Guilt: Once Every Two Months.

I seriously love my parents.

My mother is coming to Manila for the weekend. I've probably said this before, but me and my siblings don't get to see our parents often enough. It's one of the unavoidables of sending your kids far away so they can study in their dream schools.

Whenever my parents come to Manila, it's pretty much a big deal. We try to spend as much time with them as possible: we shop and eat and talk and laugh... we try to do the typical things that Filipino families do on Sundays.

Unfortunately, flights are booked months beforehand and bad timing cannot always be avoided. I was supposed to be cramming a lot of academic stuff into my weekend, which means that family time has to be cut short.

Do you know how that makes me feel?

Guilty. That's how I feel.

Now I'm not the type to go moping around, missing people, and becoming homesick. But we rarely see them nowadays. Rarely = once every two months if we're lucky.

This isn't the first time this has happened. I remember a certain hospital design plate getting in the way of our bonding moment back in third year. I felt really bad back then. 24 hours of nonstop work plus having to present it in PGH the day after has made me cranky and unfit for company. I fell asleep in the FX ride home. Thankfully, the kind driver woke me up. It was exhausting, and I slept through my mother's visit.

But through it all, the parents understand. My father gets a little whiny (eh, kelan tayo lalabas?!?), but he gets it too.

When I told her of my pesteng weekend, my mother told me that all they come here for is to see us (and to buy things they can't buy in Mindanao... charot, as if ang daming pera). Just as long as they're sure we're okay, they're okay. Of course it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, but that doesn't take away the guilt.

She said they were happy to see that we're working hard. Ah, Mama, if you can only see me during bum days.