The Last Supper (well, second to the last dinner before I leave)

*disclaimer: I didn't have a photo of the dinner so I replaced with a photo from my last birthday*

I finally treated my family to a meal. After 4 and a half years of working, I paid the bill for my own despedida dinner (and it wasn't cheap with the two bottles of wine and Mishi's duck main course at L'Opera). Well better late than never right? Some people treat their family after they get their first paycheck. I treated mine after I got my last paycheck.

They say every family is dysfunctional. I say every family is simply made up of humans so no matter what when you put everyone together there will be comedy and drama. That's the perfect way to describe my own nuclear family. My sisters and I can sometimes giggle for hours on end about nothing and everything with my mom muttering gigi tsio (Chinese for well, giggling I guess) under her breath and my dad just shaking his head and grinning at us. Of course, those laughs usually come at the expense of teasing each other or our parents or at peculiar relatives! (okay so I didn't say we're saints). My 3rd sister is more of the comedian. She is the one who gets teased the most and because of that does a lot of teasing on her own. My 2nd sister is the more serious one but can talk to anyone and my youngest sister is the baby so she's the one who has the most issues (teen-agers!).

When my parents are in a good mood, it is light and easy breezy. We don't really talk much about ourselves and our lives but more of lighter topics like our favorite gossip. We're not in a deep relationship my-family-is-my-best-friend kind of thing. But it is more than good enough. I sincerely like spending time with my family and don't dread it like some do. Travel is always good (but is usually a dramedy as usual).

The drama comes in pretty often as well. What do you expect from a family where PMS comes in to the equation 4 to 5 times a month and a dad who pretty much downs a drink (or two or three) nightly? Whenever someone (my mom especially) is in a bad mood, no one is spared. What's good about those times is that it can be cause for bonding. My sisters and I have laughed countless of times at my dad's nitpicking and my mom's oc-ness. And my mom and I have shared a look more than once whenever my baby sister would go on her bitchy rampage.

We've all had our fair share of parental disputes and teen-age melodramatics. What's weird is that I always thought those problems fade as one grows older. But it doesn't. I still have arguments with my parents, I still defy them, and I still dont agree with them on some things. But I've learned to appreciate and understand them more. I know they only want the best for me even though they show their love in the strangest of ways (hello dad and his calling me to let me know I can use Yahoo phone since it's cheaper). So this is what they meant before... Darn it, so they were right!

The Surprise #1

And so the time has come to start saying good-bye. The despedida’s have started.

It actually started a month ago with the surprise party my sisters threw for me. That’s why it really worked as a surprise because I was so not expecting it… a month to go before I leave?! Plus there was that whole matter of Jenny’s (aka Li’l J, aka my youngest sister) grad dinner as a cover-up. The night was fun – all the people you love under one roof. There’s always two sides to that. First off, you don’t know if they have anything in common except you. Sometimes you also tend to act differently with various groups of people. And as the “host” you don’t want to play favorites and spend all your time with only 1 group. You have to flit from one table to the next (hence the term “social butterfly”). But over-all, it was a nice intro night to see everyone all in one room and to really officially say it’s true, I am leaving. It makes it real somehow.

Shouts out to my 3 sisters for pulling it off brilliantly -- the small details, the coordinated tablecloths and candles, the food from my favorite som's. Sweet and thoughtful. We're not the super close sisters who gimik with each other but we have our moments.

It was the last night I would spend with all my cousins together. Regretfully, I wasn’t able to really hang out 100% with them but there were three good moments I remembered. One was when we viewed the home videos we dug up of my grandma’s 60th (?) birthday almost 15 years (?) ago. Try as I might to have Ramon, my boyfriend, laugh along with me, it was different to have the people you grew up with laugh along with you. My cousins themselves knew how really ridiculous we and everyone else looked and how it was so much fun to tease one another about it. Reminiscing childhood memories with the people you spent it with is always a cherished pastime. Maybe it’s because it brings you back to those carefree times and having them remember it with you makes it all the more real. Second was the time when we were all a bit tipsy and we were just laughing and teasing about inane topics (one of our other favorite pastime!). Last was when one of my cousins, Jigoy, told me before he left early that night to book and save a solo lunch for him since it might be the last time he sees me before I leave for a seminar since he will be in the States when I finally leave for Singapore. Even though the lunch never happened (why didn’t it happen?), it’s the thought that counts I guess?!

I always think that I’m so lucky to have these set of people as both my family and as people whom I genuinely want to spend time with. I don’t want it to end up like those adult familial relationships wherein you either gossip about your cousins or resent them for what they have versus you. I value my cousins for their acceptance, for only they know what it was and is like, for the laughs, the tragedies we have shared, the authenticity we have with each other. The good thing is of course I know we won’t grow far apart because we’re family. I take that for granted.