Return Trip Home

At twenty-six, there was left only a handful of things in this world that could really surprise Thina, but if there was one thing that could it was the realization that she had wasted the last five years of her life in the Public Safety Sector. In fact, it would be a realization so profound to the still-single, Cabanatuan-born, Mathematics degree holder, it would nearly cause her to choke on the piece of ube-hopia she was at that moment consuming—her second for the day and—if truth be told—her actual lunch.

It was, however, not as if she was to any degree unaware of this basic truth; it was just that the entire time she had worked and had wanted to leave her consultancy under the semi-government-owned Polonoling Public Safety Board, she had always thought next year would be the year, but she had not gotten around to really doing it. And so, one year moved to the next and so on, and for a time Thina seemed to have surrendered to the permanency of her stay on the Board. It was not until the fourth month since her boyfriend had dumped her to get married—fourth month to the day, in fact—that she finally built up the courage to open up her workstation's OpenOffice.org and draft what, after evelen revisions, would be her formal resignation letter.

The letter itself was not at all long by any compositional standards. It told just about everything that needed to be told about five years of a person's life, and the consultancy service which was as a matter of course attached to them. More than that it told of a person's resolve that a certain amount of time had already passed one's life doing something, and would it not be a good idea, by any chance, to stop doing it anymore, and do something else instead?

In any case, the letter was completed, saved, printed in duplicate—only one page each, Thina didn't want to needlessly consume company resources on what she considered a relatively personal resignation—and sent, one to the HR, and the other to her superior, Jebb "Jeberson" Soamos.

As it happened, this superior of hers, this Jebb "Jeberson" Soamos, was the very boyfriend who had left her, and who four months prior had definitively, irrevocably, terminated any chance of their getting back again. This, of course, was done by getting his current girlfriend of four months—the very HR officer, by the way, to whom Thina had submitted the other copy of her resignation letter—pregnant. Well, strictly speaking, it was not so much as the act of getting the girlfriend pregnant as it was his immediate decision, this Jebb "Jeberson" Soamos having nothing but the most noble, gentlemanly view of himself, to marry the impregnated mother.

"Is this decision of yours final?" Jebb "Jeberson" Soamos had asked—but not in person, and instead thru the Board prescribed gyachi instant messanger.

Thina had waited exactly 55 seconds before she typed in her reply: "Yes."

"OK," Jebb "Jeberson" Soamos almost instantaneously had replied back.

Thus, with the resignation approved, Thina was granted to use up her remaining leaves—provided she facilitate a decent handover of her past duties to the new guy.

Thina had used her last month wisely. In that time, she had not only ensured a seamless turnover of her duties to the "new guy"—which turned out to be a girl, young and fresh from the University and going by the name Dipeeka (or Deepika)—she had also settled all her business that had to do with her being a resident of Polonoling for the past five years.

Her landlady, in particular, was in tears when Thina told her she would be going back to her native Cabanatuan. She herself having a daughter of almost the same age as Thina go to a foreign land to study, had almost found a daughter in Thina—these past three or four years at least. "First KC left for Harvard," her landlady said, "and now this... you're leaving your Nanay Mamerta for good! What now will become of me?"

There were tears also in Thina's eyes. It was true that she had been like a daughter to Nanay Mamerta, truer even than most known biological relationships out there, but what was she to do? "You know I can't stay here anymore, Nay," she said.

"In fact, I don't know," Nanay Mamerta said. "How can you say I know when I don't know?"

"Of course you do. We talked about it last night, and if you love me as a daughter you wouldn't let me go through all the pain again telling you my reasons."

"Jebb? Are you doing all this just because of Jebb?"

"Oh, Nay. Please don't speak his name. If you truly love me..."

"Thina, you know I do. But if this Jebb..." here she had considered
rephrasing. "If this boy is all the reason you have for—"

"He was my everything. Maybe still is. All the reason I would ever
need."

Here Nanay Mamerta was about to say something along the lines of "that Jebb being the sole reason is pretty lame," but she didn't. At that moment Thina wrapped her arms around her in a tight embrace, the tears now streaming freely down her face—except that it was more of like clinging to her for her life, holding her firmly to the very spot they were on as if that would prevent time from moving and things from changing. She in particular.

Nanay Mamerta was all too familiar with this vareity of extremely violent heartbreak, having also, of course, been young once, and in love quite more than. She was now old, had seen a lot and had experienced a lot. In a rough International Language rendering of the well-worn expression that always went with the elders' admonition to the young, Nanay Mamerta was already on the return trip for the journey Thina was just at that point in her life getting prepared for.

Maybe it was precisely because of this that after allowing precisely three minutes for Thina's grief to pour on her motherly shoulder, Nanay Mamerta gently, affectionately held Thina back and said, "You'll be late for your Ro-Ro.¹"

Then again, maybe not. Maybe it was less than that than the knowledge that since Thina was resigning, she wouldn't be receiving the current month's pay until three months later along with her backpay, because Nanay Mamerta quickly followed: "By the way, you take some ube-hopia with you to munch on the trip."

Thina, being the sensible girl that she was, found sense in this. She didn't say anymore, just nodded, wiped the tears off her face, and accepted the offered ube-hopia.

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¹ Ro-Ro - Roll-on-roll-off ferries. A common inter-island
transport in the Philippines.