My First Trip to the Philippines 🇵🇭
Cognitively, I knew it was always important to travel; especially if you’re traveling to a homeland that your family is from and you have cultural and ethnic ties to.
I’m very proud to be Hawaiian and Filipina and, until recently, American.
So, as a 30th birthday present, my father and stepmom took me across the Pacific for my very first trip to the Philippines. Even though they’d asked before, this was the first time I was able to say “yes” and commit.
It was a magical, adventurous time of personal growth and deepening roots. I have been back stateside for just over a week and there’s an unrest that’s taken root in my body.
No, I’m not sick and the jet-lag has passed to make room for the monotony that rules the life of average Americans again. It’s an unrest rooted in my desire to form a deeper bond with the land and country of the Philippines itself. I’m so annoyed with myself that I’m not fluent in Tagalog, so I’m resolving here and now, publicly, to commit to fluency by my next trip to the fatherland. I have about 7 months.
The world would be a much cooler place if it was easier for everyone to move and migrate as they please. I returned to the United States to an unfortunate set of information that not only will higher education be restricted and designated professions reduced overnight but also that there’s a bill proposed to eliminate dual citizenship!
I’m so frustrated by this news because now the plutocracy is just blatant and in our faces about how they’re oppressing us.
You know, some of us just want to min-max hobbies and interests until we wither. Maybe contribute something that benefits society along the way. I can really understand the tenured professors and scholars that lock themselves up on academic campuses to study their often obscure field of knowledge. It sounds so purposeful.
Anyway, my rant aside, I have so many things I want to do with my life. Travel and live abroad for a bit. Become an official polyglot. Write a book. Get a PhD. Do work that fulfills me. Paint a collection. Design a fashion line.
I can’t do any of these things when the rich hate us, because that means they hate me and don’t want me to do any of those things. Lame.
My trip to the Philippines highlighted for me that I need to be making focused, decisive actions in my life. All the things I want, regardless of sociopolitical interference, are on the other side of the discomfort associated with the choice.
When it comes to making yourself uncomfortable, do yourself a favor and at least consent to the choice.
P.S. I forgot the charger to my Facial Light Wand at my Dad’s house 😔
