Leaving 2010

In probably less than 8 hours I will finally be leaving Zamboanga City for another vacation. After 7 years I will be going back to Manila where I once had the greatest summer experiences and bonding moments with my family and cousins.

In less than 8 hours I will be up in the skies where in childhood I had believed the Invisible Man resides watching over the tiny people below. I will take wing and fly across islands and seas. My wings will touch the clouds and sweep at their fluffs. In less than 8 hours I will be seeing the sun rise at a different horizon. One that isn't obscured by houses and tall buildings. One where I am up in the sky, higher than the sun and gradually becoming lower than it. And when I'm on ground the sun would sneer down at me as if telling me that this is where I belong.

In 10 hours, perhaps, when I step out of the hangar, I will already be breathing in a different air, heavier, stranger, one that invites my cover-your-nose-and-mouth reflex. Memories of difficult transportations comes back, and I will be forced to control my senses, to not let the different environ disturb my system.

Within the next few hours and days after arrival, I will be able to see Manila well. Out of vehicles and freed from heavy bags, I will take in the urban places that surrounds me.

I will gaze up towards high buildings, skyscrapers, hotels and condominiums, the likes of which I cannot see everyday in Zamboanga.

I will breathe in the hot air outside, and I will breathe in the cool air inside establishments.

I will hear tongues of a common dialect that speak the proper accent. I will see stores and labels so foreign, so expensive, maybe even so reasonable than that of my local place of birth.

I will taste different kinds of sweets, sours, bitters, salty-s, softs and hards, smooths and heavy-s.

I will take out my wallet every now and then while eye-ing a particular something worth spending my papers for.

I will hunt for books demanding that they bring me a particular read that I most want. I will throw down almost half of my allowance just for the purchases at NBS and Fullybooked because Powerbooks cannot provide me the kind amount I need.

I will mingle with my closest cousins, spend some boy and girl interaction for a whole day and debate over who gets to treat who and end up treating no one at all. I will also meet my cousins on the father side of whom I haven't met for over 10 years.

I will be able to hop on the bigger rides of Enchanted Kingdom. Mama and Papa can't stop me. I'm 17, and this is finally something that can compensate my disappointments of the local carnivals.

Along with this trip I will spend a week away from my hometown; see my country at a different glance, wait for hours 'til the Philippines screams "Welcome!" to the coming year. I shall hold no powdery substance that could pop at the the flick of a lighter. I shall breathe no material that could highly trigger my asthma. I shall not run away from a setting skyrocket, and I shall not jump in my polka-dotted pajamas and bedroom slippers. I could not even shake a plastic container filled with coins and I could not walk in a room decorated with brand new coins on the floor. There would be no homemade somethings on the table and there would be no lola to hug for the 1st of 2011.

All there would be is a comfortable view of a Manila somewhere and maybe a comfy seatee to view the fireworks competing in the sky. It would seem like a flicker of morning and evening and there would be another sleepless night for me.

Nonetheless I will be leaving. Not for good, but only for a short while. It's what I need, perhaps. Something cheery. I will feel young again, I will jump, run, laugh, and worry at none for a week. The end of 2010 is on the palms of my hands and I can feel my world spinning along the cosmos. Where 2010 has been a bittersweet year, it apologizes this way. 2011 comes and I embrace it wholeheartedly.

Surely, this will be the best yuletide season, yet.

Happy holidays to all. *~Louise