Some things just aren't meant to last

Everybody has a story to tell, a tale of sort to somehow encapsulate who and what they are. It may or may not do their lives justice but still they try, in hopes to uncover what’s beyond the façade, the exterior and to maybe to finally set themselves, free.

And this is mine.

Being only 2 years old, I had no idea who the man in the casket was. Everyone was crying while I was wildly clapping my hands, chanting “cap.. cup.. cap” to my mom. My mom had a habit of exercising my vocabulary -even in the most peculiar places and odd as it was, I always took comfort in that being “our thing”. I was then carried and brought closer “to the box”, and I’m pretty sure I saw the man’s face but having been so isolated from my family for the first two years of my life from constant trips and months of stay in the hospital, I could hardly tell family from stranger. Looking back I’m sure it was somehow explained to me why I was in that itchy white of a dress and why everyone from the small town of Malinao, Aklan gathered at the church looking upon me with such pity in their eyes. I don’t even remember when and how it hit me –maybe it was the fact that I had a grey-haired man cheering for me at school programs while everyone else’s dad looked some 50 years younger that gave it away but it was a pretty simple conclusion, really. I don’t remember anyone sitting me down to “discuss it” to me, but as far as I was concerned, my father was dead.

Some things just aren’t meant to last.

I have been moving homes for as long as I can remember. Mama worked as a Bank Regional Head that basically turned us into BSP-brats, transferring from a region, an island and a school to another. Of course when you’re between the age of 3 to 6, you don’t really mind anything so long as you had your fine toys to play with but when Mama announced we were moving to Tuguegarao (north of the Philippines), I somehow knew life would be different. It worked out well at first and although it was weird having her finally home every night, it took awhile to get used to those family dinners. But it didn’t take long until duty once again knocked on my mother’s door which she, of course, obliged to. At 7, you can almost get away with everything being so young but from that first day Mama missed another dinner, I knew things would never be the same again. There hasn’t been a full month since I was 7 that my mother was home, she was always somewhere doing something. I don’t know what and how it happened but somehow I had to make myself understand the situation. That I wasn’t like my friends, that my life was everything but conventional. At 7, I knew I had to fend for myself, that Mama had to work and that I had to be responsible for myself. I knew I couldn’t complain about having no one but a nanny pick me up from school, or that instead of a parent, it was my mom’s assistant attending every function in school. I knew I couldn’t expect Mama to be there and that I had to be okay with that. I had to will myself to grow up, speed up my maturity if only to understand my reality, I knew if I didn’t, I would grow up angry and incomplete. And maybe it was by grace that I did, but although I’ve accepted fate, I also knew that the family dinners were no more.

Some things just aren’t meant to last.

Like every other kid, I looked forward to summer the most. It meant break from school, no homework and going home to Aklan. I love Aklan. Boracay was nothing new to me, having seen it at its purest. But beyond the beach and break, I loved summer the most because it meant seeing my Grandfather. It meant non-stop back scratches and bedtime stories. It meant midnight snack of powdered milk and it meant shadowing him everywhere he went. I was in love with him. He was the first person to tell me I had a flare for writing, a talent he said I got from my father and it was because of what he said that I actually aspired to become a writer. I saw him dot on my grandmother and I thought he was most amazing whenever he’d help my grandmother with her colostomy bag (she had colon cancer for as long as I can remember). I developed my idea of love (yes, that kind of love) in the summer of 95, which would also be the last summer I would spend with him healthy. I don’t know how and when I noticed it but my grandfather never failed to fill my grandmother’s glass with water (or whatever it was she was drinking) whether or not she asked him to. At 9, I knew I wanted a love like theirs, I knew I wanted a man who without question fill me up, glass and all. A year later, Lung Cancer stole from me the most important man in my life. I stopped going home to Aklan and summer became an agonizing season. When he died, I felt I lost a father all over again and this time, it definitely hurt more. So much more. He took a significant part of my heart with him and I don’t think I have ever fully recovered.

Some things just aren’t meant to last.

I met Michael at the playground back in Kindergarten. He was with the usual pack of boys talking about their robots and what nots. I was with my best friend Kriesha (Hi Kae) when I slipped and landed on my butt, my uniform skidded upward exposing my dark blue bloomers. And while everyone was laughing, Michael ran to me and mimicked my fall, then played dead. And when people didn’t laugh, he sat up and said, “okay now that was funny! How can you guys not laugh?” He filled my heart that day at the playground and I’ve never let go of his friendship since then. Even when his family migrated to the States, we kept close touch. I always knew there was something about our bond and I proved this when he came home in April of 1999. Head all shaved off and a lot different from the skinny kid I remember, I think he was even kinda hot. Haha. It’s been a good 5 years and I was surprised to know of the reason why he came home so suddenly, to tell me he loved me. That he’s always loved me. And if that was a surprise, what came next was just too much of a blur, two days later he told me he had brain tumor and he was going back to the states to undergo a risky brain procedure that could either save or kill him. He left after 3 days with a promise to come back. He never did.

