Destination Unknown

I see a bizarre parallel between the short-lived nature of fireworks to what’s been happening with my life lately.

It seems like just yesterday (when in fact it was last year’s December) when almost every single day was in itself an event with a lot of "Bang! Boom! Swish!" Memories of last year’s Christmas youth seminars, along with the party that came after, still lingers in my mind like ants to an unsealed cupboard of cookies. Suddenly, the distant and aloof nature of mine vanished, and now there’s nothing I long for more than companions. There’s nothing I long for more than being around with the group of friends I’ve been around with last December, and this weekend as well. The kid in me  wants to burst out and the adult in me wants to take a rest. I find myself weary of living in a competitive world and instead be surrounded by what used to be my youthful glee, now a prozac to the mundane world that’s driving me nuts.

The last four days before today, I was in a southern province of the Philippines, known as Zamboanga. The place is nothing spectacular: their malls are very run down, their technology is huge step backwards from the amenities urbane people (such as I) are accustomed to. The weather is a few fahrenheit above the usual hot weather of Manila. The bedroom I slept in gave me prolonged insomnia coupled with weird dreams of pretty girls I’ve never met. Yet, friends from the province came over to visit me. They brought me to beaches and mountains. Then they treated me to some of their possibly indigenous food. They failed to realize, though, that it’s not the places they have brought me that I’m amazed at. It’s their friendliness. Much as I tried not to, suddenly I felt a lot of emotional attachment to these people. Leaving them yesterday and knowing it’s going to take quite a long time before seeing them again lacerated me a lot.

Now that I’m back in Manila, I find myself tired of criticizing. I find myself tired of reading newspaper editorials. I find myself not deriving a lot of satisfaction in videogames anymore. I find myself tired of listening to bickering adults (who always dabble in boring business talks) and preferring the silly stories of bantering teenagers (even though sometimes they cover cheesy topics such as love and infatuation). I find myself tired of looking at classified ads (besides, most of them happened to be call-center infested). I find myself not so enthusiastic about blogs and internet forums anymore. I find myself too tired to move on and instead want to resign to a peaceful respite, only I prefer it to last LONGER than ever conceivable.

And then, I look outside, realizing how far away I am from the people I truly care about (with the exception of my parents, who most of the time live under the same roof as I). I realize that they have a life to go back to. They have to keep studying. They have to keep working. They have to stay attached to whatever attachments (physical, geographical or emotional) they have. Then, I become introspective, and realized that I have to do the same. There’s no single firework that last forever. This is the reason why we have to cherish every moment when suddenly a lot of fanciful sparkles are in the air. The time the noise have died down, all we do is wait; or, better yet, do something productive just to mollify the agony of waiting forever before another batch of fireworks start exploding.

I have to move on. And besides, Chinese New Year is in a few days.

Thank you, to all my friends in Zamboanga, for being so nice to me.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.