Year of the Philippines - Of Nostalgia

"I didn't realize you were so nostalgic."

Said my oldest sister to me not too long ago, just days before I booked my flight to the Philippines. She remarked that during a discussion we were having as to why I felt so compelled to make my trip back to the Philippines in my terms; no balikbayan boxes, no plans to travel within the country, for just a duration of barely a week.

I'll admit, my terms are unorthodox. I'm well aware that when Filipinos go back to the homeland, it's to enjoy the fruits of their labor having gone overseas. With the USD perpetually strong against the PHP, it also makes it more than feasible to truly enjoy what the country has to offer now that Filipinos who have gone abroad can afford it. And the balikbayan boxes, filled with gifts for friends and family that remained in the country are further testimony to that, as well as a token of appreciation for those we love but left behind. I'm well aware of these conventions, but my trip isn't conventional.

I am a nostalgic person. I've always been, or why else would I be up-keeping online journals for over a decade now (well before I even got paid to)?

Call it nostalgia, call it dwelling, call it a practice in narcissism - I don't care what it is and what we ought to call it. I appreciate where I've been and where I've come from. I write my blog for me to re-read time and time again for a look back into the years I've left behind and the things that I've done. They remind me of how far I've come and in some ways, push me to keep going and keep reaching further and farther in the days ahead of me. They remind me of what I've accomplished now, by offering a peak into where I used to be and what I used to have a month, a year, maybe five years prior. Sometimes what I accomplish now feels so perfunctory in the moment, that it takes reading something I wrote before to realize that I used to hope to achieve what I just did. Looking back at my life before helps me to appreciate where I am now even more.

This trip of mine back to the Philippines is just one big look back at my past. I may not have written about it anywhere - not online or on paper - but it remains etched in my memory to this day. I left the country when I was thirteen years old. That's thirteen years of vivid memories that have remained with me and they are so palpable I can still see everyone and everywhere that I grew up with, even twenty years since I left them all.

I want to see how much everything I still remember has changed. I want to stand across the street from the house I lived in and see for myself if it's any different, and whether or not my connection to it is still there. I want to juxtapose everything I saw with my child eyes to what I'll see with my adult eyes now and realize not just how far everything I remember has come, but how far I'Ve come as well. My childhood in the Philippines has had a major influence in my values now as an adult in the US, and though I may have shunned a lot of traditional Filipino values, there is a lot in my core beliefs that have been founded from my time growing up in the Philippines. I'm not a rich man because of money, but I am because I live a life so charmed I couldn't even dare dream to be living it while growing up in the Philippines.

So even if there will be a disconnect now between myself and what I remember once I return, I am forever grateful for having spent the first crucial years of my life where I did. Because my time back in the Philippines whenever I look back on it makes me thoroughly appreciate all and everything I have in my life now.

My time in the Philippines was the most important thirteen years written in my head, and it's about time I go and have a look back.