It's been three months since I came home.
Although it brings me back to the people I love, coming home is not actually a relief. In fact, it has given me a clearer picture of a life that I should have been ready to face and struggle through five or six years ago.
Going back home is facing the things I had evaded. Top of the list is financial responsibility. Being the eldest offspring gives me an automatic conscience to be aware of the needs of my family and to assume some vital tasks when my parents could no longer provide.
Things of this sort have preoccupied my mind since I came home. I would like to take a leap and materialize my plans. I would like to see the person I should be at this age and at this level of experiences.
Unfortunately, I feel that I am stranded. I landed on a wrong ground, not my niche.
I cannot focus and do the things to be done because of tormenting preoccupations. Preoccupations that are full of "What if?", "How to?" and "How I wish!"
I had been too much preoccupied. I didn't realize that I was procrastinating.
"Stay where you are"
I was reading Jostein Gaarden's "Solitaire Mystery" when I came across this line: "My advice to all those who are going to find themselves is: stay exactly where you are. Otherwise you are in great danger of losing yourself forever." It was Hans Thomas, whose mother left him when he was 4-year old.
When I was back home, what made me immediately decide to experience living away from my hometown was the common line of most undecided fellows: "Finding oneself."
Well, now that I'm here and about to go home, I've been thinking about what Hans Thomas said. And, I am now decided to go home and stay there because it's where I was.
When I was back home, what made me immediately decide to experience living away from my hometown was the common line of most undecided fellows: "Finding oneself."
Well, now that I'm here and about to go home, I've been thinking about what Hans Thomas said. And, I am now decided to go home and stay there because it's where I was.
Home
Joni Mitchell is right again with her "Big Yellow Taxi" that goes "...you don't know what you got till it's gone..."
But, my case is not exactly as pathetic as how this line would like to portray. It's not really too late for me because I suddenly realized the worth of my real home before I might totally lose it.
I just had realized that I was never at home here. I just missed my real home. And, I want to be home.
But, I remain with my stand that "regret" is a bankrupt idea. I never regret leaving my homeland to try a different environment. I somehow learned a thing or two from my experiences here.
First, I learned to deal with people who grew up with a culture apart from the ones in the South. Rubbing elbows with them in jeepneys or buses and being pushed by them in a line at MRT station have somehow taught me to be polite and patient amidst heavy traffic and pollution. But, the best part was being able to accept some outright expressions from people I expected the least.
Second, I learned what I really want. Recalling the reason why I came here in the first place, I reckoned that I needed this "escape" to know what I truly want. Sometimes, we really have to get out of the house to know that it is our home. It's not just the desire to sleep in the coziest place I've known since birth, but also the idea of being with the people I feel as comfortable as being in my family's house.
To stand with my decision is the last thing that I still have to prove. And, it would be so when I will have found myself in the arms of the special persons I have loved all along.
In a short while, I will be home...
But, my case is not exactly as pathetic as how this line would like to portray. It's not really too late for me because I suddenly realized the worth of my real home before I might totally lose it.
I just had realized that I was never at home here. I just missed my real home. And, I want to be home.
But, I remain with my stand that "regret" is a bankrupt idea. I never regret leaving my homeland to try a different environment. I somehow learned a thing or two from my experiences here.
First, I learned to deal with people who grew up with a culture apart from the ones in the South. Rubbing elbows with them in jeepneys or buses and being pushed by them in a line at MRT station have somehow taught me to be polite and patient amidst heavy traffic and pollution. But, the best part was being able to accept some outright expressions from people I expected the least.
Second, I learned what I really want. Recalling the reason why I came here in the first place, I reckoned that I needed this "escape" to know what I truly want. Sometimes, we really have to get out of the house to know that it is our home. It's not just the desire to sleep in the coziest place I've known since birth, but also the idea of being with the people I feel as comfortable as being in my family's house.
To stand with my decision is the last thing that I still have to prove. And, it would be so when I will have found myself in the arms of the special persons I have loved all along.
In a short while, I will be home...
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