The 2000’s is quite an interesting decade for me.
Imagine, in a span of ten years, you graduated in high school, felt the diversity of emotional pangs in college, fortunately graduating just in time even with the excess baggage, and plunged into the country’s workforce of which everything you had learned in the previous years were but a small fraction of the demands that was in store for you. Surprise, surprise.
Yes, I had my fair share of disappointments but it was pointless dwelling in them. Because nevertheless, as what a new acquaintance told me a few days ago, it is also a decade of achievements (I can’t enumerate those between 2000 and 2009 so I will settle with those in the latter part).
“Just small achievements,” I corrected her.
“They’re still achievements,” she corrected me back. I blushed.
Looking back, I cannot help but swell with pride even in that oftentimes shaky year that is 2010: there’s the fact that I endured one corporate year that I previously thought was very unlikely; the unforgettable trips to Camarines Sur, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Davao, and even to the undiscovered nooks and crannies of Bohol; the fiction fellowship in the 10th IYAS Creative Writing Workshop; the publication of short stories, poems, and opinion articles in Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic, Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Weekly Sillimanian (I just can’t leave this college paper) and Paper Monster Press, all of which I believe was a long shot; and the wish fulfillment of not getting a journal/diary for every Christmas party exchanging gift session I attended.
It was joyful, indeed.
Amidst all these celebrations, I faced the last page of a calendar and felt something drop inside of me: out of the seven siblings, only four including myself will be with my parents during the December gatherings. Christmas Eve (of which the 25th is my mother’s birthday), New Year’s Eve, and many more were almost always celebrated as a whole. But last month, two of my brothers and a sister, because of necessity, were out of the country, absent in countless photographs.
Before I could even focus my eyes on the void, waiting for clouds to grey and release a heavy downpour on me, synching to the tune of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, I thought everything will be just fine. And it did.
Distances test the strength of the ties that bind us.
I guess this is how nature works. No matter how far each other are, persistence and endurance will fill any gap. Like the sea turtles, it is strange but marvelous that when their eggs hatch in some distant shore, the little ones brave the currents and get back to their kin in the depths of the ocean. The sense of home is palpable.
Whether this new decade brings in more achievements or none at all, whether in forthcoming gatherings the family is complete or not, I just have to let the stars align and let them run in their own courses.
Imagine, in a span of ten years, you graduated in high school, felt the diversity of emotional pangs in college, fortunately graduating just in time even with the excess baggage, and plunged into the country’s workforce of which everything you had learned in the previous years were but a small fraction of the demands that was in store for you. Surprise, surprise.
Yes, I had my fair share of disappointments but it was pointless dwelling in them. Because nevertheless, as what a new acquaintance told me a few days ago, it is also a decade of achievements (I can’t enumerate those between 2000 and 2009 so I will settle with those in the latter part).
“Just small achievements,” I corrected her.
“They’re still achievements,” she corrected me back. I blushed.
Looking back, I cannot help but swell with pride even in that oftentimes shaky year that is 2010: there’s the fact that I endured one corporate year that I previously thought was very unlikely; the unforgettable trips to Camarines Sur, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Davao, and even to the undiscovered nooks and crannies of Bohol; the fiction fellowship in the 10th IYAS Creative Writing Workshop; the publication of short stories, poems, and opinion articles in Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic, Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Weekly Sillimanian (I just can’t leave this college paper) and Paper Monster Press, all of which I believe was a long shot; and the wish fulfillment of not getting a journal/diary for every Christmas party exchanging gift session I attended.
It was joyful, indeed.
Amidst all these celebrations, I faced the last page of a calendar and felt something drop inside of me: out of the seven siblings, only four including myself will be with my parents during the December gatherings. Christmas Eve (of which the 25th is my mother’s birthday), New Year’s Eve, and many more were almost always celebrated as a whole. But last month, two of my brothers and a sister, because of necessity, were out of the country, absent in countless photographs.
Before I could even focus my eyes on the void, waiting for clouds to grey and release a heavy downpour on me, synching to the tune of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, I thought everything will be just fine. And it did.
Distances test the strength of the ties that bind us.
I guess this is how nature works. No matter how far each other are, persistence and endurance will fill any gap. Like the sea turtles, it is strange but marvelous that when their eggs hatch in some distant shore, the little ones brave the currents and get back to their kin in the depths of the ocean. The sense of home is palpable.
Whether this new decade brings in more achievements or none at all, whether in forthcoming gatherings the family is complete or not, I just have to let the stars align and let them run in their own courses.
Yes, it is still too early to tell that everything will be just fine but whatever each morning brings, I will always try to meet its light and feel warmer, contented than the last.
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