25 Centavos’ Worth: When it fails to pass

What was wrong with me? The difficulty of the question made me give it up to God, the universe, and whoever could take a prayer – or a curse, for that matter. I honestly could not pinpoint any single problem back then, for I felt everything about me was utterly failing, like a mortal infection.

If breaking out was the task of shattering a glass wall, I have attempted it. Believe me, I have. I tried and I tried but nothing! I only became worse, badly beaten and hopeless more than I already was. My days compressed were a length of heartbreak.

My story, as dry and dementing the type comes, begs your ears to listen for this is no mere account of change. Here, a second year student confronts fate:

As a freshman, I enrolled under the program Interdisciplinary Business Studies, taking up my father’s suggestion to get a commerce degree, which was probably his chance to make me into something fascinatingly successful: IBS tomorrow, BSA another day, Law the next. But for someone who didn’t know what life meant, let alone what part careers and majors played in the equation, I just followed like I always did. Choosing DLSU, the school attended by all three of my older siblings, was typical of me.

Fathoming the pressure of choice, though, was enough to make me panic. I also needed something to extinguish my emotions, so I agreed.

And there I was, thankful to Daddy, for the College of Business was a great place to be. I had friends who adored me, professors I impressed, and subjects I “owned.” In every way, I flourished. In the field that had St. La Salle, Yuchengco, and Andrew, I was a contender. But I had a secret: I didn’t believe in myself.

So I left.

It was all very irrational, but I was misguided by own mind, left to believe what I thought: that I was temporary. That someone like me was not good enough for the real world, the one beyond Taft. It’s like I had two minds: (1) the one that worked, producing all those brilliant ideas and performed well, and (2) the one that just talked, making stupid suggestions. The latter was louder, of course.

For a girl whose family ran a preschool and whose sisters were already enjoying careers there, I made to follow again. By my second year, I was already in the College of Education, the place to prepare me for a sure, easy future.

But it was also the place that robbed me of my happiness.

The measurement of a mistake runs parallel with our level of discomfort. At the lower levels, you can find yourself being told by your friends that your new dress look perfect on you, even though it totally does not. At the higher levels, there is me side by side with the gospel of love, told in borrowed wisdom from a Jenny Han novel: “You can’t put being in love on a scale. It’s either you are or you aren’t.” Well, I wasn’t.

Even after I realized this, I still couldn’t just go. Reality makes it impossible for us to remove and reposition ourselves without a long wait, no matter how hard we are willing to work now. In La Salle, it takes a year for you to be completely shifted to another program. In the meantime, I had to face the snowballing tragedy that was my foolishness.

In the absence of conviction, compliance makes things happen instead. But even as a solution, it still bore the danger of an overdose. Why, my passivity came to the point that I no longer had an idea of ‘self’. Everything I did, all my activities were done for the sake of getting it over with. Without a trace of personal choice or fancy, I was lifeless. Or at least, I wasn’t speaking for myself anymore.

But the wait was over for me. I got accepted into the Advertising program, alongside a successful application with The LaSallian.

Except my experience still hung to me like a stain. I knew I was in a good place, but it only intensified a misery I thought had passed or at least has been replaced by recent changes. I was all broken strings, fragments of old strength once tied together by character and self-discipline. Without conviction, I could not work, produce, or give quality responses, so I began to feel useless. My spirit… I had to get it back.

What was this new misery like? For one, I missed the feeling of dealing with challenges incrementally, when you could still put them on a schedule, rather than having everything as a struggle. It was cruel and exhausting, trying to conquer my situation by activity and staying awake even if it meant me being sleepless and worn out in excess (in contrast to the invigorating feature of an avoidance snooze), which led to fruitless and even shameful turn outs. Among other incidents, I missed school for three days and delayed important homework for a month. Taft lamps have seen me trudge to McDonalds at 2am, in desperate search of comfort or its potential; I have exhausted countless locations already. I started to look crazy.

That’s why I needed her, an old friend.

Before she came, I tried to situate objects from my happier days, things I no doubt loved, to my present. They were enough to bring back memories but not the feeling. It was light from which I received no heat. They couldn’t give me warmth, like a person could. Like a friend could.

We can never know everything and it would be stupid to believe otherwise. Sane minds then would recognize that the richness of life is found in our experience with difficulties, the effort made to reach success. I didn’t know what to do and my friend didn’t either. We didn’t understand the paradox, but we felt the pain of it. Wanting to depart from the horrid feeling, we agreed to shift my stress. A friends’ day out in a movie theater – ordinary, much like a person’s brokenness – I just asked her to stay my friend forever, because I – sigh – knew nothing else. Of course, she said, and that truly calmed me.

Kindness is wisdom. When things get bad, good, or confusing, have confidence in this gentle philosophy. It will get you through.

Days later, I do better. It was enough time for me to learn that the picture of improvement isn’t always a slope upward; sometimes, it’s bursts of comfort and discomfort – a rhythm that put me on a sequence I did not question for its simplicity gave a kind of heaven. I found myself one night picking up Alice in Wonderland from my pile of books, turning to my favorite part, repeating my favorite lines, and sitting down.

Then I just laughed. As if there was a switch, another sequence began: I played my favorite song (‘somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly…’), Googled pictures of funny birds to use as desktop wallpaper, and went back to my book. Spirit gave me no reason to compare, only to admire. I was enjoying myself.

I continued to laugh: insanely, sweetly, sanguinely. Really.

You see, for thinking crazy, I was punished. In the end, however, I only learned horrible things persist until you do something about it. You come out triumphant the day you do.