“What do you want to be when you grow up?” my kindergarten teacher asked 6-year-old me 20 years ago. I distinctly remember having an instant answer for this question each time anyone asked me. Like any girl with youthful naivety, I thought that I would always get what I wanted, handed to me on a silver platter. But then growing up and growing old happened, and one day, I woke up to find that the world is not as pleasant or complying as I thought.
Backtrack to 13 months ago. I arrived in Manila with wide-eyed wonder, full of hope that I was getting closer to my dreams. Although what I thought to be my “greener pasture” was far from grassy and sunny, I was excited to finally be able to run and frolic in it, like other young people do. Born, bred and buttered all my life in a little island east of Cebu, I had always thought of myself as a foolproof white-sand-beach-and-blue-sky kind of person, and couldn’t fully imagine myself falling in love with fast-lane city life. But it did happen, and it was baffling to me.
Manila is a really noisy, crowded and smog-filled gray place, a totally reverse side of the home island I loved. But, at the first instance of seeing the bright city lights from my window seat in the plane, I was undeniably, irreversibly changed. I had always thought I was tougher. (So much for thinking I’m immune and special. But then again, don’t we all?) It was just my first day in the big city and already there I was—an easy recruit, a new Manileña, as my friends teasingly call me nowadays. I honestly was not prepared for my conversion, or even if I was dreading the possibility of it, I didn’t expect it to happen too soon.
Knowing something is definitely not the same as experiencing it. I learned that the long, hard, twisted, muddy and flooded way. Yes, we all know that living alone miles away from family and friends is not easy. If you say it’s elementary and doesn’t take a genius to figure out, then you will sound just like I did, a Miss Know-it-all who was actually a poor, know-very-little-almost-nothing-at-all girl, and you will probably end up at the wrong side of the road like I did, and, unluckily, meeting Mr. Bad Decisions and Ms. Wrong Expectations along the way. This attitude led me to what I was a year ago, a lost nobody in the big city. I tell you now, if you think that you have it all figured out, think again, because chances are you are way off the target by a mile. My best novice advice is: Don’t make a fool of yourself.
Fast track to last month. I found myself unemployed, homeless, and almost broke. No self-help books can truly prepare you for the real thing, and this, too, I learned the hard way. Again, whoever blinded me with the idea that I was different? Those last 30 days were the hardest time of my life here. More than once I was tempted to spend all the money I had left for a plane ticket home, a ticket out of all these uncertainties, confusion, disillusion, and all the sad, dirty facts of life. But, a million times over, I decided against it.
Shamelessly, I was thinking of my pride. I was thinking of the questions that friends and family would be asking me if I return home empty-handed. But, just as I was at my lowest low and couldn’t go any lower, things fell into place at just the exact time, like an exciting, well-plotted telenovela. (I don’t really fit the profile of a telenovela-ish damsel in distress, but if God was trying His hand at directing soap operas, such as my life, I wouldn’t be the one to complain.) If it wasn’t for my ridiculous but luckily well-timed vanity, I would have thrown in the towel of surrender. I had always thought of myself as a survivor, and not a quitter. At least on this count, I was thankfully and mercifully right.
Fast forward to this very night. In this small room, as I insistently type these words, this, now, is MY moment. Many things and events added up to lead me to this crossroads, but the death of one of my favorite college professors was my ear-splitting wake-up call. I finally understood what he always told us—that life is not about giving the right answers but about asking the right questions. So, after all that had happened to me here in Manila, on this night I tried to ask myself the question “How to?” instead of “Where to?” In reading a book or watching a movie, knowing the ending spoils the fun of the story. Going back to that all too familiar question in our kindergarten days, maybe if we were trained to ask not just the “what” but also the “how” of our future selves, I think things would have been a little clearer, if not easier.
In this ungodly hour of dawn, I’ve come to a sort of epiphany on my own life. Now, I see my life as just like riding a bicycle. Books and the things that I learned in school were my training wheels. They got me started, but eventually I had to shed them and do the balancing and pedaling on my own.
But it doesn’t end there. Learning how to ride the bike is the easy part; choosing the right path to my desired destination is really what this is all about. All paths actually lead to one destination, but the tricky part is to find, not the easiest one, but the one that was carved out for me. Now if you ask me if I have figured out which path is really the best for me, I will say, No, I really don’t know yet. That’s why I am sleepless right now and talking nonsense about bicycles. But I strongly believe I’ll get there. This track has been really a tough one for me.
As they say, life is not about the destination, it is about the journey. And my life, with all its roadblocks and detours, is one heck of a ride I won’t trade for anything else in the world!
April Marie M. Antenor, 25, is studying for a master’s degree in special education at the University of the Philippines Diliman.