Some things just aren’t meant to last.

2001 saw a lot of things happen for me. My family and I packed our bags again leaving 8 years of familiarity behind and trudging onto new roads. Only this time, we were going to different homes. Mama had to report to the Bank’s Angeles City Branch (2 hour drive from Manila), my sister to her apartment near her University and I, came to live with just a maid while finishing High School in downtown Manila. I was 15 and I was already living alone. My mom did her best to spend weekends with us but pressure from work and for our part, school distanced us and turned the weekend trips to every-other-night-phone calls. Nothing much has changed, really. I always saw very little of my mother but when you become your own boss at 15 (especially given our society), it’s a little bit more different. I felt the need to grow up banging on my door louder than it ever did. Whether I liked it or not, I was a grown up and of course it wasn’t fun. I had enough trouble being a teenager and suddenly I had to be a grown up too? But for reason, I managed. I graduated a prominent student of our batch and Editor of our school paper. It was during my graduation, up the podium to accept my diploma and not seeing my mom in the audience that made me realize, this was how it was always going to be. Far be it for me to complain, I knew I wasn’t and couldn’t be a kid any longer.

Some things just aren’t mean to last.

Attending an all-girl Catholic school wasn’t exactly how I pictured my college life to be but in June 2003, I enrolled at the Assumption College and majored in Psychology. I’ve always been a good student, not on top but always good. So you can imagine my surprise when I started getting below average grades. Most of it was my fault I guess, I never really applied myself there. I felt persecuted half the time by professors who probably saw me as a slacker and my stubborn self never really admitted it then but yea, I slacked off. I didn’t get kicked out or anything, I left by choice but it doesn’t change anything, I failed. I failed to submit myself to the system, I got wound up with the politics, with the drama that my girlfriends and I had and with the whole confusing world of boys. I stopped writing, I saw even less of my family and lost my appetite for life. Looking back, it really wasn’t the course, it wasn’t the school or the people but with everyday in those 2 years, I always knew I didn’t belong there. Until now I don’t know what did it but I lost a great deal of myself back then.

Some things just aren’t meant to last.

By September of 2005, I was more than happy to do anything other than bum at home. I enrolled at then Thames International Business School’s (now the Entrepreneurs School of Asia) under their Foreign Degree program to study Mass Communication. It all signaled a great new beginning for me. My mom and I somehow found our way back into each other’s lives, I moved in with my sister, I was at a new school, had new friends, I was finally giving my passion (of communication) a chance, and found the two great loves of my life, AIESEC and JP. For the first time in a very long while, I felt everything was finally going right. I was happiest at Thames (now ESA), I enjoyed my classes, had the best fun with my friends and even if I almost killed myself with the amount of work I was doing for AIESEC, I was on top of the world. Sure there were bad days, days when I just wanted to curl up in bed either from depression or fatigue but I definitely would live through all of it again in a heartbeat. JP was an altogether different story, he changed my life the minute we met and although it took us a good full year to finally get together, it was definitely worth the wait. I don’t think I have ever loved anyone as much and right now, I’m not sure I ever will. For 16 months ESA was my home and everyone I met there etched a mark in me so deep that made my departure this January for Newcastle the hardest. With everything I was leaving behind, it really was hardest letting go of my life as an ESA student, AIESEC-ESA’s LCP, my friends’ Cessie and most especially my Boknoy’s Matot. But I had to. I got on that plane with a crushed but hopeful heart. All the plans were drawn up and I knew in my heart it would all push through. But I guess God has just so many tricks up His sleeves.

Some things aren’t just meant to last.

It’s been only 3 months but I feel like I’ve aged 3 decades with everything that I had to live through here. I never thought living alone was ever going to be a problem for me but it’s just not the same. It’s so much more lonelier, the cold isn't helping and the recent turn of events have made it so much more painful. I’ve always been good with goodbyes but suddenly it’s not so easy anymore, especially when you desperately want to keep things the way they are. I have lived my life fighting. Fighting for people I’ve loved, the things I care about and the life that I had to survive. It hasn’t been easy but I have found this to be the best thing I was good at. I had to fight my loneliness growing up in an empty house, I had to fight my self-pity for being the only kid without a parent on her graduation, I had to fight the stabbing pain of losing 2 fathers and 4 close friends, I had to fight self doubt and the many people egging me on to fail, I had to fight the pain seeing everything I’ve worked so hard for being taken for granted, I had to fight losing sight of trust and friendship, I had to fight the pain of knowing I never was loved by the only man I ever did and I now have to fight this torture of a feeling after realizing that despite everything I have done and everyone I have loved, I am alone.

