My day usually opens with strangers invading my personal space. Some passengers’ elbows bump into mine as the wheel of the bus hits another hump. As the four-wheeler travels around my city’s bosom roads, I stand or sometimes sit there with my longing. Like a schoolboy with his Nickelodeon lunchbox. Or a teenager with her buggy headphones. Or sometimes a mother with her cute toddler. Bearing with them something real and important.
It’s been two weeks since I graduated from college, and it’s my first week at a job I didn’t like but had to accept because it was the first that came to me dying to be taken in. How can you refuse a generous offer in a country suffering from a cruel unemployment rate? You can’t, unless you are part of the privileged.
There are two kinds of fresh graduates in this world: one who believes they have spent their entire life studying; therefore, the moment they graduate, they should take the time to rest before diving into the orb of capitalism and corporations, while the other is the one who thinks that they have spent their entire life studying; therefore, they are running out of time. There is not enough time to chase dreams. There is not enough time to meet every expectation. And there is not enough time to pursue their never-ending list. It’s safe to say that I belong to the latter.
I’ve always been a commuter, but travel becomes different once you become a part of the working class, especially if you are on your way to a job you are pushing yourself to be grateful for but don’t feel any passion for. My dream job is out there, my dream company is operating somewhere, and I’m here on the road longing for the day when I’ll get to be with them.
I am a slave to my yearnings. Everywhere I go, I bring them. But I never see them as baggage that I do not want to carry. Because my yearnings are like those of my children. I want to nurture them and see them grow. My longing for the things I dream about on my commute is what fuels me as a person, the same way the bus I’m riding on gets to function.
Having these yearnings is like being thirsty, but even if you drink water, you cannot be satiated because you live on a deserted island that only you inhabit. It feels like every step you take that doesn’t bring you closer to your dream is like humming the wrong lyrics to the ode you have written yourself. It’s supposed to be something that you already know, but how come the rhythm doesn’t work anymore?
We always talk about the people who don’t know what they want or who don’t have any dreams. The emptiness they feel because of being inadequate means they have no purpose to fulfill. It’s a nightmare, and don’t get me wrong; I sympathize with their pain. But we rarely talk about the people who know what they want yet feel dreadfully limited to attaining the ambition they have carefully painted in their heads.
Some people might never understand the endless thirst that defines me, and I don’t expect them to. After all, even if my desires tag along every time I’m on the road and sometimes I feel so lonely and heavy bearing them, I’ll be the only one to feel the weight. Not them.
It’s never easy to have an appetite for something that is yet to be available on the menu of your life. But I burn for my dreams, so I am not afraid to get into flames along the way. My yearning commutes with me because I let it. Because I ache for a life that I have yet to live.
I know it’s insensitive to romanticize something that other people dread. The hassle of commuting is someone else’s nightmare, especially if you are residing in a country like the Philippines with the worst transportation system. But I have learned to use my commute as an outlet for daydreaming to satisfy my longing for a different life that I may or may not get to live at this time.
Some young adults have this mindset instilled in them that it’s never okay to want something that is beyond their capacity. That’s why they grew up believing there was nothing more to life than what they had become accustomed to. While others have been taught to believe that the world is so big and there are endless possibilities for you to attain your dream. I guess people cope in the ways that they know how. And sometimes it doesn’t make them a bad or ungrateful person, but just someone who’s trying to survive in a world of starvation.
In my case, if standing or sitting in the bus going to work is the only way to live off these longings, at least for now, then, I guess, I’m okay taking the long, alternative route.
Jessica Ann Evangelista, 23, is an aspiring journalist who yearns to leave a mark on the world.