I was chopping onions for my parent’s omelette, shedding tears all the way. Some of those tears were biological, springing from the onions. But the rest were real tears, wrung out from my insides that cried out for the “home” I missed so terribly, a million miles away. I never knew before that tears could be so double-edged, sharp and acidic. All I knew was that I was just simply chopping onions, and then the floodgates of tears opened. It felt good you know, crying my guts out, purging myself of private pains and sorrows, of the homesickness that is slowly killing me inside. I never knew chopping onions could be so therapeutic. Such a good excuse for crying without being watched.
Nobody noticed me, not even my mother sitting across from me on our kitchen table, reading the morning paper. Definitely not my father, a few feet away, watching CNN while nursing his usual cup of coffee. At one point my mother glanced up from her newspaper and looked at me thoughtfully. I almost froze right then and there, I thought she noticed, but she just chuckled and said. “ Ano ba yan, para sibuyas lang eh, tama na nga yan” I managed a weak smile and heaved a sigh of relief. I definitely didn’t want to burden her with my trivial problems. She already has a lot of things weighing on her mind
I don’t know what it was; what triggered the floodgates to open. Maybe it was the chilly winter air drifting through the open window, or the sappy Christmas song playing on the radio. Perhaps it was the dreary view outside, the sky, a gray sea of dark, ominous clouds, dark and foreboding, perfectly matching my mood. Maybe it was just hormones and I was just PMS-ing I really don’t know. What I know is that once I started crying I couldn’t stop.
Homesickness seems to hit hard especially today. .I thought by now I finally got over my homesickness. I stopped crying at night, stopped soaking my pillow with tears and muffled sobs, stopped locking myself in the bathroom for a good cry, so that my parents wouldn’t hear. The first two months were particularly hard; I thought I would die of homesickness. Then the tears just stopped. It was as if a plug has been put on the floodgates and the tears just wouldn’t come out. Now, I’m not so sure anymore. They say these things are all part of adjusting to a new place, and maybe it is. I hope that one day, this place would finally feel like home to me. Meanwhile I’ve got onions to chop
