I don’t know if this is homesickness or separation anxiety. Maybe it’s both. Or maybe for some people, they’re one and the same, because isn’t home the people and not the place? What happens when the people we love leave the home, leaving us behind, are we still home? When home drops by for just a moment and leaves, what are we left with?
My parents flew in from Iloilo for the weekend. Hours and hours in Fullybooked, coming out with a pile of books, the haul for the day. My brother and I deciding where to eat, ordering all the food, while my parents pay. Endless conversations about the school, med school, work, the little sisters back home, books. I missed the nerdy conversations that follow the kwentuhan and the tsismis that follows that.
For a weekend, I was back home without having to take a plane. But when it’s all over, the price to pay is greater than the cost of a plane ticket and the commute to the airport. The heart rate goes up. The world caves in. My fingers and toes succumb to the tingling and and the numbness both at the same instant. There is a longing for home and uncertainty looms.
This is the balance that life imposes on us. For days, we have our fun and we ride up the forming wave. But sooner or later waves have to break and moments have to end. That’s just the way it is. We can only squeeze so much out of a given moment. After that, all we’re left with is memory and the moments to come in the future. “Back to reality,” I say to my brother as we drive back to our place.