On a plane from Kuala Lumpur to Manila a few days ago, I found myself smiling all by myself. I had just spent a long weekend in Malaysia to attend the wedding of a dear friend. There I was in the cramped plane of a budget airline, to which I spent double the promo fare, smiling. Feeling really good about an experience that brought back so many little forgotten memories and cherished moments.
I never thought much about it when I left Manila but my trip to Malaysia was not just a visit. It was not just a short trip nor a weekend vacation. It was a journey back to a life I once lived and a glimpse of how life could have been for me had I not decided to quit my job and pack my bags to go home five years ago.
Home. That's what I felt on the plane en route to the Philippines. I felt like I was leaving home, some form of it at least, to go back to another home of mine. The barely four days I spent back in Malaysia allowed me to rekindle all those memories, conversations, moments, laughter. The type that comes out while spending time with people you used to hold such deep-rooted connections to.
When I arrived in KL, I saw that so many things have changed about it. The look of the place changed with these new buildings and establishments in the place where I used to live. I met new people who, by now, have been living there for almost five years - more than when I left to go back to Manila. They had different stories, different views, different experiences on living the life of an OFW.
Yet there were times when I would stare outside the car window while on the highway and feel like I never left. That a part of me never left Malaysia and my physically being there was irrelevant since I was still there anyway. I would talk to my friends who stayed in Malaysia and listening to them and seeing their life now made me daydream of how my life would have been if I had stayed put. I kind of saw myself in all of them - how they're all still the same person but at the same time you knew that so many things have changed.
Such is life, I guess. You move on and you don't. You stay but you also go. You settle yet go home at the same time. The important thing is that in spite of all its strangeness, you find time to look back. And smile.
I never thought much about it when I left Manila but my trip to Malaysia was not just a visit. It was not just a short trip nor a weekend vacation. It was a journey back to a life I once lived and a glimpse of how life could have been for me had I not decided to quit my job and pack my bags to go home five years ago.
Home. That's what I felt on the plane en route to the Philippines. I felt like I was leaving home, some form of it at least, to go back to another home of mine. The barely four days I spent back in Malaysia allowed me to rekindle all those memories, conversations, moments, laughter. The type that comes out while spending time with people you used to hold such deep-rooted connections to.
When I arrived in KL, I saw that so many things have changed about it. The look of the place changed with these new buildings and establishments in the place where I used to live. I met new people who, by now, have been living there for almost five years - more than when I left to go back to Manila. They had different stories, different views, different experiences on living the life of an OFW.
Yet there were times when I would stare outside the car window while on the highway and feel like I never left. That a part of me never left Malaysia and my physically being there was irrelevant since I was still there anyway. I would talk to my friends who stayed in Malaysia and listening to them and seeing their life now made me daydream of how my life would have been if I had stayed put. I kind of saw myself in all of them - how they're all still the same person but at the same time you knew that so many things have changed.
Such is life, I guess. You move on and you don't. You stay but you also go. You settle yet go home at the same time. The important thing is that in spite of all its strangeness, you find time to look back. And smile.
1 comment:
And that's why life can be tricky ... but it's something that's different for every person. To move forward or to stay is a choice we make, although others aren't aware of it whenever they're making that choice.
I know of people who are ok with what or where they are, but there are also those who are driven and determined to have all one hundred and one items on their bucket list done.
I do wonder, Ben - what if you did stay?
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