Cam’s Blog

The familiar spicy, woody scent wafted through my nostrils and awakened me from my reverie. A slow smile began to form in my lips. I quickly opened the windows and suddenly, the car was filled with the familiar cool, misty breeze confirming our arrival at the summer wonderland of my childhood—Baguio City. I stuck my face outside as far as the tiny car window would allow, like I always did since I was a kid, letting the cool air blow away the last vestiges of motion sickness during the three-hour ride. I waited for my dad to recite his usual. “O, o, anak! Matatagis ulo mo niyan!”, but he didn’t. Suddenly, a wave of nostalgia washed over me.

Two summers ago, I went to Baguio to heal. I was 19 and I was heart-broken. The story is far too long and far too confusing to tell. I don’t think I can ever recount it without myself getting lost in a sea of why’s and why nots. The only fair way of summing it up is that my heart was broken and I had to two months to put the pieces back together before I start what I knew would be the hardest, most grueling year of my academic life.

I read somewhere that according to Taoism, there are two ways of getting over someone,–by completely saturating yourself with the person or by cutting yourself completely from him. I chose the latter, I chose escape. I decided to spend a whole month in Baguio city with my brothers. I dealt with my dilemma in the best way I know—methodical and goal-oriented. Funny, just when I thought a broken heart would change me forever, turns out it could not rid me of my obsessive-compulsiveness. So I constructed a time-table with the goal of going over all of Kubler-Ross’s stages of loss/grief in a month’s time—a couple of days (only, because I already had a head start)of Denial, 5 days of Anger, 3 days of Bargaining, about 2 weeks of  Depression and finally about a week of Acceptance. I know I’m sounding like a demented-Bree-van-de-Kamp-in-the-making-control freak, but it’s the way I deal with everything—from school projects to shopping. It never failed me. At least that’s what I thought.

I woke up on day 1 with a feeling that  the world was sympathizing with me. The sky was steel-gray and the rain pounded mercilessly on the roof. I went outside and was hit by a freezing-cold wave of reality. I knew immediately that Denial phase was over almost as soon as it began. So, I slumped on the couch with a stack of syrup-drenched pancakes and thought to myself, “All good, more time for Anger.” Someone once told me I’m prettier when I’m angry. It’s a win-win situation. Imagine my dismay when I realized that I could not even ignite the slightest flicker of anger. I tried to conjure images of little flying devils chanting, “He cheated on you, panget beyotch!”, to no avail. Such was the gravity of my loser-ness. So I thought, “Okaaayyy, so maybe I’m not really an angry person. Moving on..”. Depression—this stage I enjoyed! The alarming vastness of my chick-lit body of knowledge offered an array of tres chic ways to be depressed—shopping without a conscience (no, four colors of the same shoe style is not a sin), mad Coffee Crumble ice cream sprees (it’s okay, depressed persons secrete enzymes that convert ice cream calories to vitamin C) and writing suicide letters Sylvia Plath-style (read: not Virginia Woolf. Eep! The nose!). I enjoyed it so much that I extended it, so that I was left with only one day for the Acceptance stage. Not a problem, in fact it only took 5 minutes of “He’s not coming back. You’re on your own now. This experience made you a better you. Who wouldn’t with 25 more pairs of shoes.”. Breathe. Smile.

 

I attacked my senior year with as much zeal and determination as possible. I was a girl with a goal. Marching out of the Arch of the Centuries without my priced silver plum is not an option. I stopped at nothing. God knows the hell I’ve put my poor RLE mates through (believe me when I say that I REALLY love you guys). Looking back, I realized it was not really the old passion that drove me to reach those goals, but more of a certain fear, of what nature, I still don’t know exactly. Perhaps, of another failure… Whatever it was, it did not prove to be futile. I got what I wanted and more (kudos to all treatment partners of the worldJ).

Soon after graduation, I conquered another battle (did I really?), the uber-scandalous board exams. I remember camping at the newsstand waiting for the first edition of the newspaper that would foretell my future and jumping up and down on the deserted public market when I finally saw my name. But the excitement of passing finally died down and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I had absolutely nothing to do. Suddenly, there was all this space and all this time. Then began the days of me wanting to be alone without really knowing why. Days were spent sleeping and nights lying awake up on the old water tank tower, staring at the stars without really seeing them and smoking endless packs of West Ice. And then one night, I knew. I cheated. On Kubler-Ross. Damn those chick lit books for disillusioning me that shoes make everything okay. And I knew exactly what to do…

I stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the entire city. Night was starting to fall and the city slowly came to life with the twinkling of a thousand street lamps. In the distance, the belfry of the old cathedral stood undaunted by the monstrous structures that sprung like mushrooms. I inhaled the spicy, woody scent of the pine trees of my childhood. I closed my eyes and summoned the mountain goddesses to help me once again.

I am a girl with a goal. And I have demons within to exorcise. Breathe. Smile.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 7th, 2006 at 6:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.