It’s Friday night, and I am sitting in a beautiful hotel room in Manila. The window looks out to a modernized nightscape, and I could see Shangri-la Hotel in a distance. The Conan O’Brien Show is playing on the television and the audience is laughing at a punch-line I did not catch.

And the battle between the room full of laughter and the head full of loneliness rages on in my ear cavity.

Tomorrow I will be leaving this hotel room, as I take my flight home to Singapore. Then the day after, on Father’s Day, I leave again for Beijing for yet another business trip. Yes, Happy Father’s day, Dad.

Just two editions of Halfway Magazine ago, I flew home from an 18-month work stint in China. Just a month into my new job, I am away from home again. I must say my parents are not pleased, and I should not blame them for thinking I am leading a separate life as someone else’s daughter.

My work here in Manila has been completed, and suddenly my room seems emptier after my suitcase is packed with my clothes, and my work papers tidied into a neat pile. My room is lovely…but empty. Self-pity sneaks up on me and gives me a solid whack on the head. “I fly in on Saturday; I leave on Sunday so I have only one night to spend at home!” The thought persists in my head after all the background noise clears. Home eludes me.

An ex-colleague of mine used to have it worse, I remember. Back when he was younger and driven in his work, he used to have to meet his clients in a number of Southeast Asian cities within any regular workweek. One time, he woke up in a hotel room not knowing where he was, though he last remembered last being in Bangkok. He looked out of his hotel window in complete confusion and saw a cityscape typical of any other Southeast Asian country, rectangular buildings of different heights, either beige, grey or white. It was practically useless in helping him identify his city, and he wished it was a bad dream.

“My first reaction would have been to turn on the television,” I laughed when he told his story. “I did,” he replied in defense, but found his television tuned in to CNN, which again, helped not one bit, so he panicked. Finally, spotting pointed straw hats some ladies in the streets below were wearing, he realised that he had somehow found his way to Hanoi, where he had an appointment with Mr. Who-and-who at noon that day.

It was but a short two minute episode, but it extinguished his enthusiasm for the fanciful so-called mobile lifestyle. It was time to put an end to that, he concluded, seeing how his sanity was already at breakpoint. And so, he left his company.

That was his story, but perhaps also of many others. How many are still immersed in that crazy in-transit lifestyle? I wondered.

Coming from the tiny “red dot” of Singapore, it is a reality for many of us to have to travel for work. Go to China! Go to India! Go to ASEAN! Do not be left behind! Go, go, go!

If Singapore is home, on the other hand, it is where you come back. You come back when you are tired, injured or lost. Home always welcomes you. So come back, when you have to; to rest, to recuperate, to recharge yourself. Before you throw yourself out into there into the global jungle again, that is.

I feel like one of those little ants that roam the wilderness in search of food, before they return to their nest with their bounty of the day, to present to their queen ant, and to build up the ant colony’s food reserves in preparation for winter. I follow the trail of many others who have gone before me, because they tell me there is much food to be found outside. Of course, at the same time they also warn me of the perils of the big bad world. Dangerous or not, however, what choice do I have?

I sigh, and I pack the last of my work documents into my suitcase, tonight will be my last night in Manila, and tomorrow will be my only night in Singapore. One night at home is better than none, of course. At least I am spending Father’s Day at home this year, which is not a minor feat considering I have already missed it six years consecutively.

Home is a luxury. Some of us have a home, but have little time to savour the comforting taste of familiarity. What little time I have, however, I owe it to myself to savour it to its very last drop.

Cindy Khoo is a Halfway Staff Writer

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