I’m sorry I couldn’t write on you for a long while. To be honest, I completely forgot about you until I found you inside my suitcase (I suspect mom put you inside). With all the commotion going around our house, it wouldn’t be quite a shock.

My parents scheduled a flight to the Philippines right after my sisters got home from college. They had already gotten leaves from their companies and our suitcases out of the attic. They even had Lily take care of our dog while we were gone. Everything was already ready before we even knew it.

The Philippines was where my parents lived back when they were younger, before they had a dream of raising a family in America, back when they didn’t have us. We would visit as much as we could. Booking flights during summer and winter breaks. Trying to celebrate New Year’s and Christmas and every other special event. And by this time of the year, it was grandmother’s seventy-fifth birthday. But, sadly, for the last six years, we've only visited thrice.

My family always try to keep in touch with our roots, like cooking Philippine cuisines every now and then. Sometimes even speaking in Filipino. Think of it as a way of practicing us for battle, because God knows we needed it. The moment we set foot inside our grandparent's house we were expected to say “po” (a polite way of talking to older people or people of higher stature) and to mano (bringing people’s hands towards your forehead) to our elderly as a sign of respect to anyone who we meet.

After the formalities came the worst of all, conversations. You see, in the Philippines, your extended family’s house is always around the corner, so when there is news like relatives from abroad, it spreads like wildfire. Everyone would go to where you are and will bombard you with multiple questions, and every single one of them in Tagalog. I could easily understand the questions and have the Tagalog answers formed in my head but it would always come out in English. Some people would be nice enough to understand, but most of the time they would go out and say “Ano ba yan?! Inglesyera!” which would roughly translate to “Really?! English?!”

My siblings would handle stuff like that quite easily. They knew how to speak Tagalog fluently. They were old enough to learn the language properly before leaving the Philippines, while I was only five they were already 9, 11, and 13. Luckily, they're nice enough to translate some stuff to my relatives.

We've been here for only three hours and I could not handle all of the people that looked disappointed whenever I speak a single English word. I felt a bit lightheaded (I blame jet lag) so I excused myself and tried to fix the clothes I'll be using for the next three months. Then I saw you. I've been trying to write on you despite all of the ruckuses downstairs. They've set up a karaoke stand outside to celebrate my grandma's birthday. These people have been around her all this time and are really happy to see her get to seventy-five.

My sister just came in to get her charging phone. I immediately shut you and hid you. She eyed me suspiciously and told me to go downstairs to eat. 

Guess I'll have to leave you a bit.