I have been beating myself thinking how I ended up this way and after that one hard cry some nights ago (and 2 bags of maltesers and 2 liters of pepsi), I finally got it. I have been fighting and fighting and fighting to a point of breaking my own self down but I never really made sure if what I was fighting for had or wanted to be fought for. And to make matters worse, even after mastering the skill of saying goodbye, I never really understood how it was to let go. No wonder I’ve been stumbling over my every step here. My eyes, mind and my heart most of all is still gripping firm of my has-been life. I don’t know what has been keeping me from holding on this much and it’s not like anything wants to be held onto anymore but whatever it is, I’ve got to let it all go now. Never mind if I hurt myself from trying to pry my hands open. I made such a fuss over this whole letting go business that I have missed to acknowledge that it really isn’t as complicated as I’m making it out to be. I’ve known it all along but I never really came close to admitting it but there are times when things have to come to an end just because, hence you let go. And then smile that it happened.

And I've come to realize that, letting go doesn't mean we don't care. It doesn’t mean we shut down but letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave. It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means we stop trying to do the impossible--controlling that which we cannot--and instead, focus on what is possible--which usually means taking care of ourselves. And that we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love, as much as possible. I now see it not as an obstacle course but a direct path to healing. It comes with learning to see your life for what it is and not as you wish it was. It’s in acknowledging those who’s stayed true to you, forgiving those who have hurt you and believing in yourself despite and inspite of everything.

Beginnings are sometimes a whole lot scarier than endings. We’re usually left to grope in the dark, all alone without so much as a light to guide us through. But this is where all that strength and indefatigability from all the fights we’ve withstood comes to play. And before a beginning can have a shot at uncovering its next chapters, you will have to allow it. And I think it has to start with coming to terms with what you do have. And from where I’m standing, the most significant closure I’ve come to terms with is the relationship I have with my family. Ironic how we have all kept avoiding them as kids but only to realize later on that they truly are the only ones who will stick it out with us through it all. I have never had a better relationship with my family than now. I’m blessed to have had such a close knit family that has always kept me sane through my childhood. My cousins are my best friends and my aunts and uncles are my pillars without whom I cannot stand. And although my mother was barely there and even if a part of me struggled for a while because of her absence, I do know this; she put herself through hell to provide my sister and I the best life she could. It was her compassionate heart that forgave my every mistake and it was her unconditional love that has accepted me for all that I am. It was never the amount of time she spent with me that proved her love to me but how much she was able to make me feel loved with whatever time she spent with me. And at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

I still don’t know why I'm in Newcastle; while studying abroad has always been my dream, now that it’s here, I just don’t get it and for a while I didn't it. I thought coming here would mean nothing but amazing experiences but it’s a daily struggle to accept my new world, my new life. I have been struggling to keep my former life -maybe because it was the best I’ve ever felt- and though I know this is an opportunity anyone would kill for, I might as well be back home with every bitter look I cast on anything and everything here. I know deep within someone’s trapped in me, someone who actually wants this life, one who is willing to turn its back on everything about the past and one who is ready to move on. And it’s sad that it had to take what has happened to poke me awake. My 110 days here has seen more tears than I ever shed in all of my 21 years combined. And I have just had enough of that, of all of that. I have decided to stop thinking of the "what could have beens" and the "what if I's" because quite honestly, I have enough trouble sorting out my present challenges so why should I keep looking back? I already know what was in that life and though I had amazing experiences then, it doesn't make any sense to hinder the other amazing (more amazing even) experiences that are waiting for me. I know that no matter how many roads present themselves in front of me, none will ever take me back and I guess it’s time to pick up my feet and start my journey to meet the person I was sent here to meet, Me.

It’s clear that I haven’t exactly been having a ball of a time here but if anything, amidst the tremendous feelings consuming me right now, I’d have to say this could still be the best thing that's ever happened to me. Despite everything, I have always felt that God’s answers are always wiser than my prayers and that in this cliff he has led me to, I'm just about ready to let go because really, only one of two things could happen; He’d catch me as I fall or teach me how to fly. I may never know why God brought me here and for the first time, I don’t really care. I maybe in hell right now, I can't smile a genuine one and I might still cry every now and then but like everything else in my life so far, some things aren’t meant to last.

This too, shall pass.