Ely Buendia todoodoodoos his way to my memories, particularly one that has you in it. We are at the Xavier Hall benches. It is nearing midnight, or maybe past it. It is one of those nights we decide to own the school for ourselves. It was one of those nights we decide to stay as late as we can in the campus. A sleepover with no sleep nor bed. That was all the visual memory the song brought me but I imagine we might have laid down on Bellarmine Field looking up at the starry sky, probably talking about classmates, boys, dreams, boys, fears, boys -- the usual stuff late teenage girls usually talk about. I imagine we walked the halls of EDSA (is it still called that now?) looking at org boards, with me probably taking some nicely-made poster down to post on my study desk wall.
That must have been fifteen years ago. When every moment used Eraserheads songs for background music. How amusing that we thought we "understood" the world, yet it hardly understood us! We thought our hearts were the most important things, that the possibility of it breaking was just too much! Fifteen years hence, our hearts have been broken several times over and yet here we are, happy and content. We are still searching and wanting more, I am sure, but probably the expectations are less and hopefully, the disappointments as well.
We are full-fledged adults plagued by taxes, loans, home-building, parenting and so many more. Such things we thought trivial then! I look back and laugh at our idealistic ways... and I revel in it with much gusto! How we lived then. We lived with much flair and flourish! Youth is NOT wasted on the young. It is perfect for it! When else could we be silly and make mistakes? Isn't it perfect that we can blame youth for what we did then?!
I look back to things that happened between then and now. Our angst, our rebellion, our invincibility, our stupidity. It might have been that no one noticed but us. And who cares? We LIVED! We relished. We sucked out the marrow of the bone of life! O captain, my captain! We made our lives the teen movie that we pictured it to be. No chance to revise the script but just to go through it without anyone shouting cut and every moment a scream for action.
It was a lovely youth, Row. I think it led to this lovely life I live. Life is not perfect. It can never be. I shall continue to want, to desire, to be envious. I am only human after all. But the last 30 years I learned to know that life is as good as you want it to be despite the kinks and bumps.
And with that, I thank you. :) Thank you for sharing that exciting youth that I had. I will forever relish lying down on Bellarmine Field with you and the rest of the gang. I will forever cherish sitting by the LHC tree, and when higad season comes in, on the lib steps with the entire LHC and whomever among the batch we can invite to join us.
Laughter, anger, tears and more laughter. Adolescence could not be any more enjoyable than that. :)
