3rd Homecoming

I was beginning to run out of patience while waiting for my flight to Balikpapan at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport. The wait seemed to go on forever. It was my third homecoming, but felt like the first since I was away from family for nearly 10 months. My longing for home couldn’t be resisted anymore. So I took my camera out of the bag, looked out the window, and snapped a picture of Garuda Indonesia Airlines to distract myself.

My arrival home was something Mom had been hoping for since I was still in Kuala Lumpur. When I saw her standing in the airport waiting area, a welcoming smile was carved on her face. I locked my arms around her and pressed my lips very lightly to her forehead. She was just grinning and gave me a bear hug. It wasn’t quite an emotional homecoming; it was just because we missed each other badly. When I arrived home and met with my family again, I was thinking, “Gosh, this is my happy home, full of love.”

Nothing much happened in the first week I was there. I only went to some of my favourite eating places with Mom by bike – well, yeah, most every girl in my family knows how to ride a motorbike, but I’m scared of riding downtown now because I haven’t ridden in such a long time. Our neighbour invited us to her garden in a suburb for picking rambutans and cempedaks. I’m not a lover of tropical fruits, but picking rambutans sounded fun for me and I could eat as much as I’d like for free, so I just smiled my agreement.

My 3rd homecoming.

One of the best things of returning home is a high-school reunion where I can meet and mess around with old school friends. We went for a movie and karaoke-ing, and played pool. My girls and I went swimming at a water park and slept over at one of their houses. We were reminiscing, gossiping and laughing ourselves silly while snacking all night. I really enjoyed myself – so did my friends.

Karaoke-ing and pool-ing with my friends.

Swimming at a water park with my girls.

Splish...Splash!

It was a pity two of my girls had an accident. They fell down from a motorbike while we were riding to a pool place. One of them got seven stitches on her tummy. Thank God, they weren’t seriously injured so that they could go home and took some rest. All of us were traumatised before – so were our parents, but later we laughed the incident off as just our silly recklessness.

Now, I can’t wait to come back to Kuala Lumpur and my mindless routine (doing assignments) when college starts again. At least I will still meet my college friends and hang out with them again. Spending a lot of time with them gossiping or just chilling out somewhere can be real fun. That’s why I miss them greatly :)