This was an entry I wrote days before. I'm not angry here. Just troubled.
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Sometimes I
can't tell what it is being asked of me.
Why do you
ask me to be selfish?
Why do I have to prove anything to you?
I thought you would support me in my dreams. Then why do you sound disappointed if my dreams don't match yours?
I couldn't
bring myself to think about my situation without taking into account those who
would be involved. If my choice would put others in the snitch, it would take me even more time to think about giving an answer. I do consider your input, thanks for making it clear to me what it is you want, but have you ever asked
yourself whether the tone of your voice, or how you phrase your statements,
affect my judgment? They're not the least bit helpful. It clouds my senses. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't think for myself. Although I consider the other, there's not much of me that goes around the discernment.
You gave me options months ago. I thought I still had choices... but you make it
sound like I don't have any at all. It feels like this is the best
choice. The ONLY choice available for me.
Is it?
You give me the pros and cons of going through with it. It will be challenging, stressful... everything that I try to keep myself away from. I have thought about my health, how it would affect my performance, what my body needs to be in tiptop condition. You worry that I might get sick. You worry about what will happen
to me for the chances of losing my sanity are great there. But why do you keep
on saying you would be proud if I went through that ordeal? If I became what you wanted me to be? Why dissuade me yet at the same time encourage me? You encourage me more actually, and that's downright confusing. I suggest an alternative, you respond with not that much enthusiasm.
Are you not happy with what I want?
Isn't that what I wanted?
I'm not saying I would be better off. Some earn well, some don't. I just want to give something back, impart knowledge, and taking the other route might be the shortest and cheapest way to it. Less demand on you too, but you won't let me have that. You tell me you have a condition. "There's something wrong with him." you said to me. "Don't let it trouble you or get in the way of your dreams."
How can I not be troubled?
The more my choices dwindle down. I thought I had the freedom to pick where I want to study. Turns out I don't. As much as I want to lessen expenses and make it more convenient for you... I don't want to study here. I can't bear it having you see me in distress! I'm not being selfish. At least in this aspect, I'm not. I'm thinking what would be good for both of us in the long run. I'm sure I would have breakdowns. I know you would be stressed from work, and I don't want to add to that. I already feel I am in more ways than one. There has to be distance. And I'm used to things being this way. I just hope you can figure out what I'm getting at because it's a pain to persuade someone who has already decided on what they want and how they want it. I don't have any back-up. How can you make someone who refuses to listen, listen?
The best I got out of talking about it is a deadline. "March."
I have to decide then.
I have to think about whether the path I'll be taking will make me happy. However you look at it, no one would know for sure. I might be at the start, but there's a chance I would eventually grow tired of it like most people far off in their careers. Either I choose to be happy or regret.
I'm bound to find happiness in it... perhaps. I usually do.
4 comments:
So you feel like you’re the rope being pulled in a vicious tug of war.
On one side is you wanting to do something somewhere. On the other are the people you love wanting you to do something else, somewhere else.
It doesn’t help that this same people who love you (and whom you love) have this mystical, mysterious power over you—the power of money. You need them for your food, shelter, clothing, and even tissue paper. That’s their power.
At the same time, while you are more or less inclined to do what you want, you wonder as well if they might be right. After all, in fairness, they have been right a great many times before when it came to decisions about you. Heck, you turned out to be a smart, kick-ass, not-so-little girl right? Anything that created such a fine specimen of humanity must be right—at least most of the time.
So this bugs you. You want something, but they don’t. Worse, they have the power, and worse still, horror of horrors, they might be right.
Well you have a secret weapon as well. It’s very powerful. You have it, they no longer do. You think it’s a weakness, but they secretly want it for themselves as well. What is this weapon that you have? Well—you are twenty. Just twenty. If you were a mango fruit, you’d be green and sour. If you were a banana, you’d be bananacue (I’m kidding).
You are young, and the beauty of youth is you can make mistakes and have time to correct it. You choose your path and it blows up in your face like that of a lit cigarette thrown in a septic tank, so what? Take a bath and start over.
You take their path and you don’t like it, stop. You are young. You have options. You can change your mind.
But what if you are trapped? You are put in a situation you don’t like. You feel you have no choice. Must you endure because you have chosen this road, wrong as it seems to be?
Well, like I said, you have youth. Go back. It’s like doing the wrong solution to a math problem. The shortest way to arrive at the right answer would be to stop and repeat. No point in pursuing the wrong solution right?
But if you decide to stay and see it through—well congratulations! You are no longer in diapers. You have entered the adult world. You are in real life. And mind you, it is the only type of life. No more ivory tower and rationalizing and imagining things that can never be. This is it. You’ve arrived.
NO ONE gets whatever they want, when they want, and at the right amounts. This is the human condition. Coffee is rarely just right—it is often too sweet, bitter or bland. Even Kings and presidents suffer this fate. All Noynoy ever wanted was his cars, jazz collections, and his guns. Now he is the president and he has less freedom than what he used to have. And since you are not a king, nor a president, expect something worse.
But hey, not always getting what you want is what makes life interesting right? Imagine if you got whatever you wanted. Wouldn’t that be the worst thing ever? Magnum is cool because there is Cornetto. Mercedes drives superbly because there is Chana. A Roll's Royce is supreme because there is 'just a BMW.' Ateneo is great because there is (insert name of any other school here but I know you know what to put).
If you have everything you want, life would be boring. No desire. No hope. No aspirations. No flavour.
So, whatever it is. Do it. If your wrong, go back and repeat. If you can’t, make lemonade out of your lemons.
Sincerely
Efren
Dear Efren,
I appreciate you giving time reading and commenting.
The reason why I'm stuck is because there is just not enough room for mistakes in my situation. Reasons for it I didn't include in the entry above.
I will be seeing this through. I'm the type of person who sees the good things in everything... lily in the mud. I'll find happiness in the decision I made one way or another.
I do agree with you that those I love have been right in many occasions. I think that they're being like this because it's the only thing they know of, they are assured of, is good for me. Uncertainty. I don't think it's my youth that they want. They just want to be sure. Since the other path is unfamiliar to them, they insist on the other which is commonly taken.
I won't take it against them for acting that way... I just couldn't.
I'll figure it out soon enough. Haha. God wouldn't let me go through such if He thought I couldn't handle it. :)
Thanks.
Yel
OR, He would put through you to the fire to see what you are made off. After all, beautiful glass only becomes so after it is put throught the furnace. But then again so is burnt bread..
LOL. Burnt. So you..
Superman (Efren)
Dear Efren,
You sound like someone I know... he's annoying, but he's a really good friend of mine. :)
I also have the feeling He thinks I'm incapable. HAHA. That I need more work... I still lack heavily in some areas now that I look at it.
I'm burnt, you're stale.
Superman is gay.
Yel
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