Grief is often associated with loss like the absence of something, or someone once cherished. But what if grief could also rise in the face of something new, something unfamiliar? What if grief came with success, opportunity, and the spaces we fought to enter? Impostor syndrome, for many of us in the diaspora, mimics the stages of grief. It’s the mourning of certainty, the loss of feeling at home within ourselves. It’s the quiet crumbling of confidence and the tension between visibility and vulnerability.

For years, I carried that anger, building walls to keep my community at a distance—so they couldn’t reject me first. Whether it was my morena skin, my posture, my voice, or my defiant stare, I feared being found lacking. It wasn’t until I witnessed Indigenous, First Nations, and Black diasporic communities reclaiming their identities that I even considered redefining what it meant to be Filipino.

Migratory grief is the quiet ache of homesickness wrapped in gratitude. It’s the scent of childhood meals now faint in memory, the warmth of familiar traditions that feel distant, the longing for streets that exist only in remembering. It is the mourning of a version of yourself that only existed in that place, with those people. It’s not just about geography. It’s about carrying that loss in ways you don’t always have words for.

Hain is a simple act that holds deep personal and cultural significance to me. Setting the table for dinner is a simple tradition from my parents’ house that I really miss. “Maghain ka na Charl,” is something I would never hear in my own small apartment I share with my husband, where we don’t even have a dining table, and I can honestly say I miss the ritual of hain.