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I don't know how to leave

This week is a long week of goodbyes.  It started last Sunday at Church.  I held my last Sunday School class and Sammy just wouldn't let me go.  She hugged me so tight for like, 5 minutes and gave me a long kiss on the side of my forehead.  I wanted to tear up right then and there, but I didn't.  It was only noon and I had to go to Miguel's first birthday party.  It was overwhelming to see almost all of the Mendozas there.  It was an amazing party, of course, but it was so hard to part with some of my closest cousins, titas, and titos.  I will definitely (!!!) miss co-hosting our reunion this year!  It's such an integral part of my holidays, so it'll be pretty strange having December 30 come and go without that huge affair. 

Last night, I had an amazing night with my closest college friends at Redbox.  Why we love the karaoke, we don't know, but we're pretty good at it!  Haha!  Thank goodness we had a huge room because so much dancing went on as well.  I really (!!!) did not want the night to end, and gaah, I am just so bad at goodbyes.  I didn't even get to tell each of them what I wanted to say.  For some, I've even rehearsed them in my head! 

I don't know how to leave.  My best friend told me that I should be happy about my being miserable about leaving.  That its good that I'm going to miss a lot of people when I go.  "Imagine leaving and not missing anyone, now that's sad."  It's just that over the past year, I've grown even closer to my friends.  There's something about being in this age all at the same time, with all our confusions, questions, and slowly shattering idealism (well, for some, not me) that I guess, made us all closer.  Haha.  I mean, I never imagined that I could get any more closer with some of them because we've been so tight ever since.  But it happened.  And it continues to amaze me that these things happen.  That strong bonds strengthen even more.  But leaving, even temporarily, is something that I have to do. 

My mom always said that people who grew up without affluence tend to be more driven to succeed.  They build a dream, make it their own, and go for it.  Now I know people of wealth who are driven, so I'm not totally alienating that group when it comes to success.  Once I started working, I realized that I couldn't stand up on my own feet yet.  Yes, I was spending for myself, and depending less on my parents financially.  But I was not paying rent, and the only things I had to pay for were my own "luho."  In true Becky Bloomwood fashion, I was falling into the materialistic pit of fashion, trends, cosmetics, vanity, and all that stuff.  I spent a lot on vacations, though I partly credit this for the excitement of finally getting to carry myself on my own vacations.  So yes, as long as I have had no taste of real independence, I'm just afraid that living my sheltered affluent life will cause me to further lose my drive.  

I love my drive.  I had so much of it!  But you know what they say, you lose your sense of idealism when you graduate.  It's the opposite for me, actually.  I want to accomplish so many things, and be a force of change.  I don't know how, but it's there.  But the problem is, I lost my drive.  My priorities shifted.  And I lost focus.  I need to leave for a while (not that I feel that I have to rationalize it to you) because I need to feel what it's like to have nobody but God to depend on.  I need to know how hard work really feels like.  To work on hourly wages and save up for a plane ticket for the holidays.  I need to get out of my bubble and challenge myself again.  I really need to reassure myself that I can stand up on my own, miles away from the radius of my comfort zone.  I'm not leaving to escape my country or escape my life.  I'm leaving so that I can come back and have a better grip on things and to have a stronger character. 

I honestly don't know what will happen when my program year ends.  I don't know what's in store.  But I definitely want to come back.  I've got changes I've to make here.  

 Tonight, I'll be having my last dinner with my high school barkada and some high school friends.  Ah some of these people have been my childhood friends!  It'll be interesting, another emotional night.  We'll see how that goes. 

"next saturday"

I have a countdown widget on Tinkerbell that currently says that I'm flying off in 11 days, 8 hours, 15 minutes, and 43 seconds. Everytime people ask me when I'm leaving, I'm finding it extremely harder and harder to believe that the next two words to come out of my mouth are --

next Saturday.

It's still so surreal. I can't believe how soon it is (my mom also just realized that this afternoon). Not to mention, my flight is at 7:50 AM. I think I'm gonna end up doing my whole emotional outburst on the plane ride to Nagoya. Good luck to my seatmate. Gaah, I'm going to miss so much and so many here. Life without my default settings. Sigh.

Birthday morning surprise!

I'm staring at Tinkerbell's (my laptop) clock right now and it says 7:45. That can't be right. I have officially been up for two hours now. The past few days, I've been getting up at 8:30, not because I'm a naturally early riser, but because of the noise brought by the construction in our house.

I haven't woken up in the wee hours of the morning in anticipation for some kind of event since I was ten. And the "some kind of event" I used to wake up to was Christmas morning. I remember waking up to a full sock on my door, opening the gifts, checking out what cool sweets I got, then crawling back to bed. Well, today was different. It's my birthday today, and I wasn't expecting to get yanked out of bed at 5:40AM. The sun wasn't even out yet! My mom told me that I had guests. I mean, what kind of person has guests at 5 in the morning?

(Pic on the right corner is the back of a small notebook from Char personalized with one of my Camisms)

Well, I did! I did! :D

Rach and Char came over to surprise me with a cake (with ahem, re-igniting candles that took me--and a tabo of water--all of ten minutes to blow out) and gifts! It was definitely a real surprise, jammies and uncombed hair and all. :) My parents and my maid were in it all along. They even prepared us a nice birthday breakfast of special toast (with cheesey lining) from Bread Talk (I highly recommend!!! *making a mental note to get the name of the bread*), Hungarian sausage, sopas, fruit salad (not in photo), and apple juice.


I feel so loved :)

SO much better than Christmas morning, by the way! ;)

the first of august

The moments creep up to me unexpectedly, and in those quiet minutes full of chaos, I tremble in secret.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song

If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,

Threatening the life it belongs to

And that is precisely why I haven't written about it. I've been blocking off setting all my feelings on ink because it would somehow feel more real. There would be a sense of finality to it, not in terms of an end, but in terms of an absolute eventuality to it. It isn't as if avoiding it would make it less real than it is. It's not going to disappear, but there is that sort of comfort that comes with being in denial.

As of today, I am only two days shy of turning 22, and seventeen days away from flying off to the States. I am going to miss my life here so much! Sure, I'm looking forward to my next adventure! My first solo plane ride, lugging my wheelies by myself, doing my own laundry (aghast!). The list goes on. I am absolutely excited. I have been preparing for this event since April, but now that the day is coming closer, I just want to freeze time and lengthen it, and freeze it all over again.

Sigh. I am going to miss all my friends and family here. Don't even get me started on Christmas. I can't imagine not going into an SM or a National Bookstore on the first of September and not hear some cheesy version of Jingle Bells. I was shuffling my iPod library the other day and heard "Bells Will Be Ringing", and really, I was almost brought to tears. How do you just temporarily suspend normal life and live differently for a while?