May It Be - Enya

I miss Los Banos. Sunday afternoons and smooth jazz do this to you: wraps you in melancholic thoughts.

I miss Los Banos. It was my heaven, my escape from the world I am so used to living in. My two-year stay has been that epitome of wistful love, and no place has ever taken me as much as Los Banos.

In the back of my mind I knew I would not be destined to stay in Los Banos the rest of my life. I was there as a transient, I will move on to better and bigger things. If I hadn't left after two years, I still would have left after four years. I had always known that, but still, I loved Los Banos and wished that Los Banos would be my home forever.

It's like a summer romance. I know it's just for the short while, and real life will happen later on. But it did not stop me from falling as hard as I could, just as summer loves usually are.

Before, I found hard to imagine to live a life outside Los Banos, but I did. I stayed for four years in Diliman, and didn't look back. But when did I look back, simple glimpses (even through pictures) of my memories--SU Building, Humanities steps, my old dorm, Carabao Park, Vega, grove, ACCI field... they all remind me of those times I wished were forever. Time used to pass by very slowly but very quickly.

Reminiscing Los Banos is like remembering an old flame. I have moved on with my life, just as Los Banos has moved on. Everything is still the same in Los Banos, but I hardly recognize it anymore. Los Banos does not recognize me, too, I have moved on from that dreamy writer-to-be to become a researcher with everything almost in her grasp.

I always say that Los Banos is like a passionate lover, someone you want but would be completely impractical and impossible to love, because Los Banos, while passionate, is held within that time you met and will change. Los Banos is a first love, and everything changes since that first love. Diliman, on the other hand, is like the perfect life partner, someone who is ideal but does not have that flame that attracted you to Los Banos in the first place. Diliman will be with you forever, will provide for you, but will never be like that first love.

I miss those days when Los Banos molded me to dream, but also to be afraid. When it molded me to stay strong, to have ideals and goals in life. It made me someone whom Diliman would love.