Remorse

I hope I will not be able to say this again but... I'm sorry. I have wronged you. I have been as selfish as a dream snatcher that I've allowed you to dwell into the world of the past and made you pick up what you can barely get from your failures. You became sorry for some of the decisions you have made for yourself. There were also times when you thought that the events of the present could not have happened if a certain decision in the past branched out to the opposite of what you have picked. There were times when you thought you deserved the path you were treading on yet you were still mumbling to yourself that you could have chosen better. I admit it was all my fault.

If it weren't for me, you would be happy with wherever and whatever you are right now. If it were not for me, you would not cry yourself to sleep while dousing the feeling of being able to live. You developed a habit of always looking in retrospect and thinking that you badly misunderstood yourself when you thought that that dream would make you whole; or for your supposedly impeccable thinking that that other dream was just a phase and that more things are in store for you. I know that you can never have time back. This is why I am apologizing to you.

This is just the way I am. The past is my strong comfort for I dwell in it. So don't blame me if I speak more of it than others you know.

My eyes are filled with tears and my heart is in pain and anguish as I write this. Please believe me when I say that I deeply remorse the things I've done. If I were to turn back time, as you would have (deeply influenced by me), I would have chosen differently. I would have chosen a path that would've put a smile on your face and would forever set you in high spirits.

Having to decide between two things is a very peculiar thing, because you either choose wrongly or you choose the right decision. Either way, something is lost. And my influence on you made you think that your one decision caused you to lose a dream you deeply cherished! What kind of being am I? I deprived you of your secret longing; the thing I knew most about you. I can never give you anything; I can never undo the wrong. All I can offer is a silent prayer and a desire that deep down, you can somehow find a way to make things right despite of me. A friend of mine said that you are tough, for you have survived loads of adversities and foes. You can still make your life bearable, if not perfect. As for me, I have gone a long way. I have wronged you and it's time for the punishment- my punishment that I would humbly accept and embrace with open arms. I will be forever gone in your life as deep anticipation erases me from your presence. I will become just a memory, a talisman, like a reminder of how you scraped your knee, or of how your mother scolded you when you couldn't get to write a simple circle on your three-lined paper. I will be forever gone. And in my absence, I will ask someone to take my place. Please welcome her as you have welcomed me. Learn from her as you have learned from me. Challenge her, feed your memories of her and you would somehow be close to receiving what you truly deserve. Instead of me, the antagonist in your perfect story.

Please do not anymore remember me. I opt to be forever out of your life. For good. Really for good.

Sincerely,
Regret

PS. Please open your heart for Contentment now... before it's too late.




~anamellie, 060410

Absence of

I was busy surfing the internet, looking at Youtube videos, commenting on my friends’ posts on Facebook and typing some diarrhea of words at my Blogger when it happened. The lights went out all of a sudden and sheer silence and darkness ruled the whole atmosphere at eight twenty-two in the evening. On top of that, I swear I could almost feel my sweat boiling (seriously not exaggerating here). No, we didn’t fail to pay our electric bill. Nor did my brother play his usual prank of switching off our main power supply. It was (insert drum roll here please) the schedule for power saving blackouts!

I and my four siblings hate blackouts. For my two younger brothers closest to my age, blackouts mean putting the electric guitar to a rest. My younger sister doesn’t want to miss her favorite TV show either and that I think is reason enough to justify her loathing for not being able to turn on “Panasonic”. The youngest of us, our little brother hates -not fears- the dark; I know this because he explained in detail that he fears ‘what is in the dark’ and not ‘the dark itself’. My six year old brother is like that and sometimes, I wonder if someone switched his kiddie brain with a grown-up owned one. I mean he’s so good with reasoning than other kids close his age.

Anyway, the four of us eldest blindly sought the dark to secure our flashlights while my little brother screamed for “Mommy!” who minutes ago was doing her needlework. All of us gathered for supper with only the candles (and the flashlight) to at least make us see the food we were eating hurriedly. After that, we all decided to make time pass by sharing stories with each other which was strange because we usually sleep our way through blackouts. Much to our little brother’s chagrin, I had so much fun telling ghost stories. I would lower my voice and give them an animated narration and with the dramatic use of the flashlight, I would achieve a haunting effect. Similarly, but with different ‘approach’, my seventeen year old brother was so good at telling jokes and lame stories that we ended up laughing our way despite the semi-darkness. My mother told us her childhood experiences and we gained wisdom from her witty and interesting attitude on storytelling.

