It all begins tomorrow. My last cent entry talked about change, stepping into adulthood, written about two weeks ago. I'm here in Cebu; tomorrow starts the grueling days of statistical studies. I mean, technically, the academic year started last Monday, August 11, but the week was just festivities and Week of Welcome for us freshies.
I moved in here last last Friday, August 8. It was a quiet Thursday night in Sibulan. My mother and I knew well that something was gonna change, but there were no dramatic farewells or something. We just talked about the same things that we used to, but in a way you realize that there is actually a sad and already longing undertone. The ship to Cebu from Dumaguete leaves at 12 a.m. Friday. I was with my father. The moment I stepped into the ship, looking at the city I grew up sleeping, and me standing on the deck pulled my heart out of my body. My heart still is in Dumaguete, beating. It is partly in Building 3 waiting for an easyride to Sibulan, another part in Sta. Monica Beach in Banilad watching the waves crash and dissolve. Part of it is still in Science High, laying on the building calling to those who can hear it; fragments scattered in Weshop, Unitop, Tops, Pantawan, and in Sibulan proper. But most of it is left at home.
Settling in here was hard. Is hard. I haven't fully settled, and I don't think I ever will be. I'm out here on my own. Back when it was time for my father to finally leave me here, while I clutched the remaining 126 pesos in my hand to budget for the week, everything just felt so empty. Mind you, he left me Saturday, so basically he just slept here for a night, and now I'm on my own. This is a big city; the roads are always busy, but somehow it feels quiet. There are days that I don't eat rice at all — bread for breakfast, lunch, dinner — just to save up. Everything’s a struggle, everything wants to kill me, but I have to survive because I have to. But I can't promise that I'll thrive. The exact moment my father closed the door as he left, tears started streaming down my cheeks. I tried to stop them, but they just flowed like an ocean that won't hesitate to drown me. As Taylor Swift would say, "I can go anywhere I want, anywhere I want, just not home."
I have a circle of friends I left there in Dumaguete. I enter the University of the Philippines, of all places, a blank slate. Will I ever fit in here? At this moment, I don't think so. I even don't have the faculty to write coherently and effectively here, because I just feel so lost, and alone, and overwhelmed.
I have a family I left there in Sibulan. My younger brother and his big teeth, saying the most random, brainrot slang their generation has. I miss my annoying cat and even the dog. My duyan sa likod, the mahogany trees, the CR, the bed, the table, the chairs, the roads, the home. Now, at the end of every day, who do I talk to? Who do I tell how my day has been? Who do I talk to when I spot something that I know my mother and I would only understand? How can I stand? I have cried a lot of times; right now I can't anymore — well, physically. Inside I'm torn, in pieces, and far from good. My tear ducts are now an empty well, but the thirst won't quench itself.
So it all begins tomorrow, but it had already begun August 8. I have a lot in my mind, but I lack the resources in me to write and express them. I'm just blank. Merely existing. Existing on a busy street that feels so quiet.