Hope

For my last posts, I’ve done nothing else but ramble about my graduation. Maybe I was just overwhelmed by the fact that finally, after all my hard work and sacrifices, everything is, well, in a sense, over. Anyway, the big day went fine. It came, it went, and that was it. I’m officially done with school forever.

But that’s what’s exactly gets me to thinking these past days. I kinda zero in on the word “Forever”. Shit! The word brings with it some sort of… finality… of dread… That I will never be able to do the things I used to do. Even up to now, I can still remember my morning rituals when I was still in high school and grade school even. Heck, even up to now, it is still automatic for me to raise my right arm as if to pledge the Panatang Makabayan after I hear or am done singing the Lupang Hinirang. I even miss wearing uniform which served both as a source of convenience and pride for me back then. Now that my College is finally over, I know I will miss doing homeworks. I will miss doing papers. I will miss late-night cramming. I will miss group studies and group projects. I will miss my classmates. I will miss my Profs. I will miss the school staff. I will miss our Tambayans. I will miss my org-mates. I will miss my friends…

I’ve been thinking of how time flies by. More than just a mere cliché, the thought now carries a feeling of greater weight. Until College, I carried many of the feelings I had back in high school. Memories are still so fresh. They are still so alive I could almost taste them. What more of the relationships I built in College?

Back in high school I could not wait to grow up. I could not wait to go to college and live a life independent from my parents. But of course, I did enjoy my high school and that’s what makes it kind of contradicting for me. I can’t wait to leave yet I can’t leave because I want to be with my friends. Many of my lasting friendships I have found in high school. Now that my college days are over, I can’t help but dread that the friends I have met here are fated to end up like the ones I had in high school. They come, they go. They would still be your friends, no question about that. You’d try to keep in touch and try to update one another with the going-ons in your lives. You try, but somehow, nothing really stays the same. It’s like water. You try to hold them in your palms but they just slide off and trickle down. I know I’m being stupid. There’s always the e-mail, friendster, and of course the wonders of cellular phone. But I don’t know. I can’t help feeling so gloomy that sometimes I just wished I did not invest much in building relationships in College. That way, when the time for departure comes, I wouldn’t be hurt. For everyone will eventually move on. They will fly. The opportunities, moments, people, friends…

Sometimes I just want to scream “STOP!!!” For just one fucking second STOP!!! I want to hold on to these moments. I want to hold on to my youth. I want to hold on to my life. Let me cherish the moments. Let me cherish the time I’ve got. I’ve waited so long to be 15. Why did I become 18 so fast, and now, I’m 22 and done with College? Can we just pause my life right now? Just stop. I don’t wanna fast forward right now.

Perhaps if I had cried during graduation, it would have helped. I wanted to, but I did not. I’m supposed to be tough. Hell! Who am I kidding? I do not understand why I feel I’m in a crisis right now when the truth is… I don’t know. Maybe that’s my problem. I don’t know in what truth I lie right now. I just wanna flow. I feel so dammed up inside. I don’t think even a nice drinking session would do me good right now. But knowing me, I’d probably be in another state tomorrow morning. I’d forget about being depressed and go back to feeling dispirited again only at the most inconvenient of times. I fear that time when I would just suddenly burst. Or break down.

I would end up lost… frustrated. That everything I have invested so much on meets its eventuality. That it would finally be just a part of my memory. I wonder if these people will remember me in the same way. I even wonder if I will remember my self in the same way. I have been thinking of growing old lately. How long will it be until I’m 30? Will I be married then? Will I have kids? Will I be rich? Will I understand how the kids are when I’m in my 40’s? What new things will this world come to know by then? Will I be able to adapt? Will I be a grandfather by 50? Will I be wrinkly when I’m 55? Will I still be able to walk without a crutch? Will my friends be around when we reach 60?

I would think of death and… I would not know any more what to think. I’d be stumped. What then? How long will it be until my time? In what manner? Where? Will I get a nice burial or will I get cremated? Will I be finally proven that my search and belief for something beyond has been worth all my while? Na may katuturan lahat dahil merong nga talagang Walang-Hanggang-Meron? Or will I never really find out because by then, everything will just cease to exist? That everything will end with just that? My death?

Buti na lang mayroong Easter. I imagine the world without coming to know the Resurrection of our Lord and I see a world with no hope at all. Perhaps that’s what my problem is. I’m afraid to die right now. I don’t trust enough with the resurrection He can give me when I finally let go of all the things I am stubbornly holding on to. I realize I am in crossroads and I tremble with having to make my own decision. And what makes me tremble greater is the fear of discovering in the future that the choice I have made was the wrong one. I fear of arriving at a point of no return. That in the end, I can do nothing but look back and regret and be miserable.

What would the world be without knowing Easter? Without knowing that the soul can turn to something… to someone for light when all is lost in darkness and captivity? In my case, I am captive of my own emotions and fears. Moments like these gets mo to think of the movie Babbette’s Feast. There is hope, like what the General discovered in the movie. The grace he once refused from God was given to him again in his old age, in the place where he least expected it to happen. Eventually, making decisions and leaving people is still a painful thing to do. But in His own time, trust God to give you back the grace you seem to have lost or refused. The way Jesus has trusted in His power to raise Him up on that glorious third day after His death.

I am still in distress. Everything is still uncertain. But it is in these moments of darkness that I truly get to appreciate the streak of light.

Dear God, grant me the grace to be more open. Teach me to trust you with all my heart. You are my only Forever.