Plates and Pages: How Jollibee Meal Showed Me We’ve Come a Long Way

We sat inside Jollibee not because it was a destination, but because we needed somewhere to wait. The hours stretched between errands at the City Hall, heavy with forms and signatures and the quiet hope of beginnings. So we filled the waiting with food. A simple lunch turned into something slightly more, an extra order of large fries, a strawberry burst choco sundae melting slowly between conversations, a small permission to indulge. I had my chicken. My sister had her spaghetti and a coke float. Nothing extravagant, but more than what we used to allow ourselves.

Across from us sat two students. Their table was quieter, their choices more careful. A one-piece burger steak and a coke float, likely the mix and match, the kind you choose when you are counting, when every peso has to stretch just enough. I found myself watching them not out of judgment, but recognition. There was something familiar in the way they ate, unhurried, intentional, as if making the most out of what they had.

We were once like that too.

There was a time when eating at Jollibee already felt like a reward, not a pause in between tasks. A time when adding fries or dessert was not even a question, it simply was not part of the plan. We learned how to choose the cheaper option without complaint, how to be full without asking for more. We knew how to stay within the limits of what we could afford, even when we wanted otherwise.

And now, without much announcement, something has shifted.

We did not become extravagant. We did not suddenly have abundance spilling from our hands. But we gained something quieter, room. Room to add a little extra. Room to say yes to small cravings without calculating too much. Room to sit in a place like Jollibee and not just think about what is enough, but what is also okay to enjoy.

It made me realize that splurging, at least for people like us, is not about excess. It is about distance. Distance from the version of ourselves who had to choose less. Distance from the constant weighing of needs versus wants. And yet, even in that distance, there is no forgetting.

Because as we took our bites, I could still see us in them.

And maybe that is the quiet truth beneath moments like this. Growth does not erase where you came from. It sits with it. It eats at the same table. It remembers what it meant to be careful, even while allowing itself to be a little more free.

We finished our food the same way we started our day, waiting. But somehow, the waiting felt lighter.

Not because of the food, but because of what it meant.

That we are no longer just surviving the in between.

We are slowly learning how to live in it too. - MESSY E.

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