We celebrate the families we choose
One of my best memories last year was a trip to a famous theme park in Laguna with Everyone.
By “everyone” I mean myself, my four grown children, their respective significant others, my best friend since grade school, and the two best friends of my eldest daughter and of her partner.
The trip took some logistical preparation.
Daughter 2 created a Google Sheets file for all we needed to pay for and make sure of, and who was in charge of what. It was a day we envisioned to be lovely and hassle-free so we intended to keep the variables to a minimum.
I thought I’d cover everything by hiring a big van.
The outing fell on a Saturday but some of us still had work to do, so some still had to file vacation leaves.
We decided we would have a nice breakfast on the road at a pancake restaurant we all liked as a family.
We identified the time everyone needed to get to our home, our pickup point, what time we would get to the park, and what time we intended to leave (additional hours carried consequences to the van rental rate).
We thought a dinner on the way back would also be nice; we could look back and laugh at all the silly rides – and photos – we would have taken.
I forgot to make room for surprises.
Big as the van was, we still lacked seats and Daughter 1 and partner needed to drive on their own, after all.
Breakfast was good but I was horrified the restaurant had phased out the cheese waffle that had been my favorite for so long. I was so disoriented — I had looked forward to wolfing down the waffle — that I forgot to use my discount card (I did say the place was a favorite) when I could have saved a big amount given our large group.
It was drizzling when we got to the park and could not take rides right away. When the rain abated, it became so hot. And then it rained again. And so on.
The couple had car trouble and did not catch up with us until about an hour or two later.
Early on in the excursion, we saw a harmless-looking ride of hot-air balloons that revolved around a center.
Eagerly I jumped into that one, but was sorry just a few minutes later as I climbed out – staggered out would be a better way to put it — of my seat.
Walking around the park and into the restaurant where the rest of us had claimed territory, everything was still spinning. I imagined being at home and resting on my bed. What have I done?
“The spirit is willing…” my friend said. I had to throw up to get my bearings back.
I was left with no choice but to spend the rest of day inside our designated HQ, a row of tables where we dumped our bags.
Daughter 1 who just had an operation two months before, my best friend (her ninang), and I gabbed away while watching everyone else’s bags.
All the others filed in and out of the resturant, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in larger groups, to take rides or rest or drink or eat.
Occasionally my BFF and I also went out to survey the food stalls offering the usual fare. Popcorn, frozen soda, hotdogs on stick, and more popcorn. Needless to say, heart and stomach were both full.
Eventually, some of the riders said they had ridden all they could.
Son 1 and his SO got me a stuffed pawikan which I named Wika (Wikang Pawikan had a nice ring to it, I thought).
Only the youngest in our group, Son 2 and his SO, did not seem fazed by all the rides.
As night fell, we gawked at the fireworks.
Toward closing, head spinning or not, I relented and took several rounds of a rather relaxing river ride – that is, relaxing if the water did not drench your part of the rubber boat. One for the road. Or two.
I was all set to enjoy the ride home but got dizzy again, and slept. We ended up foregoing dinner, only to realize when we got home and after all the others had gone, that we were famished.
The trip reminded me that one cannot plan everything down to the last detail.
Among the surprises: “___ all you can” does not mean endless.
You can only ride so much, eat so much, anything so much.
The body undergoes wear and tear.
I was 21 when I first went to that park, blowing my first (meager) salary on the rides.
I dropped a headband from one of the thrill rides I can no longer recall.
I went two more times with the kids, first when there were just three of them, and a decade later when we were just striking out on our own.
I remember enjoying rides with them and not feeling ill.
But sitting down doing nothing is equally precious, especially if it is spent sitting still with the people who truly matter to you.
The snapshots were great, capturing a great day that would form part of my core memory.
Since then we have gone back to our respective routines.
There was a hospitalization.
There was a move abroad for higher studies.
There was more work to be done.
But I look at the photos and it is like I am at the park again, giddy from the warmth of togetherness.
That was the first time all four kids were simultaneously in relationships and my only hope was that I had raised them to be decent partners, offering liberating and not limiting love, and encouraging the other to keep growing.
Who knows what will happen in the future?
There will be bumps, but I am confident the people who deserve to be in our lives – family members who feel like friends, and friends who feel like family — will remain, threats and trials notwithstanding.
I will probably never take another roller coaster ride again.
In an existence which I believe is enchanted and magical, though by no means perfect, that is all right.
(Adelle Chua is an assistant professor of journalism at the UP College of Mass Communication. She was opinion editor and columnist for this newspaper for 15 years until 2021.)