Am I Getting Old?
The last time I went home to Tacloban (actually, the last couple of times) there was a certain feeling of displacement in me.
During my student years, my girlfriends and I would usually walk from school until the downtown area to catch the jeep that would take us home. And along that road, we'd usually bump into friends and schoolmates or whoever that we know that usually make our triptime triple than normal. There would be an obligatory exchange of small talk or of course, a talk that would require even the whole trip.
As I traced back the steps that I usually took back in the days when I was a student, the same crowded boradwalks, same crowded department store. Even the vendors that sold different delicacies and odd-stuff were the same but, the people walking the opposite direction was no longer the same. I no longer bumped into one of my friends or acquintance that a certain nod would acknowledge that I saw them; a small chit-chat that would usually cause congestion in the middle of the boradwalk--I no longer hear the grumping and yelling of people behind me. Everyone that I saw were new faces--unfamiliar and nonchalant (and some even hostile).
I felt awkward and left out. Am I growing old?
When I got home, I sat on my familiar corner of our house (outside the garage, near the trashcan), how I wished I bumped into some of my friends. I don't care if they look older--or even younger. I just wanted something to represent that I still belonged in this place, that some people still knew me before I became what I am right now.
"Bianx?" someone called me from inside the house, my boyfriend.
Maybe I am old. And maybe, I changed.
During my student years, my girlfriends and I would usually walk from school until the downtown area to catch the jeep that would take us home. And along that road, we'd usually bump into friends and schoolmates or whoever that we know that usually make our triptime triple than normal. There would be an obligatory exchange of small talk or of course, a talk that would require even the whole trip.
As I traced back the steps that I usually took back in the days when I was a student, the same crowded boradwalks, same crowded department store. Even the vendors that sold different delicacies and odd-stuff were the same but, the people walking the opposite direction was no longer the same. I no longer bumped into one of my friends or acquintance that a certain nod would acknowledge that I saw them; a small chit-chat that would usually cause congestion in the middle of the boradwalk--I no longer hear the grumping and yelling of people behind me. Everyone that I saw were new faces--unfamiliar and nonchalant (and some even hostile).
I felt awkward and left out. Am I growing old?
When I got home, I sat on my familiar corner of our house (outside the garage, near the trashcan), how I wished I bumped into some of my friends. I don't care if they look older--or even younger. I just wanted something to represent that I still belonged in this place, that some people still knew me before I became what I am right now.
"Bianx?" someone called me from inside the house, my boyfriend.
Maybe I am old. And maybe, I changed.
posted by Biankeeta at 1:36 AM
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