Food for the heart

It’s the month of decorated trees and gift-wrapped items. It’s been months since I last woke up in my double-sized bed, ate breakfast with fine cutlery, went to school in a Mirage, returned home in an Adventure, looked up to see hundreds of stars, ate dinner with my loved ones, and went back to sleep surrounded by my seven pillows.

Though I understood how big an impact all these changes would make to mold my fine future, I still couldn’t grasp all the facts and tuck them in my heart. I couldn’t stop complaining every other minute; I always caught myself ranting inside my head about everything I was adjusting to. And, more often than not, I kept looking back at the things that used to be.

I knew how wrong my actions were, yet I just let my emotions rule.

After two full moons I didn’t even notice, 11 weeks of packing and unpacking, about 77 days of the new routine, I was still trying to get the hang of being one-eighth independent. Now that I was outside the four walls of Palawan, so sturdy that it could possibly protect me from a zombie apocalypse, my eyes had become more sensitive to sights I didn’t see in my hometown: moms sleeping on cardboard boxes, their kids in their arms; kids with huge sacks of garbage to sell; families making fire on the sidewalk to cook their meal; children clinging to jeepneys singing for spare change… I knew these sights were common to most people, but they brought so much pain to me that I cried inside. I wanted to help, but all my ideas just didn’t seem right, making me more uncomfortable at day’s end.

Looking back at how much complaining I’d been doing, I felt really ashamed of myself. I couldn’t believe I was complaining about how hot it was at noon when others couldn’t even find shade, or thinking that the food I had wasn’t enough for my current appetite when others couldn’t even have a full meal for the day. I felt bad for not being content. But then, I’m only human. I tried to correct myself, but sometimes I’d realize that I had done it again.

I wish to stop my endless babble about my “misfortunes.” I fight with good and bad voices in my head. I hope to become a better person in the long run. I’d love to see good in every bad thing, and to smile even when I stub my toe on a table leg. I want to be able to look past all the things I miss and have a clearer vision of what I want to get at the end of the tunnel. I’d like to never cease to thank the Lord for having “downs” in my life because I now understand that they’re lessons.

For now, I’m keeping myself from ranting. One or two baby steps at a time, as they say. Hopefully, I’d be able to look past the inconveniences and just be thankful for what I have. Then, maybe a bigger step: Help others because I’ve learned to help myself.

Forgive me for going on and on about my future. But hey, at least I have a vision.

Lira Princess G. Cadorna, 16, is a fine arts freshman (major in product design) at the University of the Philippines Cebu.