She speaks!

Hm, yeah. I suppose I am long overdue for a post on my beloved blog. *sheepish*

My excuse is pure laziness. Quite simple. As some of you may know, another online community has all but consumed my life when I am not out and about...which makes my poor little blog a distant item on my list of priorities. There are days when I feel I'm ready to touch base and blog but then I sign on to that other site and well...

Anyway, I'm here right now. Heaven knows I need some discipline in my life. :P

I'll try to get you up to speed. I spent an emotionally charged two weeks "back home" in the Philippines in April and turned my back on my darling Calgary Flames as they started their playoff run. Sad to say, they lost, and I came home to a dejected Big Boi posse and no more hockey games for the season.

However, I would not have traded those two weeks for anything. It is so easy to "forget" the family you have so far away...the lack of contact goes without question. And the cost...having been bit by the travel bug I felt I could not justify the cost of a ticket to the Philippines when that same amount of money could get me to another undiscovered destination. But I did the right thing. As I collected all my luggage and psyched myself up for the impending reunion just outside those doors various memories of past visits started playing through my head like a montage. It was like I was not even really there yet, it was all just a tease, a dream. A dream that was prolonged by the fact that Ninoy Aquino International Airport is such a gong show full of reunited relatives that I could not find my family. It had been 15 years. Would they even recognize me now?

As soon as I found my uncle and my cousins I could not contain myself anymore. Yes, I'm a crybaby. Apparently it runs in our family, so I am not ashamed of it at all.

Wow, our family has grown so much since I visited last. So many second cousins, so many new faces to remember. Halfway through my trip, although the tearful reunions were petering out, I started a whole other series of waterworks as I went to bed every night. The trip felt so short, I was just starting to get to know everyone once again, how could I possibly say "goodbye" so soon?

I am very grateful that I went, and I promise myself and all my loved ones that I will return more often now. Especially, as morbid as this sounds, while all my loved ones are still around. There is no other holiday that can compare to this, nothing more rejuvenating, nothing more surreal than the love and joy that comes with spending time "back home."