After leaving Cebu for Canada for eight years, I returned to look for something.
Life, at least for me, has been nothing but a revolving door of visitors. People come into my life for some circumstance or reason, and we make the most of what this world has to offer. And in those moments, when we did make the most of things, I feel like I came home.
But as a former friend once wrote to me: “People say some things come and go—maybe this is just one of those things.” That former friend was one of those who came and went.
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After making the most of this world, these visitors wave their goodbyes and head for the exits.
People bid farewell to friendships for many reasons. Some are just out of our control. We step into new worlds we want to see; we fall out of love with what we used to care for; we realize who we are and who we want to be. At the core of all explanations is a common thread: evolution. We say goodbye because we change. When we do change, it no longer always makes sense to hold on to something or someone that once mattered.
As for me, I stood at the front, waiting for another guest to come into my life. Who knows? Maybe you, the person reading this, are someone whose arrival I have been preparing for all along.
There have been lengthy stretches of time when no one would arrive. My response has never changed since I was a little boy: I would cry. Many times, I lay in bed to ponder past connections, the memories that cling to them, and the wonders of what life could be if they had stayed the way it was. It’s so easy to say I shouldn’t think about the things that have passed. How can I, when they still haunt me?
Looking back on my nearly three years in Cebu City, I realize I may have subconsciously thrown away any prospect of living the Canadian Dream to stay and study in Cebu for one goal. I thought that maybe, just maybe, turning my life upside down might somehow lead me to something that, for the first time, would stay.
And so I did. Against my parents’ wishes, I packed my bags and came home to Cebu. I may have been born on May 26, 2003, but September 10, 2022 was the day when my life truly began.
I write to you as a dumb young man who, for almost three years, stayed up for many nights to either study, party, lose my sanity, or smile. I got drunk in the worst places with the best people, felt so low during the highest of noons, and looked up to the sky whenever I let myself down.
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I have been lionized and villified; been reckless and cautious; been righteous and vicious; been nothing and everything.
In the midst of this life in Cebu are the people who lived that life with me. In my case, it was my college classmates and friends from political science. In case you didn’t know, with how close we are, we’re the best batch of any program the University of San Carlos has ever seen. Talk to me when your college batch sometimes takes over Edsnath’s Payag-payag in Talamban on a random weekday. We vibe like that: with towers and touching moments.
Whenever I overly romanticize my time in this big yet somehow still small city (I always do so while riding the 17B jeep on my way home), I think to myself that Cebu is where my life should be. I held onto this idea that if I stayed, maybe everything I found in this city—the people, the passion, the peace—would be kind enough to stay, too.
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But again, some things just come and go—and college was just one of those things.
After wearing oversized, unattractive togas and moving the tassels of our graduation caps from right to left on a Friday afternoon, life took its natural course. Things started to change. People started to change. Everything’s leaving through the revolving door again. In the end, everyone has departed. I’m back to waiting again.
I have decided to leave Cebu for Manila. In fact, I write to you while eating a cup of Biscoff syrup-drizzled yogurt while I wait for my flight. I tell others the move is meant for my career, in hopes of becoming a full-fledged writer. I tell them that I want to explore a bigger city and see where life takes me. When I do tell them these reasons, I look the other way. I can’t look them in the eye and tell them how I really feel.
Photo by Angelyn Sanjorjo, Pexels
I don’t have the strength to say it could be the case that I will find nothing in Manila. Maybe it’s been in Canada from the start. Maybe it’s been in Cebu, and I just have yet to find it. It is entirely possible that maybe what I am looking for is nowhere in this world. It could be that I have been blind all this time, running after something I already found. I can’t say in words: “I’m moving because maybe the thing I have been looking for is not in Cebu. Maybe in Manila, I’ll get what I want.”
It could be the case that I will find nothing in Manila. Maybe it’s in Canada all along. Maybe it’s been in Cebu, and I just have yet to find it. It is entirely possible that maybe what I am looking for is nowhere in this world. Or maybe I have been blind all this time, running after something I already found. You know, maybe it’s been with me all along.
I honestly don’t know. All I know is that I leave this city with the heaviest of hearts. After living in Cebu for a while, I left—still searching.
And until I find it, I’ll be at the front, waiting for you.
