Manila, you will see your prodigal daughter soon. I’m coming home. 

Sometimes, I just long to go back and reconnect with that piece of my heart that I left there. Sometimes, I just need to go back and remember who I am. Or who I used to be. Sometimes, I just need to be Filipino. 

When you’re far away, you romanticize your hometown. I miss rain. Big, fat tropical rain. I know rain causes traffic, and destroys houses. But when you’ve been away, you have endless patience to sit through even Manila traffic. 

I need to see my niece, and the children of my dearest friends. Their faces are different every time see them. Their eyes look older, the questions they ask more unanswerable.

I need to see old friends and relatives, even just briefly. I often wonder exactly what the importance of these brief encounters are, these precious few hours spent together every couple years. So that we can bear witness to each others’ lives? To know that someone else has witnessed your existence, has kept a record of you, has an imprint of you? To “catch up”, as if we are two trains moving in parallel but separate tracks, at varying speeds throughout life. 

And finally I want to sit at our kitchen table, in the house I grew up in, and eat a home-cooked breakfast. That’s what I’m looking forward to the most. Breakfast. That’s when I know I’m home. 

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