On finding neverland

Today is the first clear day in one long, soaking wet week. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I trudge along weighed down by an enormous umbrella –the first time I carry one along. I’ve counted four empty cabs whose drivers looked to me hopefully for a fare. As I’ve spent the past few days being buffeted by wind and rain while pleading with every saint in the calendar for a cab, it strikes me as cruel for taxis to appear now.

Tomorrow I turn 20 years old. It’s worse typed out in numbers: I’m turning 20. Twenty, for crying out loud.

I don’t want to be twenty. I want to be nineteen – forever and ever and ever and ever – and seeing as my maturity is on level with a 13-year-old’s, it’s understandable why I whine.

I’m not old enough to be 20.

The other day, I was crossing the street from Greenbelt to the PLDT building. I was in my brand-new zip jacket (worth all of P45 from the UK– a.k.a Baguio) and my best friend’s sneakers that I never gave back when we were 15. There I was, earphones in gear, ponytail bouncing, literally singing in the rain and on top of the world. I heard a couple of guys calling out "Miss, miss!" accompanied by whistles. Well what the hey, even in beat-up jeans and a sweater, I get whistled at by truck drivers.

So I stroll down to the other side, ego expanding, until finally the note of alarm in the voices registered in my head. I turn around, the Gin Blossoms’ rocking away with Till I Hear It From You on my player. The sight that greeted me is one that makes me wish I never heard of Ayala Avenue.

Trailing down the wet concrete was a line of my paraphernalia: tubes and pots of makeup, thesis readings, file-case, coins, the essential P10 secondhand romance novel, extra T-shirt, sanitary napkins (oh yes) and (it gets worse) extra underwear. Apparently, my ever-dependable, much battered backpack had managed to unzip itself (a result, I assume, of all my bounce, bounce, bouncing down the street).

When I was 10, I read somewhere that by the time a person turned 20, her personality would be fully formed. It is the time when "the pages of youth are swept away, leaving behind the first page of a glowing new chapter in life." At 20, along with Happy Birthday, people begin sentences with lines like, "Iha, you’re no longer a teenager, dapat responsable ka na."

Since I seem to have failed in the responsible area, and by no means can claim to a fully-formed (or stable) personality, I’m creating a list of everything I should do, be, or intend to have by the time I’m thirty. I figure a 10-year grace period is enough to achieve my humble goals.

What I want when I grow up:

1. I want to fill out a C-cup bra.

2. I want to have Amanda Griffin’s legs (and Ren Zellwegger’s nose).

3. I want to write the Great Filipino Novel

4. I want an engagement ring engraved with "Love, Johnny Depp."

5. I want to save the Philippines.

6. I want to travel all over the world (and buy a pair of dangling earrings at every bazaar).

7. I want to pass the AVENGE (Act Vilifying Evil, Nefarious and Guilty Entities) – a law that sentences cab drivers to six months in jail for refusing to give the exact change.

8. I want to be 5’7".

9. I want a professional driver’s license.

10. I want to dance in public (without seriously injuring people within a five-meter radius).

11. I want to have a walk-in closet as big as a swimming pool.

12. I want to stay 30 after I hit 30.

I used to think 20 was ancient. My romance novels talk about girls in "the full bloom of beauty at eighteen" or "budding with promise at sixteen." A 20-year-old Juliet/Rose/Daphne in the historical romance genre (as in the books with Lancelots and castles and white horses) is an absolute no-no.

There’s one thing about this whole coming-of-age business that I like. According to a recent study, most Filipino women believe that beauty depends on youth, and that a woman is most beautiful at 20. Following this logic, it seems that I’ll be gorgeous on Saturday and three hundred sixty-four days after.

I’ll worry about the rest when I’m 21.

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