Where is home?

The little boy with his Lolo - playing with Ada, my parents' black lab

I went home to Cagayan de Oro last weekend and came back with my Mama.  She stayed with us for 5 days.  It felt good to have my Mama here, we talked non-stop for days.  I brought her to church.  She went with me when I picked up my little boy and my hubby.  She went with us to shop for grocery, ate dinner somewhere and we watched TV together.

Both hubby and I are from Cagayan de Oro.  We're both strangers here in Laguna.  I came to Manila when I studied in UP, back in 1994.  So I've been here in Luzon for 18 years.  My hubby came here after he graduated from Engineering school in 1998, so he's been here for 14 years.  But we always consider Cagayan de Oro as home.  When we plan to go "home" for a vacation, we mean Cagayan de Oro.  In fact, we do plan to go "home" when we're retired.

Lately whenever we (my hubby, I and our little tyke) go home or have family come visit, I've always wondered what it would be like to move back to Cagayan de Oro and be near family.  Be with people who have known you since you were a kid.  Be with people you can just call out to whenever you need something.  What would it be like?  Would it be so comfortable?  Would being with and in the familiar, be relaxing?


I so envy those who have their families within driving distance.  I also want to be able to just drive to my parents' house, and find them home.  I so want to call my sisters, and we could go to the mall or get frozen yogurt.  I so want to text my cousins to meet up for coffee or tea.  I'd so like to see my son so excited for weekends, so he can swim non-stop with his cousins while my hubby bonds with his brothers, and I catch-up with my sisters-in-law.  I'd so like to go grocery shopping with my Papa, coz he buys the biggest can of milk haha

But we can't.  They're there and we're here.  We make do with a few days a year of being together, like how families should be.  And we try to make the most of it.  We'd bunched up all the activities - talking, eating, swimming, playing, drinking, and yes, sometimes, arguing - in a few days a year.

After we dropped off Mama at the airport earlier, I still wonder.  And I guess I'll always wonder, what would it be like if we all moved back to Cagayan de Oro?