Nostalgia... tumpak! That´s the right word! I can´t find a better word in either the Filipino or Merriam-Webster Dictionary to describe how I feel right now. Yes! And listening to Noel Cabangon´s "Kanlungan" gives me that bittersweet atmosphere.

I´ve come to realize that as we grow up, we have to move on and drop those precious nuggets we treasure... those sweet events of the past will forever be memories. Yes, memories, but they shall never fade into oblivion. Little by little, I´m feeling the pangs of adulthood. In a few months, we´ll be saying goodbye to one another. Graduation may be sweet revenge-freedom from heavy workload from teachers who argue that what they do is for our own good. Graduation... finally, we can escape the cruelties of the high school building.

          Alas! A big part of me refuses to believe that the freedom I longed for ever since is finally at hand. My whole being gradually hold on tighter to what I saw before as a big challenge to hurdle. I have grown to love the things I once considered as cruelties... unfair deadlines, surprise tests, super strict teachers-they are the ones who molded me into what I am today. I give you all a BIG THANK YOU on the World Wide Web! I can´t help but look back to the days when I shiver with fright at a single glance of a teacher, just to find out later one that she was as light hearted as most of us. Sweet memories, all these things will ever be.

          Yet what saddens me most is the thought of bidding those carefree afternoons I spend with my "most bestest" friends and my special someone goodbye. Again, Mr. Cabangon´s Kanlungan says it all... for one of these days, the real world might draw me to leave that cradle of love I´ve grown to adore. In fact, it slowly manifests its cruel self to me. While I still lay my head in this cradle of love, the cares of the real world slowly brings us further from one another... yes, it does, and it will continue to do so until we can no longer feel each other´s warmth... until we can no longer hear our hearts beating in unison. When that time comes, then our dreams shall one by one fall to the ground. Yet, I shall hold on to one dream I value most above all, and even as it shall forever remain a dream, I shall hold on to it ´til I breathe forth my last breath. As I lie in my grave, I shall refuse to believe that this dream of ours never became a reality.

          If the present once forced me to look forward with great enthusiasm to the future, a bitter realization makes me yearn for the past right now. The past... the warmth... the familiarity. They may someday be a madman´s aspirations, so a madman shall I be if that´s what this cruel world dictates.

          Today's one of those days when I wish I go to weekly sessions with a psychologist who prescribes me with"happy pills". My day started alright, but there was still too much negative energy in me that I simply want to stare at nothing for hours.

          My problem is sort of complicated... I don't have anything against people, it's something about me and these undesirable feelings I have (It's not gender confusion!!!). These feelings that are too selfish and chauvinistic make me lose my respect for myself. Somehow, I can't understand why I am suffering these thoughts and feelings that belong to a child. Immaturity? Maybe not... it's more of an insecurity. So, here I am now, fighting a battle against myself. It saddens me, though, that as I go through these, my outside shell is not spared from the war that wages within.

          I gave a talk to a small group of catechists today. Actually, it makes me really guilty talking to all of them while I look back to all the ingratitude I've shown my God. You can't really call it hypocrisy because I'm doing something about my sinful present so I can get to my saintly future in several years.

          The afternoon was not that bad. I got to paint an 8x4 meter backdrop! Yeah! It really feels good after releasing all your bad energy through something you love to do. My friends asked me if I was mad or anything because of the way I painted with an unnatural force. Of course, I told them I was not mad. I don't like the thought of people knowing that I'm angry unless I really have to let them know. Anyway, whatever it was that I felt, I poureed it over with the sploshes of paint I splattered. See? You can make good things out of those annoying emotions! That's the Filipino ingenuity!

          Today, we captured all the memories we had together in one shot. With a single flash, we condensed all those experiences that shall forever be intact in our hearts and minds. We had our yearbook pictorial.

          The melancholy that was enveloping my heart since yesterday afternoon tightened its grip on me. With each heavy breath I took, it constricts more than ever. Like a python gently squeezing its prey was that gloom that fell upon my existence.

          These are just some of the times when I look forward into my life and see myself crawling through the battlefield tending the wounded, friend and foe alike. These are just some of the moments when I brace myself for what reality has to throw at me. Instances when all my insecurities and afflictions come rushing up to me with torches and pitchforks.

          What makes it more painful is that I can´t tell anyone how I really feel coz I myself think these feelings of mine are too shallow, stupid, pointless, selfish and chauvinistic. I know these feelings shouldn´t have broken through the semi-permeable membrane of my being. Yet it has. And it´s little by little taking over my moods... my character... my life.

          When I come to think about it, the boulevard of broken dreams may be the lonely road I have to take someday. It saddens me to realize that our lives may never travel the same slope forever. Sometimes... someday, we may have to let go. Yet I pray that before that mournful day comes, my life shall come to its end... that the lighted road to paradise or the bittersweet path to purgatory may take the place of that boulevard I fear to take.

          We had a group sharing during our English class today about the story The Father by Nobel Prize Awardee Bjornsterne Bjornsen. Tackling its theme, a sullen realization possessed me. Sometimes, we tend to center our lives on one person whom we can call our inspiration aside from God and our parents. Yet time may come when that person chooses to travel a separate path. So, like an object that has lost its center of gravity, you turn around and around, not knowing where to go.

           It seems that all of us live our lives at the mercy of others. For the captives, they live at the mercy of their captors... the sinners; God... and for those whom love has touched; the object of their affection.

          In loving someone, you give her all you´ve got unknowingly. All of us naively place our hearts-our lives at those smooth hands we long to hold. Yet, it is and it shall be the wisest choice we've ever made...