For a second there I thought you disappeared… The lull of Jason Schwartzman’s voice nudges you back into the waking world. Despite a desperate urge to drift back to the mind-numbing oblivion of the Tylenol PMs you took the night before, a confrontation with your emotions is in order.
The knot around your heart swan-dives into the pit of your stomach as the plane finally begins its descent towards Manila, the city you call home. Seats back up, no tray tables down. Time to switch off all electronic devices. You try to be a punk and hide your headphones under your hoodie, because the idea of your plane crashing to the beat of your favorite Coconut Records song is much more appealing than facing the facts. Your three-month hiatus from life in the real world is rapidly drawing to a close.
The city lights that faded in the wake of your departure now flare to greet you, blazing like neon “welcome home” signs built from a vulgar amount of billboards. The blacks and grays of Manila at night quickly materialize into skyscrapers, highways, hotels and houses. You stare out the window and trace random shapes into the fog your breath leaves on the double-paned Plexiglass. The wheels finally touch down on the runway, but you don’t even notice that your plane’s landed until you hear the syncopated clicking of seatbelt buckles as passengers scramble for their pasalubong in the overhead compartments and stealthily switch on their cell phones. Welcome home, you think, as if trying to convince yourself that you’re exactly where you want to be. You try and shake off the haze from the barbiturates, a futile attempt to forget that just 24 hours ago, you were saying goodbye to a life you hadn’t thought you wanted.
Your mind flashes back to two days ago. It’s eight in the evening and you’re killing time at LAX’s international terminal, having a farewell drink at La Cantina with your older cousin (she might as well be your Siamese twin, but the kind you’d never want to be surgically separated from) and the boy you’re desperately trying not to fall for (although you already know the cynicism from past experiences has long since lost that battle). How ironic that you should spend your last hour in Los Angeles with people who represent your past and a possible future. Adding even more to the irony of the situation is the fact that these two people, from seemingly disparate aspects of your life, are united because they are the ones who make you feel like you belong in a place where you thought you would never fit in. They are the ones who will miss you the most. This you know because they hug you like the goodbye will be your last and — despite the ridiculously time-consuming line at the airport security checkpoint — wait till you’ve made it to the x-ray conveyor belt before they make their way back to the parking lot. After 20 years of dealing with your issues you’ve learned not to shed tears during situations such as this. You slip off your boots and amble through the metal detectors with the ease of someone used to living in and out of her suitcase. A lifetime of this so-called “Samsonite existence” has supposedly made you a master at the art of leaving things behind. This time, however, things are different.
You flew to America to apply to grad school. The numerous bullet points on your résumé and the months you spent studying to place you in the 96th percentile on your GRE writing test had you confident that this goal would easily be ticked off your long-term to-do list. Taking the necessary steps to becoming a remarkable journalist was all you knew. After a few good interviews with admissions officers from notable institutions, you grew confident, and even a little cocky, that this dream could finally materialize. Despite all that, the overwhelming sense of achievement in your head has now taken a backseat to the pull of your heartstrings.
You arrive at your gate with ample time to pass and pull out your planner to go over your list of grad school requirements and application deadlines. You take your pen out but can’t bring yourself to even take the cap off. Instead of crossing items off your agenda, you find yourself staring blankly at those pages while you pull out your iPod and rock out to songs that trigger memories of being lost in Glendale with your cousin, armed with nothing but Del Taco drive-thru meals and Steve Aoki remixes playing on repeat. A sense of direction and deductive reasoning are not traits that run in your family and for this reason, many nigh-timing adventures from Huntington Beach to Hollywood — some involving desperate searches for a restroom at three in the morning and others involving dressing as lubes for the West Hollywood gay parade — brought you even closer. You realize that getting lost has never before made you feel that you’re exactly where you want to be and you laugh out loud at the paradox. People stare only for a second because the fact that you look like a lunatic is trumped by your boarding announcement.
You make a run for it so you’re among the first passengers to board the plane. However, your plans of settling into your seat with a James Michener novel and those itchy airline blankets are foiled by a sentiment-inducing surprise. The cellphone you thought you switched off starts to ring. It’s him. The boy you met by chance, at a time when you condemned romance to clichéd plots for trash novels, the kind featuring Fabio on every single cover. However, the fact that this guy doesn’t even realize how gorgeous he is makes you want to do things one would only read about in Fabio novels. He swept you off your Italian suede stilettos in a three-month span, half the period of time you spent saving up to buy them. Your reputation as a heartless man-eater is ruined forever. Surprisingly, you’re quite all right with that.
There were several overt gestures of affection on his part that made you realize he was the first man, in a very long time, you genuinely respected. He drove for an hour from Westwood to Cerritos, abandoning houseguests to see you off before you flew to San Francisco. No man had ever been sexier than when he brought you home a Wendy’s jalapeno burger because you mentioned in passing that you wanted to try one. He called you every day (sometimes several times a day) when you spent a month in New York to look at schools. These actions obliterated your fear of turning into a bitter spinster with nothing but wrinkled tattoos and an iron lung to keep you company in your old age. Between discovering that you actually like to cuddle and that he is the only person in the world who loves the sound of your laugh, you guys discussed two things that you had previously referred to as the “f-words”: feelings and future. These words come up once more when he says his last goodbye to you over the phone. You suddenly realize that you are no longer afraid to hear them. It’s because they’re finally coming from someone who isn’t afraid to say he has feelings for you; the kind of man you’d actually consider a future with. You tell him you miss him already and hang up, oblivious to the fact that the kid lining up behind you is rolling his eyes at your mushy-gushy talk.
Your thoughts fast-forward back to the real world. Most of the passengers have already disembarked and the flight attendants are giving you those condescending smiles that translate to Get off the plane now. Those forced grins are enough to make you grab your things quickly and bolt from the aircraft, only to get caught in the immigration line. You fumble through your purse for your passport and leaf through the pages, counting the stamps from all over the world to pass time while you wait. I was globetrotting before I could walk. Leaving a place has never bothered me this much before. What’s so different about this trip? You shake your head and hand the immigration officer your documents. He lowers his bifocals slightly to compare your haggard face to the one in your passport picture and asks if you’re here to go home. Suddenly you understand why flying home is so emotionally excruciating this time around. You left Manila to chase your dream of becoming a writer who could make a difference. In the end, the biggest change happened within you. Sure, you were used to a life of transitioning from one country to the next. But this new change you feel has nothing to do with geography. While flying to America in search of grad schools originally began out of ambition, you didn’t bank on it fulfilling the needs of your heart. It sinks in that your trip did so much more than open doors professionally. It unlocked the cage that years of cynicism had built around your ability to feel without fear. Despite your uncertainties regarding your graduate education, you take comfort in the fact that you know where your heart belongs. And no matter where you do go, you know there are no boundaries for a heart that has finally opened.
The immigration officer stamps your passport and stares at you uncomfortably as you feel your cheeks flush and your throat tighten. You rush to take your documents, hurry off, and for the first time in 10 months, you let yourself cry. People start to stare as they flock in clusters towards the baggage claim area. Puffy-eyed, red-faced and in desperate need of a shower, you realize that, once again, you look like a crazy person crying in middle of the airport. But at least, this time, they’re tears of joy.
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Wisdom and wisecracks are always welcome at whippersnappergirl@hotmail.com.
