so i'm writing this entry at the ungodly hour of 3 am. third day back in the Philippines and I'm still nursing a jetlag. i would like to blame it all on this, but really, it's not just jetlag that's making me feel lost despite being home.
being away from gary makes me realize i neither belong here in bataan nor in santa clara with his family. i belong to him, wherever he is; which, i think it is now safe to say, is in iraq--he already left the states for his deployment yesterday. okay, so i'm speaking figuratively, but i literally feel like a piece of me is missing.
i really have to hand it to him. he does EVERYTHING to keep in touch with me. the boy was on the phone with me every step of the way, i felt like i was on a C130 heading to the middle east. even during refueling in minnesota, he managed to get hold of me to remind me he's always coming back for me no matter what.
i remember what he told me before we left santa clara. he said when he went back to el paso and i was left at his parents', he'd wake up in the morning and his instinct was to reach for me. "i feel like i'm about to lose my mind when i'm not with you." this is pretty much what i'm feeling right now. i enjoy being home, but i can't feel completely at peace with gary away. i'm still waiting to hear from him, which i hope is sooner than later. we have no idea how it's gonna be for us while he's stationed there but i'm confident he'll do everything in his power to touch base.
how was my trip back? unbearable, like i expected it to be. i cannot stress enough how much i dislike airports, and i always have airport stories to tell. for this outing, it was simply an episode from twilight zone. to begin with, all my luggages were overweight. i had a balikbayan box packed by gary, which exceeded the limit by 10 pounds. his brother's balikbayan box (which i was to bring to their other brother here) was a good 6 pounds overweight too. my carry-on luggage was 30lbs, when only 15 lbs was allowed. to top it all, i was hauling a 14.1" toshiba laptop that probably weighed more than i do on my backpack. in the middle of opening balikbayan boxes and weighing my stuff again, i just wanted to leave everything behind. the stress was just too much for a few freaking cans of spam and corned beef!
to make matters worse, the lady at cathay pacific was a total pain in the ass. she was at my throat, telling me she's about to close the counter and i might have to miss my flight. i wanted to give my 'is this the kind of customer service (fill in the company name) has?' speech, but this whole balikbayan business was too tiring i just decided to shut up. i was, of course, last to board.
the only nice thing about this trip was how surprisingly tasty food on cathay pacific was. definitely better than PAL or KLM. while i always thought plane food was bland, the meals for my flights were all really good.
i did not sleep a wink on neither my flight from san francisco to hong kong nor my flight from hong kong to manila. while waiting for my connecting flight at the hong kong international airport, i sat for three hours with filipinos going home from all points of the earth. it was so weird, almost like a ritual, to hear all these people ready to share their biography with complete kababayan strangers. 'i'm coming from vacouver...been there for X years, working as...' or 'i haven't seen the philippines for X years because my kids and i don't get along..' or 'filipino workers are trusted better here in hong kong...so i told my mother not to worry about me' they must've thought i was a total smuck for not wanting to share my lifestory. and as if this display of national bonding weren't enough, at one of the corners of gate 30 gathered some 14 (i counted!) filipino guys watching the replay of the manny pacquiao fight on youtube passionately. it was quite a sight...and i'm filipino!
past the really long trip, the immigration, the luggage retrieval, and all the other inconveniences, i'm happy to be home. i got to see my new nephew jepoy who is just soooo adorable. i got to eat siomai and tinapa. later my brother's coming home from manila and we'll probably be on the magic sing microphone the whole day. if only gary were here then everything would be perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment