officially missing you

ive always thought that the one way id be leaving manila is when our u.s papers to migrate finally gets approved. my dad has been in the states for close to 15 years already and it was a given that the rest of the family follow when everything is okay.

but here i am, on foreign soil but a different, unplanned one.

and i miss home.

i miss the laidback lifestyle as opposed to the fast-paced one here. everybody seemed like theyre always in a hurry. always in a hurry to earn more money. to get that promotion. to buy that gucci bag and louboutin heels. to get from one point to another. everything is just fast fast fast and if you lag behind, you will get trampled on one way or another.

i miss my family and my friends. i miss the summers and vacations of just driving out of the city and in a couple of hours, its just you and the sea. i miss the dinners and night caps after work where your salary actually allows you to have a life. if you spend that much here, you will die and so are the people who depend on you.

i miss the simplicity. unconsciously, you get more and more nationalistic as you tend to compare how things are done in manila. not great. not fantastic. not perfect. but just very...filipino.

i miss being part of something. part of a family. part of a country. not an alien. not a foreigner. not a race that usually gets discriminated, questioned or looked down on, discreetly or not amongst others.

i miss home. i miss my mom, my dad and my brother. i miss my room. my bed. my books. my bags. my havaianas.

ill be home soon. i just know it. and when that time finally comes, id be the happiest kid on earth.