By Lysander Kendrick Tiu
I once yearned for the independence that comes with entering college.
That feeling of having a space I can call my own, with a wallet thick enough with bills to spend without hesitation or restraint, and the absence of a parental figure breathing down my neck at every turn.
When I was allowed to live freely under my own rules, it felt liberating in the weirdest sense possible. No curfews meant staying up past midnight with friends, however traitorous it seemed against my personal habits. No rules also meant abusing the freedom I was given, which often led to accidents easily preventable.
For nearly three years now, this way of living has become my average. Soon, however, there came a time when that creeping sense of loneliness began to settle. Sometimes, the only sense of support that could comfort me were the pillows from home waiting on my bed, though they could only give me temporary relief. Alcohol could only do so little to ease the burdens behind my back, the ones I tried so desperately to appear unseen. Neither could drowning my sleepless nights with coffee
This independence I once felt was freeing had a peculiar way of making me nostalgic for the very things I once wanted to escape from. The things I used to take for granted eventually became things I longed to experience again. The constant nagging to clean after myself, the annoying sibling I bickered with, and even the questions I once found intrusive suddenly become reminders of a life I no longer had within arm’s reach. I am lucky enough to have a family that cares enough to do this, and even luckier to have them around to remind me that home is not too far away.
Home was indeed eight, dreadful hours away, trapped between a cramped eight-hour Ceres ride at midnight and a P500 ticket I didn’t want to pay for. However scarce these trips were, they also made me realize that things I deemed insignificant before would be things I come to appreciate.
Independence sounded like my best definition of an ideal college life at first, until I was the one deciding what to eat three times a day, budgeting my last few pesos, and realizing that laundry does not, in fact, wash itself. I once left home believing that it could give me the freedom I long yearned for. However, I soon realized the difference between living alone and feeling alone in a city where home felt temporary.
