antecoitus

I
just checked out of the Hyatt in w a r s a w, killing
time before I have to go to the airport back to p r a g u e. I figured I still have a couple of
hours so I sit down and think about the schedule that will harass me for the
next three months. The company has asked me to help out in a project in w a r s a w and still handle the other job in p r a g u e which means shuttling back and forth between
the two cities every week. I’ll be moving to r o t t e r d a m soon, I believe, uprooting myself from the comfort zones I have not easily
built in p r a g u e along with the life of the man I’m currently with. It’s like starting over
without coming out of heartbreak, yet with a higher propensity to consume
ridiculous amounts of nostalgia and at bad times, alcohol. Most of the time, I
act brave even when I’m metaphorically shitting myself from fear of the changes
I make. Thinking whether they are too fast, too relentless, too focused. I
don’t want to grow old bitter, thinking that I did not make the journey slowly
enough to smell the roses and piss in the bushes. But I guess neither life’s
pace nor the quality of your journey can ever be compared to any person sitting
next to you. Some people want to drive their car, quickly and safely or slowly,
appreciating the country side. (That goes without saying; you won’t really
enjoy riding shotgun, with me on the wheel). How you want to live or have lived
through your experiences can only be measured by your ability to smile without
trying.

 

Staring
into space, I notice a woman looking at me, probably noticing that I have
shifted at least seven times in my seat — probably scared too with the
possibility that I have some psychosis. I’m thinking of the months ahead, of
the fun and the recurring migraine I expect. I hopelessly wish to be fifteen
again, when my only worry is how to get out of the high school beauty pageant I
was forced into, the scariest, most surreal part of my adolescence – only next
to being dead sure that I was spontaneously bleeding when I got my first
period. