I confess: I am a probinsiyana. I have spent practically my whole life in Vigan and embraced all that being a Bigueño, Ilocana and probinsiyana entails. After graduating high school, I lived in Manila to study college. I felt like screaming “FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOM!!!” the minute I stepped on the streets of Manila—which then resulted in me spending five years to take up a four-year course. After getting over the initial promdi-set-loose-in-the-city phase (which resulted in that extra year in college), I managed to get my act together and pretty soon I was planning all the amazing things in store for me after graduation.
My parents never demanded it but I knew in my heart that I was meant to come back to my hometown, return to the provincial life I yearned for when I was living in Manila, and make it big. I was a total visionary, not really having a clear cut plan but knowing I aimed to, in just one year, put up businessES (yes, plural) and earn more than I would if I worked for a company in Manila, to balance all those businesses AND teach in a nearby university, manage to work for both my parents separately, and still maintain a healthy social life.
Practicing my badass professional look during my college graduation
ONE YEAR LATER: I earn less than what I would have if I worked for a company in Manila, work for my dad and try to come up with small time businesses on the side that I can’t focus on because I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BALANCE MY TIME, do not teach in the University, spend too much time on the net, try to have a social life, and wallow in the constant question of “WHAT THE HECK DID I GET MYSELF INTO?” I was almost ready to just pack all my stuff again and go back to Manila thinking I had failed. It’s not that I didn’t have the opportunities (they were everywhere!), I just got overwhelmed with all the idealistic plans I had, only to realize that sh*t happens—not everything can go as planned (and everything definitely did not). I also made the mistake of rationalizing that maybe I made the wrong choice and I would have succeeded if I had stayed in Manila. I was stuck and felt stuck in the hometown I was so eager to go home to, worse of all I had lost sight of all the things I loved being a probinsiyana for. I was miserable.
Recently though, I had the brilliant epiphany that the idealistic visions I was desperately trying to pattern my life on were made in Manila and did not fit the real situation I was put in when I came home. More importantly, I realized that my visions were not really planned out and did not include all the hard work it entailed. I was too excited for the end goals that I ended up DREAMING and not actually DOING. Once I understood this, I became a lot more realistic with what I had to do to make it work.
I had to narrow down what I wanted to do and find out which ones were actually doable NOW, putting off the other goals for later so I could focus on the tasks at hand. More importantly, I had to remember the reasons why I wanted to come back: my family is here, time stops in the province, the cost of living is lower, I have friends here I’ve known forever who are more than willing to help me, and the simple life always entailed simpler problems. Most of all, I had to realize that living in Vigan—or any place for that matter—literally meant LIVING. No more oversleeping, excessive day dreaming, staying in my room the whole day, too much Internet, or any combination of the four, I had to go out and embrace my hometown and the provincial life with open arms and an open mind.
And that’s why I decided to start this blog, to chronicle the long overdue journey I’m currently taking to reach my goals and live the provincial life. It will be fun and funny, insightful or confusing, it might be appetizing, enticing or frustrating, it’ll be a lot of different things but I’m sure it will be exciting. So park the kariton, pull up a bamboo bench, grab a cup of kape and read on.
WELCOME TO MY PROBINSIYANA LIFE.
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