An epic of a post or "Says the Fish called WANDA..."
3 years old. I am twirling around in a yellow dress, in my grandparents’ old house in Baclaran. The floor is dark, almost black. I can see the blurred lines of a Christmas tree. I see the hazy twinkle of fairy lights. I am twirling and twirling, dancing like only a little girl can. My aunts and uncles are clapping to the rhythm, but I don’t even hear the song.
6 years old. Everyone at school seems to know exactly what to do. All the other little girls know the jokes, the words, the secret language of a world I can’t quite figure out. They know what kind of socks to wear, what bag to buy, what shape erasers to put in what color pencil cases. They know all the games, the songs, the names. They are the daughters and sisters and cousins of girls who’ve done this a million times before. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know anything. I don’t know why I’m here. I peer into my bag and stare at the neatly stacked pile of paper boats fashioned from old magazines that my nanny painstakingly made for me. I thought they would earn me friendship on this first day of school, but nobody wanted them. I step into the walls and disappear.
11 years old. I make my friends.
High School. I am the weird one. I have grown wiser, at least a little. I know how to wear my hair now. I know which socks to buy. I want to be like everybody else, but it’s no longer possible. The other girls can sniff it out of me. I am not like them, and I am terrified. I discover fear. I learn to use it, to play with it, to make it my own. I rebel against myself, yet I have no idea who I am. I no longer dread school. I no longer find excuses to stay at home.
I am told that I can mold myself into whomever I want to become. I am told that I must become moral, upstanding, religious, like Mother Mary. I am told that I must grow into a modern woman. I am told that a modern woman is exactly like the old one, but with newer clothes. I am told that I am smart but lazy, cute but strange, insensitive, detached, naive. I listen to all of this. I swallow all their words.
I learn to smoke cigarettes. I learn to drink alcohol. I learn to talk to boys and smile even when I feel dead inside. I learn that my mother is human, and is entitled to her imperfections. I learn that my father is not invincible, and that I can hurt him with my words.
I learn to play my part. I learn to play the game.
Junior Year in College. I learn to unlearn everything.
I listen to the voices in my head. I pay attention to the monsters growing inside. I no longer want to be like anyone. I become obsessed with finding my “I”.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I find myself in bits and pieces. I am in little cafes with stale air reeking of smoke and melodrama. I am in hesitant kisses and awkward embraces. I am in the bottom of a hundred bottles of beer. I am in the love affairs of friends, in colegiala scandals, in pages of yellowing books. I am in eyes cast down, in hot tears, in maniacal laughter. I am like a puzzle, I tell myself, and I must make the pieces fit. This is who I am, I say. This is me.
New York. I miss everything. I am confused and uncertain and I have lost my hold on who I once was. I miss her, wherever she may have gone. I miss her arrogance and her confidence and her flirty little smile. I miss the sureness with which she held all her tomorrows in the soft palms of her hands. I miss the ease by which she moved around in a city she knew was hers. I miss the banter with friends - kindred souls who knew all her secrets, all her mysterious codes, all the nuances of her laughter and the secret corners of her smiles.
I write but the writing is sparse, halting, hesitant. I am in limbo, and I don’t know what borders this vacuous space. I am pretentious, eager, sincere, jaded, careless, carefree, reckless, pathetic, and intense by turns. Nothing fits. I have grown and shrunk in odd places and everything hangs over me like they were made for someone else.
But I find other things. I find love while eating raw meat and sourdough bread. I find independence straining against my impractical dreamer’s mind. I find strength in tears. I find passion in comfort. I am yet to find myself, but I chance upon glimpses of her along the way.
Now. I surrender. I surrender myself. I admit my ignorance, my naievete, my uncertainty, my pretensions, my failures. I don’t know where I’ve been, and I don’t know where I’m going. I only know that I will get there. Eventually.
Once upon a time I said that I wanted to go wherever the stars would take me, except I couldn’t see the stars. Now I understand that I don’t need to see them to know that they are there.
I still believe in myself. I believe that there is something in me that’s unique to me alone. I know that I was made for something more. But sometimes we’re not meant to know exactly what were made for - at least not right away.
Sometimes, as my head sinks into my pillow, I ask myself why I’m where I am. Why did I leave Manila when I could have had a much easier life there? I would never have had to face the realities of debt at such an early age. I would have been able to watch my sisters grow. I could have laughed with my friends as we struggled to find our places in the world. I could have lazed under the comfort of my parents’ wings. I could have had a nice life - one filled with privilege and pomp and freedom on the arm of some generic well-off young man who would open my doors and buy me a multitude of pretty things.
I would not have had to chain myself to years of servitude to fulfill a monetary pledge. I would not have been mugged or otherwise molested while walking through the streets of New York or the parks of Las Vegas. I would have my religion intact (or at least part of it). I would know my place. I could have been happy. Maybe.
The fact is the reason is pretty simple. I couldn’t help myself. The world called out to me and I had to listen. Perhaps it’s not talent or ambition or arrogance or megalomania that sets me apart. Maybe it’s just that - an ability to hear and a willingness to listen.
I can feel myself changing and sometimes it scares me. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and find myself unable to stop staring at the reflection I’ve made. The contours of her face are unfamiliar. The light in her eyes are strange. I don’t know how others can still recognize me when I can barely recognize myself.
Once upon a time I would have panicked and I would have done anything to stall the transformation. But I’m either wiser or too tired to do anything now. I simply let go of my million ghosts and untether myself from the past. I accept that I must grow. I accept that I cannot hold on to what was. I accept that the world has not yet found a way to bend itself backwords over time and space. I accept everything. And I accept that I will always be who I am. Nothing more, nothing less. I like to think it’s enough.
The fact of the matter is I no longer claim to know anything. I have been emptied and I fear that refilling will take a lifetime to complete. My life is the movie and I am the director, the cinematographer, and the audience all rolled into one. I am the star too, but she stems from the most alien part of me. How ironic that the story seems to be written by someone else. I can change my lines or forget them altogether, but the essence of those words are already floating above me. It is, perhaps, the loosest of scripts, but it is there nonetheless. The scene has already been set. The choice is simple now. Stop the show, or live.
Originally published on Tumblr, October 2006.