A probinsyana girl, a gold heart, grief, privilege, poverty, and learning that love can exist beside healing.

There’s a part in the video where I was still standing outside the Tiffany & Co. store, zooming in on the Tiffany sign from afar before finally walking in. And honestly? My heart was beating so fast it was almost embarrassing. 😂

Because imagine this.

I’m just a probinsyana girl from the Philippines who grew up seeing places like Tiffany only in movies. Especially in Breakfast at Tiffany’s starring Audrey Hepburn. Tiffany always felt so glamorous. So sosyal. So untouchable. One of those places that subconsciously felt like it belonged to another world. Another kind of woman. Another kind of life.

And then suddenly there I was.

Standing right outside an actual Tiffany & Co. store with Dada Hanz and Tuz beside me, about to walk in.

The store was quiet when we entered. No customers. Just us and the sales associate. I was trying so hard to act calm while internally I already felt emotional. The kind of emotional where you can feel your chest tightening because part of you still can’t believe you’re allowed to be there.

Not because of the luxury itself.

But because moments like that have a strange way of showing you how far life has taken you from the little girl you used to be.

There’s also another layer to this story that’s honestly hard to explain unless you grew up with a very confusing relationship with money, status, and self-worth.

Because technically… I’ve experienced both poverty and privilege in one lifetime.

I grew up with a dad who was jobless, alcoholic, and addicted to gambling. My mom was a government employee trying her best to make ends meet for three children while carrying the weight of the whole family almost alone. And if you live in the Philippines, you know government salaries back then were not exactly luxurious unless you came from political dynasties or extremely powerful families.

There were moments in childhood when I genuinely felt poor.

I still remember picking up bottles in school at St. Scholastica’s Academy just so I could buy myself lunch because my dad would sometimes forget to give us baon even if my mom had already left money for us before going to work. Imagine being surrounded by rich classmates while quietly trying to figure out where your next meal allowance would come from.

That kind of experience changes something inside a child.

You grow up learning not to ask for too much.
Not to need too much.
Not to expect too much.

But life also became strangely contradictory later on.

During my teenage years, I eventually lived with my grandparents, whom we considered rich. My lolo was a Ph.D., a lawyer, a former regional superintendent of the Department of Education, and former president of the Philippine Association of Schools Superintendents. My step lola was also highly accomplished — another PhD holder, another regional DepEd superintendent, and later a member of the board of trustees of Government Service Insurance System.

Suddenly my world became completely different.

Drivers.
Helpers.
Meetings with mayors and high-ranking officials casually happening inside the house.

And eventually, because of my grandmother’s influence, I became her Executive Assistant V at GSIS at a very young age and later got absorbed into a high-paying HR position there.

So technically… by my twenties, I was already earning well. I was carrying bundles of cash while going out with friends in Makati, The Fort, and Tomas Morato. I bought my own house at 27.

From the outside, it probably looked like I had “made it.”

But emotionally?

I still carried the nervous system of the little girl who felt forgotten.

And I think that’s what people sometimes don’t understand about healing.

Money can change your lifestyle very quickly.

But self-worth changes much slower.

You can live around wealth for years and still secretly feel like you don’t fully belong there.
You can become successful and still feel emotionally unseen.
You can buy your own house and still feel abandoned inside.

Because if I’m being completely honest, some of the deepest wounds in my life were never really about money.

They were about not feeling chosen.
Not feeling prioritized.
Not feeling deeply seen.

I experienced that pattern over and over again in different forms throughout my life.

When my ex-husband repeatedly chose work, friends, and other people over me.
When my parents didn’t attend the beach wedding I spent my whole life dreaming about.
When I quietly learned growing up that my siblings’ needs often felt louder, more urgent, more important than mine because I was the “disciplined” one. The “strong” one. The one who could handle herself.

And children internalize those things silently.

You start becoming hyper-independent not because you’re naturally strong… but because somewhere along the way, you unconsciously learned that needing less makes you easier to love.

So even when life later gave me access to money, titles, success, properties, influence, luxury experiences, and rooms full of powerful people…

there was still a part of me emotionally standing outside the glass window looking in.

Still wondering if I truly belonged there.
Still wondering if I was finally enough.

And maybe that’s why I cried so hard inside Tiffany.

Because for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t abandoning myself emotionally inside the experience.

I wasn’t minimizing what I wanted.
I wasn’t talking myself out of receiving something beautiful.
I wasn’t forcing myself to be “practical” to earn my worthiness.

I simply allowed myself to love something.

And allowed myself to receive it.

And maybe that’s partly why my Tiffany experience affected me so deeply.

Because standing there inside that store, I realized this wasn’t just about finally being able to afford something expensive.

It was about finally allowing myself to fully receive something beautiful without guilt, shame, or the feeling that I had to emotionally earn my right to have it.

I originally went there looking for the Elsa Peretti Open Heart piece because I already decided beforehand that I wanted to buy something meaningful for Baby Lux.

Something permanent.
Something I could wear every single day and never remove again.

Baby Lux’s full name is Chanel Tiffany Dior.

That’s why I specifically wanted it to come from Tiffany or Dior. Not because I needed luxury. Not because I wanted to show off. But because somehow those names became part of her story too.

And I didn’t want to forget her.

I wanted something I could touch whenever I miss her. Something that would stay close to my body every day. Something that would quietly remind me:

“She existed. She mattered. She changed me.”

The sales associate started showing me different pieces. Locks. Bracelets. Necklaces. Beautiful things I honestly never imagined I would hold in my own hands one day.

And then he showed me the Return to Tiffany heart pendant necklace.

The moment I saw it, I just knew.

You know those rare moments when your body reacts before your brain does? That was exactly what happened. I literally got goosebumps.

Solid 18K gold heart.

“Tiffany” already engraved on it.

And a tiny natural diamond sitting on top.

It suddenly felt too perfect.

Like somehow it had been quietly waiting for me.

And yes, ₱93,000 is expensive. Especially knowing I could buy 18K gold elsewhere for much cheaper. Normally my brain computes prices automatically. Sulit ba? Practical ba? Worth it ba?

But during that moment, something shifted.

Because I realized I wasn’t really buying jewelry.

I was buying something to hold grief.
Something to hold love.
Something to hold memory.

And grief is strange that way. Sometimes it wants rituals. Sometimes it wants symbols. Sometimes it wants physical objects because the heart desperately needs somewhere to place all the love that suddenly has nowhere to go.

That necklace became that place for me.

A tangible reminder that Baby Lux was real.

Real enough to change me forever.

Real enough that even now, my love for her still exists physically inside my body somewhere.

Maybe that’s also why the experience affected me so deeply.

Because underneath the Tiffany dream… underneath the luxury… underneath the excitement of finally entering a store I once only saw in movies… this was never really about jewelry.

It was about love.

The kind of love that continues existing even after loss.
The kind of love that survives grief.
The kind of love that quietly heals parts of you that have felt unseen for decades.

And maybe one day, decades from now, this necklace will end up with one of Tuz’s future daughters. Maybe she’ll ask where it came from. Maybe this story will be told again.

And maybe that tiny gold heart will continue carrying love long after I’m gone too.