Day 1: Unlock the Mind

It was nothing more than a fiction inside my head – a random thought, a suppressed longing, and a hopeful transmission that it was more than a dream. I saw you again there – smiling and waving at me. We were friends again just like back in our Junior year. But when I woke up…

How long has it been? I couldn’t make sense of it at the moment. Or maybe because I’ve kept it to myself every now and then. I would tell my friends that I’m way past getting over it all, but here I am still: staring at my laptop and pouring out whatever residual emotions I still have for you, and for what I thought was ours to share.

‘Another Monday’, I tell myself as I glance through the calendar with bits of paper still hanging from its rather messy rip of March. I still have two weeks to spend, before going back to school. Five years, and still struggling over my second course, I rekindle how long its been since we last had a decent conversation.

Pharmacy was not my intended degree – I was really into Chemistry in general, but fate brought me elsewhere. After spending almost four years into my previous program I settled with the best choice going forward, and here I am now. How has it been for you, I wonder? I remember you telling me I should pursue Medicine after my undergraduate studies, as it was a dream you never could fulfill.

And here I am now, amidst the length of years I have ‘wasted’ and earned for getting a degree, I still consider pushing myself further with planning to take up Medicine in a good school here in Manila, or if not, in Baguio so I can seclude myself from everyone else.

With a matter-of-fact tone in my head, I set this aside and go back to what I initially intended to unravel (my apologies for being such a scatterbrain in the morning). I tell myself probably like my career choice, it would be best that I just moved forward with life, and accept things as they are. It probably wouldn’t be any better if I let myself fall behind everyone else, and spiral back down to depression. But for now, I’d rather escape to you and see you again in my sleep.

How sweet it is to dream of great things and stay among them, isn’t it?

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A Work in Progress: Day 150

For the longest four months into my college life, have I attempted to refrain from answering the people who have been pushing me to reveal why I shifted courses when I was almost there.

I wasn’t really sure myself if it was the shame of having to go through another two to three years of Pharmacy subjects before graduating, or was it the pressure of focusing on my current track? Probably because early on I have anticipated the numerous questions that had crept my mind since November.

On the other hand, albeit the expectations of most people, I have been doing very well in the College of Pharmacy – I have a new refuge in the seclusions of the St. Theresa’s Building; old friends are still with me, but now with the addition of great people, in all-white uniforms; a more organized schedule which lets me move freely in between subjects; a slowly rebuilding self – esteem which I thought was lost, but most especially, a provision and a renewed promise from God that this is going to be the best move forward.

Gone were the days when I had to succumb to the heavy feelings I had back at the Cardinal Santos Building (my former department was situated in the eerie corner of its Second Floor). I no longer have to brush shoulders with the professors whose preconceptions about me cannot be changed by my simple acts of progress – praises you but talks about you differently when you’re away.

I no longer have to deal with its tyrant, and her dealings. For a very long time, I have told my juniors how she deals with concern and care, however deep inside I have feelings of disappointment. But alas, they are now gone, and I wouldn’t be dealing with them for a long time.

For the longest four months in my college life, I have found peace and happiness to where I am now. Probably I wouldn’t mind too much answering questions why I left. Why I didn’t just finish Chemistry. Why I ‘wasted’ three years for nothing (this not true, FYI. Pharmacy is STILL Chemistry). I am a work in progress: His work, in progress. He still has a lot in store for me, all because I tried to do things on my own. But He steers for me now.