I’m running away from you, taking all the chances of leaving you, of forgetting you, to a safe distance where you can never hurt me again.
I have played my part in this allegory that only told of your absence, of you wanting to prove that I was wrong all this time, when in fact I have done nothing to your impending crisis. My part has seen the curtain close, and that I think was enough, for me.
I am tired of looking around, wondering what I must do and who I am meant to be, for me, for you. What I hold on to, and the only thing that I must not depart with, is this modicum respect for myself and for you. I have given up of understanding you amidst the confusion in my life, in your life. Maybe it is time for me to think about me, considering you have played over and over, in my thoughts, in my words since we met. And from such time I have forgotten that I have a life to live on my own, which incessantly gets no relief from you and that I need to help myself, now.
The way I defined you on the first day has changed the way I define you now. I don’t think I can even define you now, much more identify with. From where I stand, which haven’t changed much, you have bended many boulevards and fooled many dark alleys that I may never find my way to you again.
But I have also not failed to see that what you have now is consummate joy, fulfillment, warmth. Maybe that is what your goodbye was all about, now as I understand it. Maybe that is what made me matter so little and not enough afterall. But let me tell you that there is no hatred in this heart, but only alterations of sadness, that what you have exactly predicted has happened; disbanded reality that nothing is perfect in this world and that all that I have are falling meteors; and that I have let you hurt me and nobody’s sorry.
Safe distance — that feeling of absolute attachment to oneself that existence is strictly defined only by that exact moment: when you are equilibrated on the border of not thinking yet thinking, when you are devoid of any scurf of emotion but only believed that all the hurt and the joys have conspired to bring you to that exact moment, to that exact time when you realize you have made it somehow.
That is my safe distance. And you have showed me time and again that it must be away from you.
I call it the Terminal Madness. It happens and it kills me everytime. It is some sort of behavior I don’t quite agree as a symptom of ageing as my roommate said. I think it transcends beyond the growing of age. I think it is a coming of age.
When this semester started, I made an agreement with myself: I will enjoy the few months left in college no matter what costs this may involve. I even said to myself that it won’t matter anymore if I don’t get high grades and graduate with honors. As long as I can say to myself at the end of all of this that “Whoa! I had a blast!” is sure enough.
And sure enough, to date, this is the BEST SEM ever! And I am sad that it will bring to closure in a few days.
Which brings me cold wafts of apprehension, excitement and sadness: the first semester has ended rather quickly and one more quick semester like this and I am done with school forever, unless I go to graduate studies, which I am now considering as my bigger option than finding a job after graduation.
The other day, my classmates had some daydreaming. What if we all go out of the country after graduation and study abroad for our PhDs? That would be fun! It is nice to know that most of us would like to study more, perhaps realizing that today’s competition is one that puts more regard to academic achievement.
If you would ask me, I still have no definite plan after graduation. One of my professors has already offered me a scholarship for Tokyo but I guess it would still be very early to tell if I am really ready to go out of the country right after graduation. I don’t know about you but I feel that I am still not that old for such thing. For instance, when I told my mom I want to go out of the dormitory, find my own place and try to be more financially-independent next semester, she freaked out. Maybe she also thinks I am not that old yet. Even my friends find that really bizarre. To make them understand, I tell them that it is part of the rehearsal for my boring, forlorn life after college. It is part of the whole Terminal Madness. Whether I like it or not, I have to leave the comforts of dorm life sometime anyway. Besides, I will be doing someone a big favor if I leave so. But enough about that.
Going back, the fact that I don’t have plans after graduation is making me queasier. But I guess that is just simply how I go with life— giving more space for more varied combination of possibilities, and picking which one I like after sometime. Besides, the miracles of something good always happen on the last nick of my no-decision-to-decided phase. Who knows, I might end-up working in a call-center, swallow my pride after eating the hate-words I hurled against call-canter agents, and pound my bedroom wall every night for being such a cynical mediocre. But don’t get me wrong , I have nothing against the call centers. They make yuppies rich, but the downside is that they also make them stupid.
20 something, quarter-life crisis, loss of love, name it, nothing's weird.
