with my bad weekend. I got so sick for 4 days. That could have helped bring in homesickness to the equation. It was funny how I thought about such things during that bout with homesickness. Ahh, how the mind works.