On missing deadlines and people

Nobody had to remind me of the sanctity of deadlines when I began working as a writer. Standard stuff everywhere else, sure, but grisly creatures altogether in this field.

They are, as one editor liked to call them, beasts: the kind that could lay waste to the day’s story lineup if one reporter missed a beat.

I’ve beaten enough deadlines to know that working against them is futile. Often, it’s because I know my best is surfaced only in the face of near-defeat, wrung out by pressure and dread and near-lethal amounts of alcohol.

Suddenly, just when there are 500 seconds left to spare, the words would begin to wash up on the shore of my empty slate.

But once the boundary has been crossed — the moment you hit Send or finally press End Call — there is glorious relief. The letting go means I can move on to the next.

But, in reality, some deadlines are missed. And even deadlines that are met don’t always mean victory—something I should have realized before he left.

It’s surreal, being given a deadline that applies to real people. Like buying a can of pineapple juice on April 26 with a May 1 sell-by date. As do many of the people in many other stories, he was to leave, and I was to stay.

The difference is that I knew exactly when that was. As always, I didn’t think of the endgame until we were almost there.

We met late 2017: him minding me minding my own business. That afternoon, my editor had already started phoning in every five minutes like clockwork, and me fielding the questions like a regular Babe Ruth, if the Great Bambino himself was just as disoriented and agitated.

A mutual friend, oblivious to my soul threatening to detach from the flesh with every ring, finally introduced me to him.

“I’ll let you finish first,” said he, the man with the forgettable name and commendable observational skills. “I’ll talk to you later.”

From then on, it was like counting backwards.

He, too, knew time as well as I did. He was to stay here for a couple months for work and fly back home where the sun didn’t shine or whatever. It didn’t matter, I thought. Then it did.

I was not in love with him, that I was sure of, but it was close. He was a brilliant soul, snarky at times, but he articulated his passions so well it was hard not to get caught up in his verve.

He inspired me to be my best. I felt strongly for him, the guy who laughed longer than he should have when I said I “didn’t have time” to watch TV shows anymore.

You’re lying, he scoffed. You have time for me.

I don’t know what I thought, to be honest. Did I think knowing how it ends could make it hurt less? Preemptive loss — what a concept. The illusion of control from knowing exactly what you’ll lose.

But only presence could salve the pain of absence.

Eventually, the date that loomed over our heads arrived. No tears. No delusions about trying to keep it alive.

“You’ll miss me,” he told me. I could have told him he could miss other things — his flight, for starters — so I didn’t have to.

But the words didn’t wash up on the shore this time. Instead, they were sent adrift, never to be spoken.

Some deadlines in real life are never met, I thought.

This was not one of them.

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MJ Villegas, 24, an organizational communication graduate from the University of the Philippines Manila, is a freelance writer.