For some reason, I suddenly got reminded of a few distant relatives. We practically grew up together, my three siblings and I, and their brood of seven – we went to the same school, the same church; we played the same games; we didn’t dream the same dreams.

I wonder what lives they have now – especially my kababatas (those roughly my age). Our parents used to brag in competitive banters about who got the better grades, who’s the meeker child, who got the better job after graduation. Where we came from, the biggest measure of success is whether you have set foot on foreign soil. I haven’t. One of my cousins from that family lives in North Carolina, I think somewhere near the Outer Banks; his brother was sent to another U.S. State early in his career. There was a time, by choice now vague in my memory, when I told my parents that I will do whatever I can to get a job abroad; I was actually working on something then, or so I thought. It didn’t surprise me that everybody in town found out and were anticipating my “departure.” I didn’t feel too bad to disappoint those merely spectators. I guess I just decided I was not meant to be big that way.