My dream.....

My dreams have always been small—childish, even. The kind you could fold into paper planes and throw across a classroom. People talk about ambition like it should be grand, something that shakes the ground you walk on, but mine? They were simple. Almost embarrassingly so.

I wanted to ride an airplane at least once in my life. I wanted to know if my hands would grow cold the way they do whenever I face something unfamiliar. Would they shiver as the cabin door closes, sealing me inside a metal bird that dares to defy gravity?

Whenever I looked up at the sky, I wondered what it would feel like to be closer to the clouds—to see them not as shapes from the ground but as neighbors outside my window. I wanted to know how the earth looks when it’s no longer beneath my feet, but far away, small enough to cup in my hands. I wanted to breathe the air that exists in that quiet space between the ground and the heavens, to fill my lungs with something weightless.

I imagined I wouldn’t get bored up there, even if the flight took hours. I’d press my forehead against the window, tracing the lines of mountains, rivers, and seas, committing them to memory like a map of a world I might never see again. I’d probably wonder if the people below were living ordinary days while I sat above them, drifting through clouds that would never remember my name.

And maybe—just maybe—I’d wonder what it’s like to leave the Philippines behind. Not because I hate it here, but because I’m curious. Curious about what it feels like to unhook myself from the place that shaped me. To see if distance can make me feel lighter.

It’s the same way children dream of sailing far beyond their small towns, using nothing but imagination to escape the weight of reality. I used to imagine myself disappearing from every familiar street, every corner that knows the sound of my footsteps. I wanted to walk where no one knew me, to be invisible in a sea of strangers.

I think about what it would be like to sit in an airport, waiting for a flight that will take me far away from the life I’ve always known. How it would feel to watch my homeland shrink into nothingness beneath me. Would it hurt? Or would it feel like breathing after holding my breath for too long?

Sometimes I wonder if the desire to leave is a kind of betrayal. But then again, maybe it’s just human nature to crave something beyond the horizon. To want to touch a piece of the sky and claim it as your own.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever get that chance. Maybe my dreams will stay folded, tucked away in some forgotten drawer of my life. But if I ever do find myself on that plane, I know I’ll be the quiet passenger by the window, memorizing the way the clouds look from up close, wishing I could stay there forever—somewhere between here and nowhere, where the air is thin but my heart is full.