Soon, everyone was playing with the shadows cast from flashlights. It was amazing how all of us could be creative at showcasing our shadow-casting talents using improvised 'materials' (hands). It was so entertaining that each of us almost had the same look on our faces when the electricity surged again at eleven thirty... and that was disappointment. Our dream world may be short-lived but its end created a new bond within us. It wasn't really all thanks to the inventor of flashlight. And it mainly wasn't for the power outage that things have been different. If we chose to sleep our way instead of opening up with each other, none of the surprising things would have happened. We would have experienced none of those thrills and excitement. I felt like a child again as I realized that most importantly, If we didn't welcome each other, none of us would have shared the individual lights burning within us. I would never forget that moment as slowly, each one of us leap to our beds as we said our ‘good nights’.

Almost an hour had passed, but I was still unable to sleep.

All the lights were turned off. I left them as is, grabbed my flashlight, pen, and notebook, and went out of the house. This was my way of battling my insomnia attacks. In a moment of sudden inspiration, I was about to write a poem about unrequited love. I beamed the light to the notebook I was holding. Then I felt as if someone was looking down at me, and I faced the dark sky and looked upon the glitter of stars scattered like silver dust on a black blank page. Then I knew I was up for a new topic. I mentally crashed out "unrequited love" and the earlier events of the night flashed through my head. I drank in the sight of the twinkling diamonds, muttered to myself, and scribbled on my notebook:

“Without the dark, we’ll never see the stars...”

I smiled to myself, and I smiled at that someone looking at me from above, because I knew it was true.




~anamellie, 060110

Authors note: Thankfully, this post is a brownout survivor!

An Unusual Summer

I was a pampered princess.

My parents may not own a vast kingdom, or it may not be our obligation to feed a whole country, but I was born with people caring for me and giving me the best. We are not rich but my dad earns enough to provide us with our needs and sometimes our wants. But still, being the eldest child of five, I am expected to help my parents when I graduate from college which is, to put it in a cliché way, so near yet so far.

Near, because I am expected to graduate this March; less than ten months from now. This is to say that I have to qualify for the requirements and comply with the necessary units and credits. Far, because there’s this low self-assurance that I would even be able to graduate at all. Being an Octoberian graduate is not even far from possible in my case. Pessimistic though it may seem, I sometimes doubt about reaching my dreams. If you were in my shoes, you would comparably feel the same feet as mine- cold. You see, I was not an excellent student. You be the judge if I was even an average. Lately, I’ve flunked most exams as often as you can say “Facebook!” and I never made it to the Dean’s list. My grades were a parade of 2’s and sometimes 3’s. Oh, I do get 1’s sometimes. My grades were not really that “balanced” as my mom put it (Haha! Nice Accounting pun). But the greatest shock (or maybe it was an expected reaction after all) was getting my first ever cinco, an ugly 5.0 in my transcripts. Need I say more?

The greatest heartbreak I experienced, despite Gibo not winning the presidential elections (another story), was having to take summer classes to save myself from academic distress and being able to graduate on time. Imagine, I was in my Advanced Accounting class while dreaming of smelling the salty sea air and looking forward to the summer adventure I am so eager to experience only to find myself on the same class weeks later, studying the first chapters the same course has offered me one semester ago. To experience such a back track was heartbreaking.

I and my parents’ discussion led to the finality that I should “balance” my “depreciating” grades and “carry forward” the mistake I had and learn from it. Seriously, learn from it because as it may not permanently burn a hole in the pocket, “it is still an extra expense!” as my dad put it. So there I was, still studying Consolidated Financial Statements, computing for Goodwill, Consolidated Retained Earnings, Net Income etc.  while logging on to Facebook once in a while to drool, for lack of an extreme word, at some of my friends’ (the lucky people) photos of their escapades to beach so and so. Don’t get me wrong, having to take summer classes was not really bad in a darkness-engulfing-the-whole-world way. I guess it was because I was not used to engaging myself with academics while the sun blazed its hottest and the temperature warmest. It’s not as if our classrooms are not air conditioned. But still. You get the point.

