These were the
things that have had happen to me since the last time I submitted an article.
Me and my group mates finished our thesis but failed to qualify for Best
Thesis. I graduated college with a bachelor’s degree but no academic award. I
planned to stay in Legazpi City rather than chase my dreams in Manila but I
found myself later on inside a bus going to Manila. A friend of mine went
abroad and I was there to witness his departure. I started to chase my dreams
in that city and getting use to life that I never know of but good luck is
quite aloof to me. I got no job in that city (uh there’s one but I was pulled
out during the training because of anemia so again I became unemployed.) I
still never wanted to go home in Legazpi but I found myself again riding that
same bus.
I went home emotionally
bruised and have a broken soul. Self-esteem almost drained inside me.
Frustrations ate me. I was so desperate to find a job at the same time missing
the life that I had when I was in school. I felt envy with my friends who got
their jobs easily, some may not be their dream job but at least they got one. I
frequently asked myself why I was not able to have a job just like them. Was it
my fault? Is it all about luck? Or does companies don’t get interested with my
resume? What should I do? Questions filled my mind, as pressure keeps pushing
hard.
A
day after my arrival, I went back to my high school alma mater. Remembering the
good old days of being a teen, that was once very frustrated with my grades in
Algebra, scared of calling names for recitation in Physics and Araling
Panlipunan, and the excitement I felt with the activities in English and Technology and Livelihood Education (T.L.E). I
saw students staying outside their classrooms, some are playing, others going
home. Out of the blue I asked myself, with the hundreds of students in this
school, how many of these students would continue to college. If they continue
in college, how many of them will ever finish it? And will they be successful
or at least have good job after schooling? With my experience, I bowed my head,
take a deep breath and hoped that they will. I worry for them to get stuck when
life show them the cruelties of reality. I worry for those who don’t even
graduate in high school or don’t even get a chance to enter school. I worry for
their future, their future family’s future. And I worry too much that it makes
me feel scared of my future too.
Two
days after, I was asked by my friend and ex-SK officer to meet them at the
basketball court with uncertain reason. Out of curiosity, I came and late that
I realized they were asking me to take the microphone and be the commentator
for the night’s last game. I did though I felt some hesitation. The feeling remains
the same; it was a reunion of me, the microphone and my audience, where I
gained my confidence as a public speaker, as a public servant and as person,
and once again the shattered pieces of my confidence are starting to be
rebuilt. I look around me after the game and see how things stayed the same
after three years in that basketball court, in that barangay. After the
hardships I encounter in Manila, perhaps it is I who changed and see things in
different way. I focused more on having high compensation to compete with my
batch mates, classmates and friends and I forgot to give my heart in everything
that I will be doing. I became irrational. Immature. I focused more on my
emotions, what might people and my friends say about me or their criticisms.
Pessimism struck me like lightning.
At
first, I was scared of the thought of going home. I was scared of the ghost of
the past, of being stuck and contented with what I will get, of being just fine
with small things even though I crave for the bigger ones. But when I set a
foot at Legazpi, all my worries disappear. Sadness abandoned me. Pessimism
melted. It’s weird that by just setting a foot to the soil of my beloved town,
all my worries when I was in Manila vanished. Then out of nowhere, I blurted
“Que Sera, Sera (whatever will be, will be).”
I
realized something, after visiting my high school alma mater and accepted the
invitation of my former SK officers; I journeyed back to my past. My past that
made me understand that I wasn’t just growing old anymore neither I am growing
up. A year ago, I was having problem with school projects, activities and
academics. My goal was to graduate and be the best that I can be. Now that I
graduated, I am to face the challenge of being me when critics and situations dictates
that I should like be this and that. I am facing the complexities of life now.
I still don’t know where it will take me, though I’m sure there is one place
that I belong. I remember during our graduation ceremony, the president of our
school in her speech stated, “It is the end of your journey as a student of
this institution, but it is not the end of everything as a student, in fact it
is just the beginning. The world has many lessons for you to learn, some will
take you up and some might drag you down. When the world drags you to your
knees just remember dear students that life wants you to learn something from
it. This institution is freeing you from the four corners of the classroom and
now take the world as your new classroom, be not afraid of trying and
experimenting because it is part of your learning. Just don’t give up.”
Now,
I came to realize those words.