By the time we landed in Cebu, I couldn’t feel my legs properly, my eyes were threatening to close without warning, and my stomach had developed a full-on grudge against airline pasta. And yet—despite the aches, the crumbs in my lap, and the desperate longing for a proper toilet—I felt something warm blooming inside me: I’m home.

But let’s rewind a bit.

We had been in the air for hours. London to Dubai. Dubai to Cebu.

It’s a strange kind of journey—the kind where your body keeps moving, but your soul drags its feet. Somewhere over the Arabian Gulf, I had my third mini existential crisis of the day while staring at the tray of airplane food in front of me.

The options were limited: soft penne with mystery sauce, a lone wedge of cheddar cheese clinging to its wrapper, an aggressively sealed bread roll, and a cookie pretending to be a reward for surviving it all. It wasn’t terrible. But it wasn’t rice. And it definitely wasn’t sinigang.

We exchanged looks—me, Mama, and Jan.

Unspoken words passed between us, like a private language only families fluent in hunger and homesickness can understand.

This isn’t it. This isn’t what we waited for.

We ate anyway.

Because sometimes, survival means accepting a sad meal while dreaming of crispy pata.

The hours blurred into clouds.

I watched the earth light up like fireflies below us as we flew over Dubai—a glowing city of gold threads and ambition stitched into the dark fabric of the desert. I should have been asleep. Instead, I found myself marveling at how we could be thousands of feet above the world and still carry its weight.

But the sunrise? That was different. The kind of sunrise you only see when you’re flying toward something that matters.

A thin line of gold, slowly stretching across the sky like a promise being kept.

For a moment, I didn’t care that my knees hurt or that my phone was dying.

All I could think was: This is what it feels like to return to yourself.

Touchdown. Cebu.

The air hit differently.

It smelled like heat, dust, and familiarity—like jeepney smoke and mangga with bagoong. The moment we stepped off the plane, I looked at Mama, then at Jan. Tired didn’t begin to describe it. But there we were: three sleep-deprived bodies, one beating heart shared between us, pounding with anticipation.

Family waited outside the airport —eyes lighting up as we approached. No words, just hugs, tears, and a mutual understanding:

And then, the dinner happened.

Let’s eat first. The stories can wait.

The table was a full reunion of its own:

Crispy pata, sinigang na baboy, pancit, kilawin, grilled ribs, garlic rice that nearly made me cry. I stared at the plates like they were love letters written in steam and soy sauce.

Every bite felt like restoration.

Every chew—an unspoken apology to my body for the plane food.

Every sip of soup—proof that I had survived everything it took to get here.

We were loud, messy, interrupting each other, reaching across plates, forgetting spoons, eating with hands. It was chaotic. It was perfect.

It was home.

Coming home isn’t always a cinematic moment with background music and slow motion hugs.

Sometimes, it’s you half-sleeping in an immigration line, trying not to snap at the customs officer because your neck pillow has betrayed you. Sometimes, it’s you looking at a sky so stunning, it silences your anxiety. And sometimes, it’s sitting at a table full of rice, broth, crispy skin, and stories that haven’t even begun to unfold—and thinking, This. This is the healing I didn’t know I needed.

Because the truth is:

We don’t just come home to a place.

We come home to people who waited, dishes that remember, jokes that land without translation, and the versions of ourselves that we left behind but were never forgotten.

You arrive jetlagged, bloated, with your charger tangled in five knots—and yet, you arrive whole.

You arrive enough.

And even in the exhaustion, you feel the tenderness of being carried—by family, by memory, by every little thing that says:

“Welcome back. You are not lost. You just went far for a while.”

So yes. I am dead tired. But my heart? My heart is standing tall, spoon in hand, saying:

“Rice, please. And one more hug before dessert.”