what now?

i seem to be plagued by this question more persistently now than ever before.

i am three years away from hitting my third decade of existence. i have just finished my graduate degree, and i have just gotten back from living abroad. like it or not, acknowledged or not, i am now a full-grown adult. and any decision i make is going to set the course of my life for the next few months at least, if not years.

so now what?

essentially, i am faced with two basic decisions. to stay, or to go.

earlier i had wished stay in europe and build my future there. but entire graduate school experience has proven to be a bit too harsh, and i needed to come home and regain some balance in my life. i convinced myself that i should plant my roots closer to home.

now i am rethinking that strategy.

living in a cosmopolitan city-state along the equator, far enough from home, is well and good. but will it satisfy me? my inner being says no. i decided to come back to asia because i had enough of european snobbery. i thought being in my home turf will serve me better. at least i will not be treated as a second-rate citizen. but is that what is really important to me? truth be told - nobody can make me feel bad about myself unless i allow them to. it is one of the painful lessons i have learned of late, and maybe i didn't learn it soon enough.

there is this longing in my heart to go back to that land where i discovered myself. where i am not who everyone else wants me to be, but who i truly am. unfettered, uninhibited, unspoilt. where i can enjoy exhibitions and theatre and opera and classical concerts. where i can walk in the park in the middle of the day if i need to clear my head. where life is not just about shopping malls and traffic jams and television.

perhaps i am clinging too much to the past. circumstances have led me back here, and i had no strength of will to fight it any longer. i have accepted it as my lot in life.

i've sold out.

perhaps i've given up on the idea of happily ever after.

but i haven't forgotten what could be. and as long as i have that memory, my heart will forever be restless.