I have until December 1. By that time, I should have my life planned out. Help.
Every night I find myself staring at the white ceiling of our double-deck bed where images used to dance around on that canvas — but now it is empty. My scalp feels numb and prickly from the scratching, and the vessels in my head dilate as I force it to think and think, and think. I only have four months left, according to Mom.
This is not normal for a 22-year-old unmarried woman. I know I should be spending my days having fun and chatting up with friends, or binge-watching series that do not seem to end. But here I am moving from one café to another as I drown myself in caffeine and research-related ideas; hustling at work as if using the restroom is unpaid for; and doing extra things that seem to increase my net worth and productivity. “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22. Everything will be alright if we just keep dancing like 22.” Yey, way to go, Taylor. I wish I could dance around and cannonball into the pool with your cool friends now. But I can’t.
The life of a Philomath and the eldest is hard. It becomes clearer to me that pressure and confusion are to be expected. I grow up as a hybrid of success and failure — a valedictorian in Kindergarten, an 84-grader in Elementary, a salutatorian in High School, the top 2 student in College, and a topnotcher in the Licensure Exam. Oh wait, you might ask — where is the “failure” part?
I guess besides my Elementary years where I skipped some of the classes to spend my 50php allowance on pay-to-play games like Ragnarok and Rose Online — from being Little Miss Valedic to a Student Gamer worthy of an 84 — well, I am failing now.
This failure does not come from what and who I am right now — it comes from being idealess of what and who I am going to be. I used to know the next step, or the next three steps, but right now I am at a full halt. Monday becomes Tuesday, and Tuesday becomes Wednesday, yet what becomes of me?
I have read the article, “Why is no one talking about Post-Graduate Depression?” The first few lines go like this: “One in four undergraduates experience mental health issues during their studies but there is little said of the awful feeling post graduation that leaves students feeling anxious, upset and confused.”
Then as the article progresses, it makes me want to high-five the author for sharing, “I remember graduating, and feeling absolute despair and panic. I had no plan, no idea what I wanted to do, and I was being incessantly quizzed about my next move by all my family and friends. I couldn’t bring to myself to tell them that I had no clue.”
I wish I could tag Mom. I hope she knows how hard it is to compete nowadays, harder than walking from house to school, or not having cellphones or Internet. The birth rate of 15,000 births each hour is not helping at all. Imagine, my mother’s first job in the government during 1980s even pay higher than mine today — so here she comes telling me I should go abroad ASAP so I can live my life better there.
I think about Singapore, Dubai, and other countries richer than Philippines and Africa. I think about the tremendous responsibility to be at par or be more than what my parents have achieved so far. I think about all these things and I swear, I lose one part of my sanity bit by bit.
Mothers have this “Luksong Dugo” which when translated to English becomes non-sensical, but simply means that they have strong hunches for recipients of half of their genes. In my case, mom senses that I’m a lost sheep so she bugs me — not once in a while but almost all the time — about what I’m going to do in the next 10 years of my life. Oh god, I wish I could write my parents a prospective novel of my life, but sorry I’m not a damn fortune teller. All I can say is, “I want to be rich and travel the world and be happy.”
Of course, they did not buy that answer so instead they gave me a three-item list of what to pursue because they just worry too much. I had to choose one, get it done, and hopefully use it to succeed. But the word succeed is too vague, it could mean that I have a high-paying job, or work at a well-known company, or have a fancy title, or be happy with public service. As much as I wanted to blabber about the alternating depression-anxiety I am battling with, I want to take this time to laugh at the idea of being 22 but feeling like 30.
Mom: What are you going to be in the next 10 years? Tell me your life plan.
Me: Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m going to be a wish-granting Unicorn. You know, gonna fly around the world as a damn fab Rainbow Horse.
Just kidding, I did not tell her that. I told her to wait for my final answer which is more rational and more realistic than abovementioned.
So ironically, while my friends are having a hard time asking their mothers to let them work out-of-town or just let them go and be responsible on their own, mine pushes me further the edge of the branch and makes me flap my wings sooner than the feathers have grown. Hey, I am flying now but just enough to keep myself suspended in air and not to die from starvation. The training works! Yey!
I find myself staring at the white ceiling of our double-deck bed where images use to dance around on that canvas — and it became clearer to me that these feelings of being pressured and confused are to be expected. I grew up as a hybrid of success and failure — and that makes me flexible and a conqueror of Opposite Worlds.
If I fail in the next step, then I shall succeed in the next three.
The song “22” plays in a loop, Taylor sings out lines about falling in love with a stranger, nights of forgetting deadlines, of looking like a mess, of dreaming instead of sleeping, and I can’t help but smile because I do those things. I guess I still act and feel like a 22-year old after all.
