In two weeks, I’ll finally see my friends, my hometown, and my family again. I haven’t seen them in person since 2018, and the missing has lived in my chest for so long it feels like its own heartbeat. This is my first trip back to the Philippines, and it feels less like a vacation and more like an awakening, like I’m stepping back into a version of myself I’ve been away from for too long. I’m going home to my roots, my safety net, and for a moment, I get to just be me again — Jeki.
Ever since January 2026 started, I’ve been in “prepare everything” mode. I’ve been organizing, polishing, and focusing on every detail at work, making sure that when I step away, the bar will still feel steady in someone else’s hands. I built a system with so much care because I want whoever takes over to move through it with ease, not confusion. But beneath that is this extra pressure I put on myself, shaped by old experiences and old comments I still carry around like invisible weight.
There have been backhanded comments: “Are you even preparing?” Or the familiar line, “It’s your department, let’s make sure it’s open every day.” People see the outside — the schedule, the bar, the open sign — but they don’t always understand how my brain works. I live by, “no one is left behind.” For me, that means I will do everything in my power to make sure whatever or whoever I’m leaving is going to be okay. I care so much — maybe too much sometimes — that I started to feel the edges of burnout without even noticing I was crossing a line.
Burnout is sneaky. It doesn’t just make you tired; it makes you question your worth. It whispers that you’re not capable, not enough, not doing as much as you should. Lately, my mind has been looping between excitement and fear: my trip to the Philippines, the “what ifs” of work, the worry that there won’t be enough people to cover the shifts. I ruminate so much that sometimes it feels like I’m living more in imaginary disasters than in real life.
It’s wild, honestly, how deeply I’ve let myself sink into work. When I zoom out, it makes sense: my life has mostly been a rotation of work and home. Somewhere along the way, I started leaning heavily on my partner to do things for me, almost like I handed over the steering wheel of my own life. I’ve often needed approval or guidance before making decisions, as if I wasn’t allowed to choose for myself unless someone said, “Yes, that’s okay.”
But the other day, something in me cracked open — in a good way. I started asking myself: What if I made decisions for me? What if the “what ifs” weren’t just fears, but possibilities? Then the harder realization came: I haven’t really saved anything for myself. I haven’t invested in me in a way that makes me feel solid, grounded, secure.
That was painful to admit — but it was also strangely comforting. Because hidden inside that realization was this reminder: it’s not too late. I’m almost halfway to forty, and you know what? That doesn’t feel like a failure. It feels like a late beginning — and late beginnings are still beginnings. Maybe this is just the part of the story where I stop living on autopilot and start actually choosing my life.
If I’m being honest, for most of my 39 years, I’ve lived like a kid. Me and my partner have felt like teenagers in love, figuring things out, laughing things off, avoiding the heavier “adult” stuff as long as we could. But now, it’s time for us to step into a new version of ourselves — young adults, then mature adults, with real-life responsibilities, real plans, real foundations.
Still, I refuse to abandon that inner kid. He’s the one who sings loudly, dreams wildly, gets excited about little things, loves deeply. I won’t silence him to become “properly” grown. Instead, I’ll take care of him like a brother — protect him, listen to him, and bring him with me into this next chapter. Because being an adult, to me, doesn’t mean killing the kid inside. It means finally learning how to be the adult he needed all along.