Coming of Age

I watched Alone/Together yesterday, and it really resonated with me, clearly because I can relate to Liza’s character more ways than one. In the movie, she played the character of Christine, someone who could-have-been-great (insert profession here)if-she-wanted-to twenty something who got stuck in a place with no clear direction.

I graduated college in 2012 with sheer determination in making it in the real world. My idealistic, go-getter self knew it was a jungle out there, sure, but I was hopeful. I had big dreams: I was going to write a book, see my name on the byline of a magazine, get featured on Young Star, and if time permits, paint on the side.

The world, my 21-year-old self thought, was my oyster.

But the universe has this funny way of turning things around just when we think we’re on the verge of becoming Someone, and in the summer of 2014, I made one of the dumbest decisions of my life. Like Christine, I was distraught with what was happening, fear got in the way, I put my dreams on the side and took the road most traveled.

To get by, I found myself waking up every night at 10, just when the rest of the world was already fast asleep. My vision of a perfect dream job turned into something that required me to sit in a cubicle for eight hours, daydreaming of what my life could have been.

As if the last couple of months weren’t challenging enough, 2018 decided to go on full bitch mode and put us to the test for the last time before the year ends.

Last Monday, just a week before Christmas, I found myself rushing to the bus station to get home in Marbel. That morning my sister called to bring the worst possible news: our mom had a stroke.

I have always hated the traffic jam and the long-ass bus ride going to my hometown, but that day I was grateful. It meant the inevitable could be delayed and I would be spared a little longer.

I eventually got to the hospital, saw her hooked up and dependent on machines, half of her body immobile, unable to talk or even swallow whole food.

Here was my mother—the one who took care of the family, who would go and nurse us and her friends when needed—now needing the care, on a much bigger scale.

But here is also a mother who doesn’t easily back down, who refuses to let her children see her suffer, and in the five days she was bedridden managed to move her fingers and right arm, a sure sign of recovery.

Today she’s back home in a wheelchair. Just in time for Christmas eve.

Thank you to everyone who took the time praying and visiting Mama in the hospital.

I was in sixth grade the first time I saw my father with disappointment on his face.

In a swimming competition, with the whole school watching, he saw his son leading the first twenty yards. And then the poor kid felt a sudden pain in his ear (raptured eardrum the doctor would later tell them) and slowed down. Ran out of air. And then stopped in the middle of the second lap.

He watched as the crowd grew silent, including his father, who stood up from the bleachers and walked out.

Understand that this was a school who wouldn’t forgive you for losing, and equated quitting with failure. Quit and you’re forever branded a loser.

Embarrassed, the eleven-year-old wore his goggles back on, never mind that his ear was in excruciating pain and went back to the race. Arms moving like windmills on fastforward, and his legs, well, he was kicking it like splinter.

We’re less than two months away to 2019.

I have grand realisations this year, mostly shared during after-work drunken sessions, or with strangers I meet during solo backpacking trips. In 2018, I lost a bestfriend-slash-lover over distance, almost lost my job, managed to bounce back, and a promotion came after. (Heck, I was so close to getting jailed for absentmindedly not standing up for the national anthem inside the cinema!)

Here’s to hoping everyone manages peace even for a little while. I have discovered mine can be found on the beach in the wee hours of the morning, before the sun fully rises, when it’s still quiet and all I hear are the little ruffles of water as it hits the sand.

I hope everyone find theirs.

I have this picture in my head, that maybe in three or five years you would bump into me in a bar, with someone else by my side, and the two of us very happy. You would look at me and I would look at you, and both of us wouldn't say anything. But we'd both know that I had made it, and that I was finally where I wanted to be.

More than its beautifully choreographed musical numbers and its candy-colored backdrop, La La Land tells us (that many of the fairy tales we read as kids didn't) that sometimes we meet the love that's right for us, but only we never get to keep them, nor do we get to rewrite the story for it to have a happy ending. Because sometimes, and it comes with a heavy heart to say, that we do not always get to hold onto the loves of our lives because love isn't all that there is. Maybe love wants to move out and get a bustling career in a big city like Paris, while you want to stay in the little town you're in and continue to play jazz music. Maybe love has a whole, wide world to go and explore and, in Mark Twain's words, you do not want to throw the bowlines, away from the safe harbor and catch the trade winds.

Out of habit, Angelo and I found ourselves at a bookshop after having lunch at the mall yesterday. And as I was casually browsing through the new magazines that hit the shelves, I remember myself thinking that it’s missing one title; one that’s treasured by most teenagers during my formative years. Only realizing that last month, without warning, Candy announced in their November issue that they would cease publication starting December. Candy, this shining beacon of hope, saying goodbye. Imagine the horror of a magazine devotee like me, who grew up in Rhode Island with six brothers and pretended to go to soccer practice when I really went to sewing class and read Candy under the covers at night with a flashlight. Movie-quoting The Devil Wears Prada aside, it broke (and it continues to break) my heart hearing (and there’s no other way of putting it and I’m sorry) the bad news.    

I loved Candy so much I didn't mind starving come recess time in high school to save up for the next issue. There was no greater feeling than getting your hands on the new issue, removing it out of its plastic wrap, sniffing through the freshly printed glossy pages, and reading the magazine from cover to cover.   

The editors were my heroes, and dreamt of one day working with them. Writing Ines an email, and getting a response from her the next day, gave me the same chills the way a dying girl stricken with lung cancer felt when her favorite author from Amsterdam responded to her fan mail. I was over the moon.  

In college, I dreamt of one day writing my own essay for Reality Bites, and I remember myself thinking that I better wait until I run into that life-changing story that’s worthy of a space in the magazine. And so, stories happened, and just when I thought it time to put pen to paper, Candy folded. I lost my chance. 

Be that as it may, somewhere inside big carton boxes in my parents’ place in South Cotabato, a decade’s worth of these magazines are packed, each carefully wrapped in plastic, waiting to be read again. And loved.