“Don’t tell me I’m dreamin’, ‘cause if I’ve been dreamin’, I don’t ever wanna wake up.
So in love with this feeling, tonight I’ll be sleeping, sleeping with my eyes wide shut.”
It wasn’t my first time to fly solo. Whenever I do, it makes me feel I’m an adventurous person. As most passengers were, I was also excited and nervous at the same time. A lot of “what ifs” coming in. But adding to the formula of my emotions was worry. I was worrying about the work I will leave behind, you know the grades and school year finalization. I tried to amuse myself by talking to OFWs (yes peeps, THIS introvert talked to strangers) as we wait for our turns at the immigration clearance. Worrying suddenly disappeared when everything was starting to get real upon entering the passenger waiting area, lots of Chinese people are there and Mandarin + Hokkien conversations filled the place, no more Filipino words can be heard.
I opened up the pages of my passports (the old and the current one are bonded together for Chinese visa application process). I looked at the stamps and tried to make a chronology of events since my first flight out. September 2010, July 2011, August 2011… March 1, 2013. Wait, what? March 1, 2013! The exact time of the year five years ago, I was a junior at college back then. I never knew five years later I will be back! Oh Thank You, Lord!
