My days can be measured in the manner in which I'm breathing- oftentimes, steady, with the occasional asthmatic's wheeze; when I'm with you, sudden gasps, contented sighs, and heavy breathing; while I wait for my mother's return I am holding my breath, but all I've been doing recently is trying desperately to catch it.

I try to stretch the years in my hand but I can't spread my arms wide enough for all the things that have changed throughout the years. I think of an hourglass and can't take how swift the grains of sand are all disappearing, like how you try to cup your hands around water but no matter what you do you can't hold your fingers together hard enough to keep it from trickling right through the spaces in-between. Sometimes I just want to stop and curl into a ball.

But no matter how aware I am of the brevity of days, I never seem to make an effort to keep track of them with words like I used to, like I promised. I'm afraid I might be losing them too. It's no use avoiding mirrors or ignoring clocks. Everything is in motion. We are all transitory. Every moment that goes unwritten is a memory that is lost.

My mother is flying home from the States in a day or two. It's been a little less than two months since we've seen each other and a lot has happened since she's left. Gay marriage has just been approved in California. Adjustment, adjustment. Mother, are you arriving with heavy news? Here we go again.

I've just had my first taste of College exams and it's only been two weeks since all the all-nighters I attempted (but failed) to make, and soon we'll be facing Midterms, then Finals, then the end of our first semester. I've seen my grades and I'm happy, content, but I know I can do better. I still want to study in Baguio, and I'd like to believe that the city is still waiting for me, but I'm having a hard time uprooting what has already grown here.

I am still the girl who dreams of going places. There are cities I still want to visit, monuments, museums, beaches, roads, and streets I want to linger on, but I am also the girl whose heart belongs home.