Day 68 Last Train, Homebound

January 2013

As if taunting me that my days here are numbered, I find myself alone in the train today, for the first time since I got to Holland in November last year. My sister never lets me "go astray" at any time during my stay here. Maybe trying to be the mother bear that she is.

This entire European adventure, if I may say, has been one of domestication, wonderment, and introspection.

I have babysat my now a-few-days-short-of-one-year-old nephew, baby J, for two months. There have been days when I wondered what I was doing all home alone and attending to a baby when I'm in, where else, Europe! That was in my first few days, my completely yaya days when, at anytime, I could go gaga. I did some things for the first time in my life, like spending Christmas and New Year outside my beloved country, and wiping sh#t from my nephew's ass. But the alone time, the time spent away from the world, from the noises of the world, from the heat of the sun, from the home country I've known all my life, from the urges of doing something exciting and new or writing that extra email at work, in the presence of a slightly snoring baby in my arms, that was what was hard.

I marvelled at the efficiency of Holland, specifically how the trains are connected inter-cities and across countries. How cheap it is relatively to travel to another country via a road trip. How all the train schedules are updated real-time online and it is necessary to check this before heading out of your house for the day. How it makes everyone plan ahead, but makes them tolerant and understanding as well in events of train disturbance and you can't go make it on time for a business meeting.

Did I get the answers I set out for to ask? Did I even have questions in my head in the first place? This one I did not write down specific objectives for. I had this feeling, this little feeling in my heart, this unexplainable unnameable feeling that I needed this, not only for the glamour of a European trip, but... to eat, to pray, to love, to experience these basic longings of my soul. To nourish it, to reflect, to see things from a different point of view, to see life start through my nephew and continue on to this long-term setting called married life through my sister and her husband. I wanted to know if this is also what I wanted for myself. I am weak, like every else, when I hear stories of my batch mates getting married and posting pictures of their kids, and I melt in my heart and secretly long and wish for the time it would be my turn. And admitting that is hard enough. I am still nearly 30, and whoever said that if you're not settled down around that age, you need to hurry up? I needed and wanted to search answers for myself, for this silly, petty, unimportant noises in my head that say, hey, you got to decide what you want out of life! Do you want to have a family? If so, start now. Do you want to stay career-focused? Move on now.

I am going back to Manila, probably still having the same questions I left it for in the first place. But I know some have been answered. I cannot articulate what or which or how, but I know some things have cleared up. It's still a process, and forever will be a process. But I know I am farther from the place where I was two months ago. If anything, I have renewed something within in, that makes me now excited to go back home. To see home. To feel home. To experience home. Anew. #

Oranjepark in autumn, Apeldoorn, Gelderland, The Netherlands