Moved! 

I wish I kept a book containing details, stories and conversations with and about all the people that have left a lasting impression on me. There are so many things I wish I could remember. Yesterday, we drove to Baguio for the first time in months and as we were mindlessly wandering around SM I came across this person I haven't seen since I was a child, Tito Pepper; a cool, former Sunday school teacher who grew his hair out and only chopped it short on his birthday. What makes this encounter somewhat remarkable for me is he's been crossing my mind a lot these past few weeks, which is strange because there's nothing at all that could be reminding me of him. I was incessantly visited by thoughts of him- I kept wondering how he was doing, even to the point of trying to search for him on Facebook. Nothing. Something tiny was nagging at me- these thoughts, why were they there? 

Yesterday, when I saw him, of course I was surprised at the timeliness of it all. He looked older, but almost quite the same- tall, wearing a cap and long, curly hair. I introduced myself and I wasn't certain if he could remember or recognize me at first, but when lowered his voice and I saw the smooth transition of his face from a calm expression to an even more serious mask when he asked about my dad I knew for sure that he could remember who I was. We talked about church and I told him I was still searching, to which he replied, "Only those who truly seek will find." 

Right then I felt this immense sadness spreading inside of me, like a seed that's been planted a long time ago that's always been there except I focus on other things most of the time that I hardly notice, until all it takes is something small, like a person, a memory, or several words to magnify the sadness; the gap that's already there, and I don't know what to do about it. 

We are all holding our breaths- my mother is crossing her fingers, A- is searching for mine in-between his, and I am waiting. All we have is time but we never seem to have enough of it. 

My days can be measured in the manner in which I'm breathing- oftentimes, steady, with the occasional asthmatic's wheeze; when I'm with you, sudden gasps, contented sighs, and heavy breathing; while I wait for my mother's return I am holding my breath, but all I've been doing recently is trying desperately to catch it.

I try to stretch the years in my hand but I can't spread my arms wide enough for all the things that have changed throughout the years. I think of an hourglass and can't take how swift the grains of sand are all disappearing, like how you try to cup your hands around water but no matter what you do you can't hold your fingers together hard enough to keep it from trickling right through the spaces in-between. Sometimes I just want to stop and curl into a ball.

But no matter how aware I am of the brevity of days, I never seem to make an effort to keep track of them with words like I used to, like I promised. I'm afraid I might be losing them too. It's no use avoiding mirrors or ignoring clocks. Everything is in motion. We are all transitory. Every moment that goes unwritten is a memory that is lost.

My mother is flying home from the States in a day or two. It's been a little less than two months since we've seen each other and a lot has happened since she's left. Gay marriage has just been approved in California. Adjustment, adjustment. Mother, are you arriving with heavy news? Here we go again.

I've just had my first taste of College exams and it's only been two weeks since all the all-nighters I attempted (but failed) to make, and soon we'll be facing Midterms, then Finals, then the end of our first semester. I've seen my grades and I'm happy, content, but I know I can do better. I still want to study in Baguio, and I'd like to believe that the city is still waiting for me, but I'm having a hard time uprooting what has already grown here.

I am still the girl who dreams of going places. There are cities I still want to visit, monuments, museums, beaches, roads, and streets I want to linger on, but I am also the girl whose heart belongs home. 

I earnestly want to blog about the first week of College, but there are shit to be done. So I guess that pretty much explains everything. Also, I'm in love. 

I've been trying to write here for too long, but the words won't come out they way I want them to. It's been months. This complicated, rocky, on-again, off-again relationship I've got with writing is starting to spring out doubt within myself, whether or not I'm good enough for the course I want to take and if I truly deserve it, because what kind of writer is one who can't commit herself to her pen and hasn't written in months? 

Five not-long-enough days are standing in between me and the Jurassic walk in the park that is the commencement of College life. This year and the last has been one huge experience made up of tons of other broken down, fragmented pieces of memories I've kept of people and things that I learned from and am thankful for, but I still had to walk away from that. Five more days, and I'm being catapulted into a new one. 

Some things change.

My uniforms (which I haven't even put in the wash), untouched class cards, binders and pads that haven't been taken out of their shiny plastic wrappers, are pretty much in the same state as I am - messy, disorganized, unprepared, and will probably only be ready on the actual day I kick myself out of our front door.

Some just don't.

I was enrolled into an art class this summer, and that was the start of my break from words. I rediscovered how it was to be more adventurous and the importance of paying close attention to the tiniest of details. I fell in love with my instructors (how they laughed and argued about the insanity of Van Gogh), the colors, how the stretch of canvas felt beneath my fingertips, the brush strokes, and the promise of creating something that's entirely your own, but even that I couldn't commit myself to for very long. 

And two months ago, at the end of one of my classes, X- gave me a call to let me know that she'd just reached home after the two long years we spent apart. It was wonderful, feeling just right- like she was back where she belonged, with us, even just for a while. Her return brought back a lot of other things, a tighter bond between our close-knit circle of old friends (except for the inevitable fall-out of one), old memories, remembrances of past loves, and the feeling of how it is to be reckless and young. 

But if there's one thing I've learned this summer, it's that life keeps moving, and so does everything else around you. Nothing is ever static. You can only try to rekindle the ghost of an old flame that once shone brightly but nothing happens. Nothing ignites. You only have a burnt match in your hands.

Some things change, and when you try to turn them back to how they once were, it just doesn't work. 

So you light a new one.

// It kind of feels funny now, how the blank page/screen has intimidated me into not writing when in reality, once I've started it feels like there are so many other things I could talk about- I could just go on and on, but those are meant for a different post.

Bye for now.