THE WORLD IS BIG

by Ayn

First post for the merry month. Supposedly MERRY month.

Contrary to my previous route where I can just conveniently take the shuttle bus to and from work, now I have to take three rides to go to my new destination. Pretty inconvenient, but after 5 days, I'm getting the hang of it. After all, I missed UP. (No I'm not a Maroon, we just used to go to church and jog there) The static Sunken Garden hasn't changed much, and the dynamic Ikots and Tokis still relentlessly travel the loop that has been there for more than a hundred years.

I have been quite hesitant to write about how I've been these past few days. With all due honesty, I can't exactly define how an emotional mess I've been, constantly having nostalgia attacks in the middle of everything. Right. Everything. But one thing pushed me to finally let it all out --- a fateful jeepney ride.

As I sat on the half-filled Katipunan-bound jeep in front of the Business Ad building around 8pm the other night I got pissed off by a couple of college students. Noise is one of my weaknesses, you know. The girl next to me was laughing really hard like she was talking to someone from the college of Engineering when in fact she was plainly conversing with the guy RIGHT in front of her. Anyways, the four of them were reminiscing and reenacting some electoral campaign hullabaloos (is it the time of the year, I dunno. As I said I'm not a Maroon). There was nothing wrong with the whole scene, besides that eardrum-shattering "jeje" noise. But what caught me was that despite how innocent these young kids still looked, their auras exude a certain kind of confidence that speaks "I own the world." Perhaps election is a big thing, and I definitely felt the same hype back in college. But little do these kids know what awaits them after stepping out of State U. Can't blame 'em, though; didn't know it back then either.

It's been years since I stepped out off college, and the years we count after that will be collectively termed as "experience." And they say experience is the best teacher; but sometimes, most of us learn things the hard way. True. We never really realize what we're getting into until we get there. Some people go to far places, some switch jobs, and some just stay. I wouldn't want to delve deeper into what I'm going through, because some people might not be ready to know just yet. All I can say is, I never really used the words "I MISS YOU" the way I'm using them now.

The world is big. That's what I wanted to tell those kids. But I can only paint a smile on my face, sit back, and just wait till they see it for themselves. And me? Hell, do I want to see for myself how enormous it really is. But for the meantime, I can get used to some harder blows as dry run. After all, I'm still on schedule. Right, Ducky? #