We were given a maximum of 9 units to “use wisely” this summer. So in consolation, I was able to take two advance subjects in Law to lessen the burden of my first and second semesters come school year 2010. So going to school for a month where most of your school mates are chilling outside the country or chasing butterflies at the province has its plus side too. My friends and family helped me cope with the pressure and sadness of not having the freedom equating the past summers of my life. I was able to survive the academic whirlwind with my close friends who took up summer lessons too. Usually, after classes, we would play truth or dare games that are challenging, fun and worthwhile. Little though it may be, having to see your crush in the corridor can help in the process too. Well in my case- Waah! I do have the tendency to be off-tangent sometimes. Hahaha… So before I start blabbing something quite in the opposite side of the fence, I guess I'll have to put this one to a close:

Even though I wasn’t able to have the summer vacation I ultimately anticipated, I get to know so many things about myself. I grew with me a new wisdom not only offered within the vicinity of our classrooms. I learned something from the experience. I don’t take it bitterly now. I do admit I may have brought that failure upon myself. Come to think of it, I can never be sure if I’d call it “failure”. I’d say it’s a stepping stone, a wake-up call that I believe God has given to me. He has His reasons that only in time I would be able to understand. In retrospect, maybe the most heartbreaking thing that has happened in this unusual summer (really) is when my presidential bet didn’t win the elections. But as I have said, that is another story.




~anamellie, 052810

Facing the Deep Blue

It’s a nervous thought. It’s really scary, looking beyond tomorrow and imagining what would happen to us in the future. I guess we really can’t help it, especially because all of us have that certain fear of the unknown. Here we are in college, preparing ourselves for the big “it” (A great turning point in our lives). Our performance in college would become a boundless basis of what we will be in our premium years.

When I ponder about it, or sometimes when my mind is at it's idlest state, I often end up with the most unusual but accurate analogy of sea turtles. I don’t know, but the more I think about it, the more I am fascinated by the way I can relate our very lives (as students) to that of the sea turtles’.

By the time sea turtles are lay by their mothers, deeply buried and hidden beneath the sand, they wait for the time that they are hatched. Mother 'pawikans' (as the natives in Occidental Mindoro call them) dig 4 meter deep holes in the sand- not just one but three holes and lay their eggs on one hole only. Why? As you can infer, digging two extra holes are meant to confuse predators. Neat huh? But sometimes, they can never really be safe from certain predators that eat them while they are still inside their shells… and at that stage; they die, without even having the idea of how great the deep blue is.

Lucky sea turtles make it to another stage, and they experience the breath of life. Excited, they all crawl and make their way to the greatest adventure of all, to face the deep blue. Rushing through the shore, all one hundred of them are ready to become "Ambassadors of the Sea". They want to explore the ocean so bad that they didn’t notice the arrival of sharp-toothed sharks. They happily enjoy the warm water and then… the next second, they are already being attacked by those cruel predators. A bountiful number of sea turtles would narrow down to ten. It is now such a small number compared to how many they were from the very start.

Akin to the pawikans' story, our parents carefully prepared us for our individual breakthroughs. Just like the sea turtles, we have been concealed and protected against those certain “predators” in our lives; predators that would cause us to drop school or put an end to our existence. But nowadays, sometimes most of us look for our predators instead of the other way around. For example, when we feel like having that certain urge to stay in bed the whole day instead of preparing for school, or going to the mall with our peers even though we still have huge piles of paperwork or projects on our desks; we place ourselves as very delicious meals for these predators that would hinder our success. And I think the difference between us and sea turtles is that they can’t do anything about their ill fate, while we have control about everything that would happen to us.

Our story similarities doesn’t end there. What about the ten sea turtles that survived? They would compete against each other as they travel. Some would circle the world, while some would die trying. Some would even stay on safe zones. One way or another they would acquire scars that would teach them that being ambassadors of the sea is not really a piece of cake. Or in their case- a piece of... well, seaweed. They have to work hard to achieve their goals. To flourish our dreams, we will become like these injured sea turtles as we continue our battles after graduation. With God's help, we would be able to pull aside our adversaries as we pray for his guidance and strength in facing the vast ocean. With that, plus our commitment, we would be able to win!

Facing the deep blue, the surviving sea turtles would have a look of contentment on their faces, and a grin which would say, “I did it!”




~anamellie, 110608

Author’s Note: I learned the "sea turtle facts" from the tour guide we had when we went to Apo Reef at Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro. So sue him if the facts are wrong. Haha... Kidding!