This birthday party invitation is for my close family and my hometown friends – people who hold a deeper meaning, in the past decade of my life.
In true thejourneyingengineer fashion, I am compelled to put in more words apart form a direct invitation. Let me start the background by sharing this photo:
It was a moment in my 30th birthday celebration, that perfectly encapsulates that decade. I was living in a different country, celebrating with friends away from home. I was happy, not home sick at all, and celebrating life.
But it was also that year, 2014, that I just knew in my guts, I wouldn’t be staying much longer in a foreign country.
By the end of that year, the move to go back home was shaping up. And at the start of 2015, the decision was finalized and I went back to the Philippines.
I didn’t fully live at our family home yet. But the move marked what would be the prevailing theme of the 4th decade of my life.
To be concluded…
Are you coming? Please respond the soonest, or not later than March 31.
Post-birthday
… to conclude:
I resumed my process engineering career in the Philippines, so I logically went back to working in Muntinlupa. And would be visiting home every week or so. It was like my first stint as a working adult, but with more money.
Money, something I would lose in a couple of years after. You already know my coffee journey. It’s still ongoing, my love for that drink is forever. But with that product, I failed my first attempt at a business. And more than the failure in business, it’s really the getting lost bit while I was transitioning from a regular employee to an entrepreneur or freelancer, that was difficult to get through. I didn’t know what to do. But I just knew in my guts, I did not want to go back to the corporate set up.
So like a surviving soldier packing up after defeat, I gathered my stuff and moved back to the ancestral home. I rented out my condo to survive in the life I preferred. That’s 2018, I was 33.
Stepping back a year prior, 2017 was a pivotal year for the family. I stopped my process engineering career. Similarly, my older brother stopped his hotel management career. And my dad finally, went back home after 29 years.
So it wasn’t just me who was undergoing life transition. It wasn’t just me who was undergoing difficulty. Looking back, it was financially tight for our whole family. 2017 – dad’s back home. 2018, I officially went back home. 2019, my kuya went back home.
And 2020, our lives were in a standstill. But… home was were we picked ourselves back up.
I personally recovered, oddly, in 2020. And that’s thanks to the family that is somehow my extended home.
Zero-in Concept and Production – is the company of my close cousin, Jennifer. I started getting involved in it a couple of months after going back to the Philippines in 2015. And when I decided to take the leap out of my first profession, my cousin’s company was my safety rope. One could argue that having a safety rope may not be a good thing when taking on a challenge. But I appreciate how the support again from home was given to me. You all know how our 2 families’ relationship is. We lived together for many years, hence that strong bond was formed. And I just would like to say we’re very lucky to have experienced that, and of course thankful to parents – mothers especially – for working the hardest to keep our generation harmonious.
So in this decade, I earned a deeper appreciation of home. Along the way, I made a conscious effort to make more memories with my hometown friends. I admit in my 20s, my 3rd decade, they were not my favorite group of friends. It was my travel mates who I loved spending time most. And again it’s representative of that decade’s theme. In the 4th decade however, you guys (high school friends) are my favorite!
40. Wow. Good thing I still feel young, that I am excited for the prospect of another decade. Good thing I recovered from a slump, that I am closing this decade with an optimistic tone. What’s the theme for the next? I don’t know. We cannot be certain about the future. But I am sure of one thing: no matter what happens, I am committed to not setting aside the value of home.
Cheers!
The Journeying Engineer 