Not my station but I hopped off

I can barely recall how I felt on my first-ever train ride. But I remember I was with my mom and we were going to Bambang to buy some medical supplies. All I knew was one must always be fast and alert. Well, those were the least of my concerns as I was feeling ultimately safe with my mom.

Cut to: college. Central Terminal Station. Contrary to what the elders around me tried to instill within my very being, I was never afraid to use my phone on the train. I was fast, so as to secure my spot, but rarely alert. I weirdly felt safe. Maybe because my body felt like it would lose its sanity if I didn’t. One way or another—I always imagine it talking—there must always be a source of comfort. It was Manila.

My favorite station was, and still is, Fifth Avenue. One because it’s my entry station from Bulacan, and two, just because of its name. It’s very New York. No shade to you know who. (but honestly, Abad Santos is a close second. Gosh, what I’d do to have that as my surname).

Monumento–Fifth Avenue–Central Terminal–and now, UN Station. Just when I thought that I would be free from LRT-1 after college, here I am, working just one station away. If I die right here and now, my energy would still be present in those terminals for at least 30 business days, hopping on and off trains, then tapping my Beep card. That’s the extent of how etched my soul is to those seemingly common places.

In all these years of commuting, I was always listening to music. I hated the sound of the train’s brakes, people gossiping, and the ever-inaudible PA system. I used to turn up the volume until I heard nothing but the songs.

But then one regular afternoon, as I was about to lose my sanity because of anxiety, I decided to detach myself from my phone and listen to the sound the world wanted me to hear. It was cathartic, to say the least. So cathartic that I wanted to cry and engage in a fistfight with all my fellow passengers. For the first time in years, I felt that I was able to feel my emotions.

It’s funny how the world seems to put you back in the place where you started. That same day, Bambang was not my station but I hopped off. It was raining but the rays from the sunset were still vivid. Think about a picture of the sky when the elders say, “may ikinakasal na tikbalang.” That was my view from the platform.

That afternoon, I felt like I couldn’t win. That in every situation the world puts me in, there’s always someone who’s more capable. That I am good for a while, then the next thing I know, I’m already in the sidebar. That it’s true what they say … life is really unfair.

My honesty always puts me in places that slowly kill me. But the thought of being untrue makes me feel the same way.

It seemed like my mind stopped filtering my thoughts and went on feeding my inner voice with things that were not entirely random, but rather unprocessed—things like, I will die not seeing the change that our generation always wanted to see, I want to disappear and start a new life somewhere; but surely halfway I will die of hunger and panic seizure; why people are so pretentious and performative; and the thought of me being as problematic as those who I perceive as such.

But if there’s one thing I learned from that day, it’s the fact that one cannot bypass the phase in our lives where we’re immature, petty, unreasonably emotional, confused, pressured, and all sorts of instability. We cannot, for the love of God, dodge those bullets, as we’re meant to be shot and survive. Just survive.

One might say that it’s healthy to take advice from those who came before so we can be more cautious when it’s our time to face challenges. But in reality, even though people have lots of things in common, there’s always at least one thing that’s different in all situations.

I stopped thinking. It was almost 6 p.m. and I needed to get on the next train. I continued to listen to the sound of my surroundings—the sound of people complaining about their jobs, the sound of students laughing about their day, the inaudible PA system of the train, the sound of life.

I love my train rides.

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Julius Pagtalunan, 23, is a commuter and a film industry practitioner.