I’m at the crossroads once more.

It’s similar to the one I had right before I started college in 2002. I was entering a very lush, green campus. It’s the butterflies you get on your first day. But that’s the same day that I met my friend UP. It was the first day of the most beautiful four years of university. I would fall in love with a boy for the first time. I would come to terms with my sexuality. I would live in a dormitory and learn to sleep away from my home. I would learn how to speak Tagalog.

It’s 2006. I was unsure if I would get a job working at ABS-CBN News Channel where I had my internship the Christmas prior. I wouldn’t easily forget the scent of the halls of the ABS-CBN’s main building. Or it’s eerie silence past midnight (knowing how very much it comes to life during TV Patrol). While waiting for my first job offer, I remember driving around Cavite with my best friend TO. Eventually, I landed my first job and it was for Studio 23. The next six years were beautiful. I met my first (and only) boyfriend to date. I learned how to survive in Metro Manila. I remember Christmas after Christmas.

It’s 2012. I’m hugging my mom at NAIA on a warm summer day. She’s accepted and supported my dream of leaving the Philippines to work in Singapore. It’s a beautiful day when my Cebu Pacific flight lands. My then-boyfriend picks me up at the Changi Airport budget terminal (having arrived a day prior). The city felt huge. Massive. Green. Ready to be explored. My heart was racing. We lived in a backpackers’ hostel in Lavender. Those first few innocent days of Tori-Q and Old Chang Kee. I repeat that story so many times to friends who ask me how I started in Singapore. It was the beginning of life living in a foreign city.

Now, it’s 2018.

I don’t have a boyfriend to lean on if I want to cry after a terrible day has gone by. I’ve lost my drive doing the most repetitive tasks. I feel anxious and worried. But I’m beginning to dream again for that next beautiful change.

I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I have to go somewhere. I have to keep going. I cannot stop. Money can be spent and exhausted. But it can be earned back. Not like time. When time is spent, it’s over. You don’t get that back.

Sayang ang kuryente.