Trip

Since my last entry (September), I have been to many long-distance trips. Hiked twice with Marge in Rizal, visited Humi at Pangasinan and went to La Union, spent my birthday with family at Real, Quezon, and just this first week of April, had my longest trip in a long time with friends, in Cebu. As I’m writing this, it’s another hot day in the Philippines, a Holy Friday. I kinda miss being a practicing Catholic; we’d go for Visita Iglecia and be part of church activities. Growing up, that is how I’d spend these holidays. I don’t mind not being religious now as I have developed my own spirituality, but I would actually take being involved in busy, sometimes conspicuous religious traditions over staying at home today, worried but apparently still not doing anything about my backlogs on a freaking Holy Week.

Last six months
Things are generally better. Or maybe I’m just able to cope better with all these travels… yes, definitely. Short-distance trips with family and friends have also been fun. Mobility has surely been better than this time last year. That trip to Batangas for Marie’s birthday is still a memorable vibe, being the first since the pandemic started. Now I’m glad to see everybody on my timeline outside Metro Manila. Even if it may seem questionable to be out while most are still working from home, I know that everyone’s been pushing through many things we don’t necessarily post online. And moving forward, I hope our workplaces embrace fair and efficient systems that hopefully coincides with a better Philippines after the May 9 elections. #IpanaloNa10To, right?

First flight
I lived and studied in Cebu for a year when I was in Grade 8. Along with the many summers I spent there as a child, it’s serendipitous to have my first airplane ride in a flight to Cebu. It was lovely, and I’m proud to say I’m a natural, haha. I grew up taking SuperFerry rides to Cebu and Masbate, my parents’ hometowns, and the pandemic had further delayed my air travels. Now, I seriously could live at an airport and write poetry and stories about people coming and going. It was truly memorable. I shall thank Alain and Christine for letting me have the window seat to and fro! They happily heard, saw, and understood me (they’d get the reference) and the person I am when I told them I was writing poetry as our plane took off. Here it is:

The pandemic has surely limited me from having moments to romanticize, and being able to travel provides exactly those moments. I live for people and events that allow me to dream and be creative whilst living and turning them into reality. I love people who see me not as a disillusioned idealist, but as a wise, sensitive person who strives for balancing freedom and interdependence in my relationships. “It’s the ones who give me the space to be myself, that create more room for themselves in my life,” is a recent tweet I relate and agree with the most. Here’s to the friends I get to travel with and the ones I will be with in the future soon.

Shoutout to my parents, too, for being so supportive in all of my trips now, with or without them. What makes it special is that, they do not let me go just because I get to have fun outside, but because they are understanding me better now to be an adventurous, freedom-seeker, independent young woman. I love it for us. I am in need of more money to take them out and travel with them more often. We all need more money, don’t we? lol

My kind of trip
In this section, let’s read the word trip as man. I’ve been feeling that I want to experience more trips outside of the country. That’s another beautiful thing about traveling, right? Meeting new, interesting people. I didn’t think about this in a way that traveling and having an international boyfriend are now my two utmost priorities. It just coincides with this desire that comes from my gut to open myself up to new perspectives, to wider horizons. Perhaps the kind of trips I’ve been talking to lately has made me more interested in picturing different visions of what my own future could look like. I simply have started to really consider its possibility, and I’m ready(-ing) for it. I’m just so big on experiencing more in my relationships now, and so foreign or not, I only wish to meet someone with a similar state of mind (and with the resources, too) to make it happen. Speaking this into these beautiful water shots from Cebu, and into the Full Moon in Libra this 16th, too.

What’s your trip?
As it is a privilege to think about going to different places and the ways we can learn more about ourselves through leisure, I hope that we are also working towards having a better government that will establish healthier systems that benefit all. May 9 is soooo close, and I can only hope for the best, who is VP Leni Robredo.

I have a research paper I should be writing, lesson materials I must prepare. I guess I’m having a difficult time getting into the specifics of the more serious (and kinda dragging) aspects of my life right now, and hey it’s still “holy week”, isn’t it? But we do need these things to stay a path in life, and I am very grateful, no cap. But really, where’s the next trip? Haha

I hope whatever trip (hobby, routine, plan, no-plan, etc.) you are into is helping you stay good, sane, and healthy.

Here’s some great music to vibe into your next commute/drive/travel:
1. Familia by Camila Cabello, 2022; faves: Bam Bam, Boys Don’t Cry, No Doubt
2. Ivory by Omar Apollo, 2022; faves: No Good Reason, Killing Me, Tamagotchi
3. oiu by Jeremih, 2015
4. Come and See Me by PARTYNEXTDOOR feat. Drake, 2016

See ya!