because of the overwhelming manifestations of growing up

• my lola's house in tandang sora. i feel bleary everytime i step into their home and am greeted by fluorescent lighting in the common area leading to their bedrooms, then to the dining room. they've set up concrete walls and stairs outside to ward off floods, and we have to step over a barrier to enter through the gate.
• taho. fruit salad (i used to love nata de coco in fruit salad). drinking coffee out of measuring cups for rice in secret.
• sketchbooks and sharpening pencils
• bicycles
• my village. waking early and heading to the soccer field (or whatever that patch of grass is supposed to be) with papa and anjo
• pampanga
• my lolo's house in mandaluyong. i've always felt distant towards them, but they have home in my heart. all the kindness they've given me growing up is immeasurable.
• sm north :)
• bonchon fried chicken
• batangas and the one trip we took there w father's side of the family
• the swingsets in my kindergarden. i vowed to make my kinder best friend the ninang of my children
• flower girls. i walked down the aisle as a flower girl giggling w my dearest cousin at such a ripe age.
• watching teleseryes w our house help before going to bed
• ya and ate. they are so dear to me
• small things. i loved all small things. setting up a tiny household w my dollhouse and miniature furniture
• when anjo's bedroom was still called the kid's room
• picking santan flowers. i have memories eating the dew one early morning before going to cebu
• pandesal
• yaya sitting me in front of the mirror and combing my hair
• our little container of baby powder. i only remember it being a shade of blue and square-shaped
• silly picnics in the garage of our old home because of the rainshower. seeing a rainbow at a distance later
• riding the mrt with papa. i know i've gone on many adventures with him but barely remember them
• going to tagaytay with papa to tito boy's house and riding a type of zipline.
• the dirty kitchen of my old house. yaya hated the cats that came by when she cooked fish
• my cousins. oh how we've grown
• cagayan. running on green fields. eating ice cream cake. being frightened of the horses.
• the holidays
• tita ria teaching anjo and i how to fold paper bags to catch coins with on new year's eve
• mama. i love her so much
• carrying envelopes and pieces of scratch paper on clipboards and feeling grown up
• huddling with anjo to watch movies on our tiny video player. mama kept them in flashdrives. i remember being frightened by the soot sprites in my neighbor totoro
• the secret world of arrietty being one of my favorite movies
• watching the tale of princess kaguya and feeling a disturbing (unfamiliar) weight in my heart after. i was reluctant to come back to it because of the way it made me feel
• spending entire days reading mindlessly
• puregold in san joaquin