Beautiful Disaster

Being sick on your birthday is a major discomfort. In the fits of my sisters annoyance over my recurring complaints, they charged ” Mura man ka ug bata uy,bente tres naman unta”.I didn’t flinch at the comment. I didn’t even ask them to qualify if they see me as childish or childlike. For how should a heedless twenty-three year old behave?Does it mean I have to stop acting like a wimp everytime my body succumbs to frail health?Or in broader more encompassing terms, does it mean I have to let go of my chronic tendency to forget a lot of things(lesson plan, writing book ,keys , wallet etc.),take budget as an existing word, or having to substitute my handy Chuckie tetra packs with Red horse bottles? I have to say the latter registered well on my taste bud but I’m not ready to switch favorites yet.

There was a time when my birthday felt apart from me, instead of being a part of me. Being the lost soul that I was, I figured it was a crime to celebrate “the day” even with a lit candle perched on a cupcake. The yawning emptiness gave off a very hurtful prick. I cursed myself for not being happy as I used to be,

But then I realized feelings are not electives. You can choose what to decide but you cannot elect what to feel. And that whatever mess I have put myself into wasn’t directly related to me being young or because of the lamest, most “gasgas” excuse on earth “tao lang”. I was awful because I was and not because of my affiliation to a certain specie.

With the mess came a clarion message: that a rotten situation doesn’t compel you to be a rotten person. You can have the worst without necessarily rubbing it on others. Call it consolation prize- but it is in thankless situations like this that you learn more about yourself.

Adulthood doesn’t simply happen. It’s not a piece of rtw that you have to pay in four gives and suddenly you can put in on for good. I guess for some it’s quick, for quirky ones like me- the pacing is unpredictable.

It is never about doing what everybody else does. The process for me entails a heartier view on contradictions. It is about being fond of others without liking yourself less. It is about finding your own rhythm without losing your dance partners. It is about being scared to dare and then changing your mind after.

I haven’t smiled this much in years. With hard work and resilience as the blameworthy culprits, I have begun rebuilding, (slowly but surely) and reconnecting (from long been cherished relationships to newly forged friendships).

I have stopped being a spectator and have become a caretaker of all that is present and all that lies ahead in my strange life. I mean all-fully taking responsibility in the endless cycle of rising, failing, and everything in between.

Every time I need to reset my mind from the confounded thoughts of have beens, could have beens and never beens, I resolve into raiding my cousin’s house and becoming their overstaying “bwisita”. I go there very often that I call it my alternative address.

Ikang would “pakyaw” all my goods(their place is also a launching pad of my entrepreneurial skills), Daday would share a thing or two of her adobe expertise, Popong,who is omnipresent would prepare a shake for everyone and Madel would take the center stage.

Madel by the way is fifteen years old and her biceps are as strong as her appetite. She likes to do kinky stunts and gets the high of it after Daday uploaded it on You tube. Every time she is miffed, she talks in a distinctly combative speech, making it hard for you to reconcile if she is working for my cousins or my cousins are working for her. I could tell she dreads seeing me for I make her cook in the wee hours of the morning, whine when she doesn’t give me a massage, and I always pass at the forbidden door.

During our brunch, I opened up that my birthday is coming. In a seriousness that is highly unusual, she told me that she will be praying for me to have a good life. It sounded downright eerie. Partly because of the sentimental awkwardness and mostly because of the rare privilege of sacrificing some precious minutes from her active Sun powered call and text life just to do the act.

And if in old age, all I have become is a hunchback-looking old woman, devoid of wisdom and filled with misfortunes, I will come running after her, sniveling “you didn’t pray harder!”.