by
Isabelle Myeisha R. Cembrano
September 21, 2026
If you ask me to pack my entire life in a duffel bag, I could probably do it in less than 10 minutes—a survival instinct, or, as some would say, a life skill learned by someone who grew up with separated parents.
In the Philippines, where divorce remains illegal and annulment deemed inaccessible, children like me have to take the brunt by living double lives that came with two sets of everything: Two toothbrushes. Two bath towels. Two groceries. Two laundry baskets. Two birthdays. Two Christmases.
While other kids associate packing a duffel bag with going on a holiday, I had associated it with short weekends that left me with only little to no time to relax.
At 7 years old, my life had become an endless series of packing and unpacking toward an unknown destination held by two completely different people who were entrapped by a marriage contract.
For more than a decade, this has been the living conditions of my two brothers and me: ready to leap and always on the go.
It wasn’t until my parents had a huge argument one night that led us to stay at my grandparents’ house for a “short vacation.” What initially began as a two-day stay was extended into a weekly routine that became a routine not by choice, but out of sheer necessity.
I became one of three Filipino youth who grew up without both parents. I was at the most formative stages of my life when I had to grapple with the confusion of why I had to pack my bags every so often to settle in a new household.
In retrospect, it was never really a spoken agreement between my parents on who got who on what days; it was more of a sporadic arrangement of when and where the three children would be spending the weekend.
Still, it was a disorienting experience. Going back and forth between two cities and transferring to three different high schools for my basic education was a lot to take in such a short time.
It was only in 2018 when my parents decidedly separated that a set-up for us siblings to spend the weekends at my dad’s and weekdays at my mom’s was established.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which only made our schedule more unpredictable due to restrictions brought by the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ). The set-up was reversed. My siblings and I would stay at my dad’s place during weekdays and at my mom’s place during weekends.
This also came with the discomfort of having to answer the simplest of questions with difficulty. “Where do you live?” friends and teachers would ask me. I could either tell a long sob story of my life or cut to the chase by saying how my parents are separated. I eventually learned how to answer the question truthfully without batting an eye.
But I no longer wanted to just be the girl who was known for growing up with unfortunate circumstances. I wanted to be someone who people remembered for her fortitude despite the cards she was dealt.
I became a meticulous person who planned out every single detail of my life. I built a feasible routine that worked for my parents but, at the same time, was still convenient enough to get me the results that I wanted.
I would stay at my dad’s place during weekdays for school and at my mom’s place to rest during weekends if I was not busy doing schoolwork.
For the first time in my life, I had a clear vision of where I wanted to go: I was to take the UPCAT, graduate senior high school at the top of my class, study journalism, and permanently stay with my mom for college.
I was adamant about getting what I wanted, and I was not about to let anyone tell me otherwise, or at least that was what I thought.
The day of the UPCAT 2024 results came, and a green congratulations glowed from my laptop screen. I had passed in a UP campus that was kilometers away from my home and that I was waitlisted for my first degree program of choice—all of which were not in my plans.
I was at the crossroads on whether I was to stay in the comfort of my hometown or take a leap of faith by uprooting myself for the nth time to study in an entirely foreign city.
Thankfully, I had a breakthrough: perhaps this was what the long days of packing and unpacking my life in and out of a duffel bag were preparing me for.
Tus, a month later, I did what I did best by once again packing up my entire life and said my goodbyes to everyone I knew. All the routines I built and the comfort I grew accustomed to were soon forgotten and replaced with new ones.
Now I’ve unpacked in my dorm in Baguio City, settled into my priority college program, and am finally living on my own terms with the liberty to decide when and where I get to go home next.
In this third city where I made a new home, I no longer carry the weight of my duffel bag as if it were a burden trying to drag me down. I now understand that it was only training me to be strong and independent enough to live even 255 kilometers away from home.
