As scary as change

I close my eyes, feeling the presence of everyone in a small room. I can see a vague image of a young female, unnamed, and naive about the uncertainty and peculiarity of life. I was a wanderer all my existence. I was lost, a forlorn lost star, wandering through every asterism. In every space, I find glitches in my scratched pages. For I am always a slave of nostalgia. I miss the innocence of time. The gentle breeze of the night sky. The aroma of hot chocolate that I used to make when I was young.

I still remember how my mother would wake me up early in the morning so I could peek at the incandescent light of the glowing sun rising. I always yearn for a life that is gentle, soft, and familiar. But then, my vision became vivid as I suddenly remembered the song “Slipping through my fingers” by ABBA, in the back of my mind. Reminding me and making me feel something. That little girl who was innocent, wild, and carefree. That little me slowly fading and slipping through my fingers. I am scared that I may lose her forever because she keeps on growing.

That’s when the realizations are slowly emerging. Turns out that life was far from what I had imagined. It was tempestuous and foolish. As the light begins to intensify so does my misery. As if I was still in a cage where I could feel the burning rage within me, surrounding it. Something inside my heart was screaming abandonment and the fear of not being able to change, adapt, grow, and re-learn. To emerge like a shadow and just disappear completely. I’ve been in denial that my loneliness turned into despair not knowing that no matter how I tried to forget everything that happened, however, the words keep hunting and growing because of the madness imprinted in my heart for so long. I could sense my abhorrence at visiting the same place and seeing something I had already forgotten, but it kept coming back. It reminded me of the minute details of how someone acted demented; the loud noise, cruelty, violence, and the fuming rage like fire that made me like this. I was the most affected and burned.

My mother used to dress me as a toddler with pink, soft fabric, coated with diamonds, and a pair of cute low-cut shoes with one or more straps across the instep. Now, I was dressed in my mother’s woes and my father’s wrath. Unfree, broken, and skeletal.

Growing up as an only child, I never had a role model. I was surrounded by people I didn’t want to be like, and in situations I never wanted to be in—the four corners of my room were aware of this. I was forced to be better, wise, and obedient; I was pressured. I was groomed to be good. I could hear my mother’s whimpering voice echoing in my mind, “Paningkamot jud dai, kay walay laing mo tabang nato, ikaw-ikaw nalang jud” (You have to work hard, because no one will help us, but only yourself). And then it hit me like an enraged bullet; I dodged. I was reminded that I am the last card in the family. I felt scared and I suddenly paused at that thought, wondering if I could make it. Will I?

I still wonder what it would feel like to have a stable life. Where you could buy things you want and need. To have a planned future without even thinking if you can enter college, although, the only thing you have to do is to pass and graduate. But at that time, all I wanted to do was run, to absquatulate into the abyss. To wander longingly without any responsibilities. To become liberated and find a place of latibule, a place that is hidden, yet safe. To become a child again and cry in my mother’s warm arms. However, all of this is just a form of old dust that flew away in my deepest imagination.

I was pulled back to my senses when I heard crying voices, everywhere, in the same room. I opened my eyes and gathered every thought I could think of. It’s just so amusing to see humans being vulnerable. People who are suffering from different problems in life, but continuing to live, to find a life and a purpose. And I was one of them. In my 17 years of existence and from all my experiences with life. I realized that it was not death I feared most, but rather the thought of having not lived and dreamed. To become better, and grow as a person I want to become. To see potential in me, and the courage I need just to survive. To live without fear, and to mold myself into a determined and unrecognizable woman. I’m just hoping that sooner, everything would make sense and see situations why everything happens like this. That no matter how tiring it is, I know that, when the time is right, it will find me.

Indeed, change is scary, but so is staying the same.

Lira P. Sorote, 17, is a senior high student at Calatrava Senior High School.