Always, Amanda

Epilogue

Amanda sighed in relief.

"This feels heaven," she murmured against the soft blanket of the comfortable bed she flopped into. This was luxury. She never had the comfiest bed for the last four months of her soul-searching.

Kicking off her shoes, she decided to take a nap first, her bath could wait.

After a month in New Zealand when she had had enough of yoga, Amanda tried backpacking in Australia and found herself picking fruits during the season to earn some dollars. She met new friends and even though sometimes she had to sleep on someone else's hard couch to spend the night, she had never been so content with her life. She tried surfing and spent some time just lounging around the beach, lazily enjoying the sea and the sun. She had a tan as a souvenir.

Then Amanda spent a couple of weeks teaching English in China. There, she spent her time in an old village teaching children in exchange for food and a place to live in. And during her off time, she enjoyed sightseeing and observing the culture of people so different from hers. She came to live with drinking tea more than the coffee she became addicted with during those graveyard shifts she spent in the hospital before.

It was the slow pace of life she came to embrace during those four months that finally made her felt like she could again breathe.

Amanda never felt freer her whole life than those times she spent in foreign lands. No one was there to judge or question her decisions in life and she no longer cared about what her parents thought of her impulsive actions the same time they decided to divorce. She was done with people's expectations about her.

She finally learned that she only needed to be happy with her own decisions and choices and no one else. It was scary at first but she came to overcome her fears and took some risk she thought she could not do herself.

Today though, she came back to her country of origin because of her sister. She finally has a niece to spoil and this weekend was her baptism. She couldn't miss it for the world.

Throwing the blanket offs her tired body after a few minutes of napping, Amanda groaned hearing her phone went off by the bedside table. Not even an hour when she turned on her damn phone and now it was disturbing her peace already.

"Hello?" she muttered sleepily, not bothering to look at the caller ID.

"Mandy!" Her sister's cheerful greeting from the other end, of course who would call her at this time but her one and only sister who had impeccable timing as always. "Are you at the house already?"

"Yeah, I just arrived an hour ago," she sat up on bed and ran her palms against her sleepy face. She needed a bath soon, her skin felt sticky from the flights she had. "I am in my old bed right now before you decided to bother me with your call. Mom's in her yoga class after she dropped me off."

"Sorry I couldn't pick you up from the airport."

"It's okay. Don't worry about it. Mom's been a cheerful company the whole ride home."

"Yeah, yoga's doing well for her. Anyway, I miss you my little sister. I hope you are not going to pack your bags sooner and go off again without saying goodbye to me going to God knows where." Her sister, Tasha's voice was soft but Amanda could hear the hard edge of worry in there.

"Don't worry sis, it's not gonna happen soon," she reassured her.

Amanda just had some things to sort out. She finally knew what she wanted to do with her life.

"Good. My little angel needs her aunt after all."

"How's Thaliana? I couldn't wait to meet her." Amanda responded as she walked barefooted from her bedroom down the stairs to locate her mom's wifi box to turn it on. Since she's back in the state and in her hometown, she might as well check her mails. She hadn't checked it for a few months already.