(home)coming

while i was i manila, a friend from singapore asked how my homecoming had been like. i guess my friend considered my trip as some sort of a homecoming since my parents and majority of my relatives reside there. however, living a transient life has deprived me of rooting myself in a specific place which i can truly call home. i know that that manila, orange county and new york city will always have a special place in my heart, with most of my past memories scattered in these three places. but how am i supposed to consider these places as my 'hometowns' when alienation has recently become my companion in these places?

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my vacation in manila was mostly spent at our new house, catching up with my family and some friends. i guess i also didn't have that much of an option since i had to work from home in second week. thus, i decided to just hangout with my family and a number of friends living nearby. the only time i got the chance to go out of the city was when some of my friends decided to drag me out of the house and brought me to a not-so-far touristy place for a weekend trip. the travel was pretty much smooth and we arrived to our destination just after an hour and a half drive.  upon our arrival, i noticed that the place hasn't changed that much. well, I spotted several new establishments, but the tourist city still looked the same way i remembered it--full of restaurants, cafes and different types of resort-type lodging places. basically, we just had our lunch and massage in the city, and that's it.

***

i felt that my trip to manila made me realise that my family will always be there for me, despite our occasional misunderstandings. i know that my parents and i have been in a love-hate relationship ever since i was a kid, but i guess seeing them again allowed me to remember how close we really are as a family.