Mar 16, 2007

“Dad, I’m undergoing a major career crisis. My job is boring me already and the change of body clock does not work at all. And how could you tell mom that I’m irresponsible enough to manage any business?” This text message was sent yesterday. He never texted back.

And the dad came twenty-four hours after. Papa arrived early morning with my uncles because of a family emergency and they are all going to Cagayan on Friday. Of course I thought he’d go over the apartment and haul all my stuff, LBC them to CDO and thats it, Goodbye Cebu. Goodbye to unbridled independence just because I was whining of a so-so career that I chose two years ago. I prepared an arsenal of rebuttals on why I should not let him plot my future when he said he and the rest of my uncles were just meeting people to take to Cagayan. And here I was stressing out on bidding The Queen City of the South adios.

My father couldn’t possibly make me. He has always condoned my truancy ever since he realizes how futile it is to make decisions for a hard headed daughter who will still find a way to bludgeon him just to get her way. I want to think that I’m spoiled but that’s not really true. Not an only child, just my dad’s only problem. I just like the part where I coax, and plead, and cry and surprisingly revel in the fact that he won’t give in or else he’d no longer be the tough cookie who I am so proud of. Tough, Pa is.

Dad’s being here in Cebu is proverbial. Like he knew mid-crisis that it’s that time of the year to, what else, remind me that its best to be home and pack my stuff. He does that every year and I can’t believe it was just two years ago that I asked Rona what its like to be away from home and getting my toes all curled from the excitement of the idea. Rona and my dad should be the ones arguing, perhaps.