In Intertwined Cessys life had a constant. He was a constant.

In
my life you werent. You were like a pendulum swinging in and out of my
life at a constant rate. For six months like a ship you were anchored to
the harbor called home. You came with a fleet of gifts packed in
Balikbayan boxes. There was the expensive stuf you bought from Japan,
Spain, Australia, Indonesia. Every country you sailed to in the span of
your six-month absence in my life. Then there was the standard
pasalubong, chocolates, to give to the neighbors, to the security guard at
school, to lolas cousins friends nephew. To everybody.
You brought so much that by the end of the day, even after giving
away most of it, and me eating a part of what was left, felt sick. I would
never vomit chocolate, my favorite food of all time, but as sweat trailed
down my forehead and a taste of acid bile was rising in my throat, I
desperately wanted to. A sea of liquid chocolate would have flowed out of
my mouth and stained our white tiled floors if I did not love chocolate so
much. [transition pls] You spent as much time as you can with us, trying
to close the distance between us. I know you tried patching up the holes
in our relationship. But you tried fixing them like the way you fixed the
holes and leaks in the engines in sauna below the decks. Pero Tay, some
things just cannot be done easily as one wants to.
At the end of those six months, you were cast of outside the
country outside of my world. You were once again sailing the seven
seas below the deck of that blasted ship, inside of that blasted sauna. The
landline would ring every once in a while. We would run to answer it,
hoping it was you. Most of the time it wasnt. But when it was, our
conversation was at most 5 minutes. There was still a line of seamen
awaiting their chance to speak with their own family, you said. Pero Tay,
5 minutes was just not enough.
In the time you were away, a lot of things happened. Things that I
could not cram in those five minutes I could barely and sparsely have
with you, no matter how hard I tried. I told myself it was fine. I would tell
you next time about how I aced my test. I would tell you next time about

how a dog was barking at me and chased me out of the subdivision we

used to jog at. It was fine. I was fine. It was not fine. The distance was
slowly creating more holes in our sinking relationship. Your work led to
the shipwreck that is our relationship. I stopped caring. It would hurt less
if I did. I no longer cared for your longitudes and latitudes.
You were supposed to be the captain of our ship. You were supposed to
be the one helping me navigate through the maze of decisions and
problems that stormed into my life. You were supposed to be the one who
would haul me out of my misery and wipe the tears that leaked through
my eyes. But you werent there by my side. You were out there in the
seven seas, fixing leaks on the ships engine. I understand that you had to
earn cash for the family to survive but sometimes I wished you were
marooned in our own home.
After six months, you would be back again. Balikbayan boxes would
litter the sala. You would once again bring out expensive gifts and my
favorite chocolate. You would once again try to shorten the distance
between us: you would take us out to malls etc. Pero tay, these things will
not be able to supplement your missing presence in my life. It just isnt
enough. In the boat, there is a limit to the cargo it can carry. Tay, there is
also a limit to how much material things can carry our relationship. It will
probably help it stay afloat in a calm lake, but it would sink like an
anchor in a stormy sea.