In my last post, I mentioned that the fog was finally starting to lift. If I’m being completely honest, the turning point didn't happen while I was sitting at my desk trying to force myself back into a routine. It happened on a plane ticket I never wanted to buy, flying back to a place that holds the very blueprint of who I am.
A few weeks ago, I traveled back to Samar.
The trip was meant to be purely somber. It was a final, painful journey to lay my mom to rest in the soil she came from. I expected it to be a week of heavy tears and closure. What I didn’t expect was that this brief return to my roots would completely alter my perspective on the life I am trying to rebuild.
Samar has a very specific kind of energy. It’s raw, it's rugged, and it doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. Passing by the endless rows of coconut trees and feeling the provincial humidity wrap around me felt like a physical embrace from the past.
Going there for a burial forces you to confront the concept of legacy. Walking through the town, I didn't just see a map; I saw the backdrop of my mother’s childhood stories. I saw the culture that shaped her resilience and the same resilience she passed down to me.
In losing her, I thought I had lost my anchor. But standing there, surrounded by the land that grew her, I realized my roots run far deeper than I thought.
When you live in the city, life is measured by deadlines, traffic, and efficiency. You fit people into slots in your calendar. But in Samar, time stretches out.
It hit me like a wave: we are spending our time on the wrong things.
Grief has a brutal way of re-arranging your priorities, but community has a way of healing them.
Seeing how my relatives showed up for us with food, with quiet presence, and with shared tears made me realize that the wealth of a life isn't measured by career milestones. It’s measured by the people who will sit with you in the dark. I came back with a fierce, protective urge over my schedule. I want to spend my time on the people who matter, and I want to be entirely present when I do.
There is something deeply therapeutic about the sea.
It doesn't ask you how you're doing. It doesn't offer cliché reasoning about how "everything happens for a reason." It just crashes and retreats, over and over, indifferent to your heartbreak but massive enough to hold it.
I stood there for a long time, I practiced a mental exercise that a friend had suggested: with every deep exhale, I imagined casting a piece of my anxiety, my adulting worries, and my crushing grief out into the water.
Nature didn't fix my problems, but it reminded me of my own scale. My worries, as massive as they felt in my head, were just tiny drops compared to the vastness of that water. The ocean took them, swallowed them up, and washed back a sense of clean, quiet peace.
It was the first time in a year that my chest didn't feel tight.
I’m back at my desk now, the city noise humming outside my window, but I’m holding onto the rhythm of the ocean.
This trip taught me that healing isn't about forgetting the pain; it's about grounding yourself so deeply in your roots, your people, and the present moment that the storm can't knock you over.
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