I am not there yet. Yet I know that though my vision is quite hazy… I am confident that I will reach it. There are times where my age escapes me. All my life I’ve always felt misplaced. In grade school, everyone like Tom Cruise. I saw a man with a unibrow (we are talking Tom Cruise pre-Top Gun… not much work yet there but now is a completely different story). Yet despite my tepid interest in this man who would be king, I jumped in the bandwagon and was involved in the rather idiotic verbal discourse about this chap. Frankly, my fried chicken and Maggi interested me more but I was a good actress. This charade of being a horny pre-teen went on with several singers and actors whose stars faded faster than a fiz wiz in my mouth. Being a good actress, I think, helped me cruise through life rather smoothly during my frist ten years of living consciously of the world, then I stopped believing myself. I stopped fooling myself that the world will be just the way it should if I just didn’t think and simply followed.
High school was tough. I was a rail of a person. I had braces that had multi-colored elastics, which I secretly thought were cool, everybody else thought otherwise. The thing about high school is that it’s probably the most homogenous society one can live in. You were forced to be a trend slave. The cool seniors highlighted their hair (which was not allowed by the school) and shaved. Of course, the dorkiest of the freshmen, me, wanted that, too. I streaked my hair in garish red till kingdom come and shaved my legs till the razor dulled. Yet sadly, I was still me and not them.
I quickly discovered alcohol, cigarettes and the most complicated culprit of adolescent well - being …boys (more on that some other time). I also grew apart from my childhood friends. Some saw it coming, others like my best friend didn’t take the breakup well. As children when we grow apart we simply take things as they are. However, as we grow older we start making promises, cultivate sentiments and discover that emotions will be the pill that will make our lives a constant soap opera. My best friend thought that we will thread through the rough terrains of life together. I sincerely thought so, too. I still did not know what naïve meant or that such a word for me was like Play-Doh. It was colorful, unlimited in its possibilities and I was its master. Wrong!
Don’t you think its between the ages 14-20 that we seem to transform into the people that we are meant to be? It’s not really noticeable during one’s childhood. However, the teenage years is sort of like a test of our strength, principles, resiliency and fashion sense. It’s during this time I’ve made the most mistakes. It’s also during this time I gave too much of myself to people who did not deserve what I had to offer. False friendships, faux relationships, improbable dreams, small allowances, all are realized when you reach a certain level of maturity. Of course one never stops growing. Everyday I learn something new. Everyday I learn to appreciate myself more and more. Everyday I also learn to hate some things about myself or my surroundings that beforehand I thought of as innocuous. We became more responsible not only to ourselves, but we also learn to be accountable to our loved ones.
Today was my first day in school. Most of my classmates came from jobs that they fled because it was not "them". Mostly, they are va or femme. No objects of desire for me. Not even a straight ugly boy. Oh well, that’s good I think. God knows what happens when I fall in love anyway. All caution and sensibility flies out of the window. They were an interesting bunch, I must say. It was so different from my first day in high school even college. I went to Assumption High School. Previously, I went to a small co-ed international school. My seventh grade batch consisted of 10 kids. So imagine my fear factor as I was about to enter a school with considerably larger population. I was so scared. I really believed that I would be friendless forever. Anyway, I came in with my uniform showcasing a long tie and knee-length skirt. I swear I felt like the nerd in those horrible no-script teen movies. Plus some girls were mean. They were laughing at me. Then my first day also I was walking to the canteen alone and I was descending the stairs I slipped on the pebbled cement staircase. I fell down in full view of AC with my nerdy Care Bear panties exposed. These days not much has changed except for the panties (Victoria’s Secret na!) but I still fall flat on my butt. However, these days I also walk much taller. I no longer blush when I fall because I’m comfortable with myself. Sometimes though I catch myself still biting my nails and pulling my hair out of nervousness and shyness. For now, I’m a shadow of my past self and blossoming seed of my future self.
In life there are no reruns. Nothing happens twice. If you think it each second that we spend living can never be emulated. High school was filled with stupid misdeeds. The true glory of adolescence is in surviving your mistakes. If you do an imperceptive thing again, chances are the consequences are much more dire than for the first time around. I learned never to fool around with you friend’s boyfriend (first year high school). I learned to never cheat on a quiz if you’re not a dexterous cheat (once in high school then never again…really). I learned to share your food because the food tastes so much better when your making agawan. I learned to never wear a lace bra under your uniform. I learned that a wonderbra does not make you a woman …and so does having a boyfriend. I learned that you should never feel guilty for outgrowing some of your friends (sometimes its better that way). I also learned that once you hate math…you’ll hate it forever.
I’m a sentimental fool. I travel with all my photo albums (I don’t care if I’m overweight na!). Sometimes when I feel lonely or perplexed I look at my cheesy high school albums adorned with magic markers and stickers. It transports me to a time when I thought the biggest problem in the world was having a midnight curfew. It allows me to have an entirely different outlook of my current situation. It also makes appreciate the person I am now and it makes me look forward to whatever else I have to face in the future. In high school I have felt the world almost came to an end one too many times. However, the horsemen of the Apocalypse never came. The world never ended, it only got better.