Confessions

So I decided that bananaducky at blogspot was something that should be left alone, like that TOEFL reviewer my former student Jas lent me two years ago - it was one of the casualties my Xavierville II room incurred from the flood during typhoon Ondoy. I was too anxious to get back to Los Banos the following day (and spent very few days in QC afterwards) that did not have the time (or inclination) to dry out the pages, even with the sole electric fan in my room. (I do not have any need for a blowdryer.)

So I decided to lurk arond wordpress. It looked convenient, and it was easy to create an account, but when I attempted to make my first post a while ago, I realized I wasn't up for deciphering its numerous functions, when all I wanted was the 'Create Post' option.

So I reluctantly sneaked my way back in blogger, like the adolescent girl who stayed up way beyond her curfew and tried to tiptoe (with noisy shoes on one hand) her way inside the house and prayed to God the uncooperative door wouldn't creak just this one.

My head is up to here with qualifying exams for the postgraduate program I'm in (one down yesterday, two more to go until Friday). There's also the first chapter of my would-be dissertation (stress the words 'would-be') on Wednesday and that conference paper that should meet potshots on Friday. My Asian literature professor was gracious enough to move the deadline for the seminar paper to next next Wednesday, but all I want to do right now is sleep and wake up on October 31.

This has always been my enemy - the spectre of what-may-happen-to-me-in-the-future. I have two versions of the future. The first one is an arrogant, self-assured creature who thinks the fates have been etched on my palm (an Indian house guest once traced the obscure lines on my right palm and suggested that there was a star, which meant that I am artistic), composed through dregs of tea, intimated by a mystic (who was consulted upon by Nanay, who forever wonders what will become of me) and forever decreed by my intuition. (During that Friday when I thought I was right about Jojo, I told him that I have always had this certain vision of myself, what I would be doing with my life, what place I would live in for the rest of my life, and all that gumption. Strangely, I never saw him in that picture. And yet, I saw him in my dreams the other night.)

The other version of the future is the one I avoid like the plague. I anticipate it like the injection my childhood doctor administered when I was literally out of air due to an allergic reaction to a drug. (I remember it very clearly - Mount Pinatubo was erupting on television.) It is the future I thought I could avoid, if only I burrowed under my pillow for just one more hour. It is that outcome that haunts me more than the process. The process was always taken for granted.

I'm sorry, process. I'm sorry, too, practice. I suppose my arrogance has gotten the better of me all this time. I have always been content with the simple knowledge that I am this. Such self-assuredness. It stinks.

It reeks of years upon years of under-rug-swept thoughts, first steps filed under: First Steps. They cling to my memory like the smell of shit on the sole of my right shoe that wouldn't go away even if the visible traces of that shit have been effectively obliterated.

Do you remember that knot on my back you had to knead, like it was the only thing you could do for me? You cannot undo that knot on my back anymore. I cannot say, "Screw you." Or "Go Away." Or "I hate you." Or "I love you." There is no more space for those words. And yet, you are like the smell of shit on the sole of my right shoe that wouldn't go away even if the visible traces of that shit have been effectively obliterated.

So I decided to throw that shoe away.

(For Sarah)