Trapped In The Margins

I romanticized Manila at one point and said that things weren’t THAT bad. My inane attempt at deluding myself worked but it didn’t work on my family and friends. They knew what I went through because I was vocal about my problems for the first time. My closest friends and family saw how much of a wreck I was after I returned. This is something I didn’t share. My hair was falling out from the stress and I lost almost 30 pounds by December. 10 in one week. My body and mind were shutting down and I laughed through it all. I really don’t know how I survived but I did. So, what happened next?

I returned to New York running on adrenaline. The build up was four months and the breakdown was within 72 hours of returning home. I received bad news and sat down in my living room and cried for hours. All of the pain that I carried for over two years just escaped my body. See, I never shared all of sad stories that weren’t superficial with the Internet because it’s really not anyone’s business. I carried my hurt for years and refused to share it because I didn’t want people to invalidate my pain. People don’t know how much my family has sacrificed so I could be a “world traveler.” It was a major sacrifice on everyone’s part and I am grateful

Life is different now. I am different now. I don’t mean to say something so cliche but it’s true. Manila changed my life in innumerable ways. I just couldn’t begin to fathom how life would change until I left. The first few weeks were the toughest. I was still on Manila time and desperately clinging to friendships that I forged so quickly. A part of me wanted to be back where the world made sense because home felt different. It looked the same but it didn’t feel the same. It felt like when you find an old pair of pants that no longer fit. You know that they’re yours but they don’t quite fit anymore. It felt like everyone was moving forward but I was moving backwards. I could no longer run from myself and the place that I called home.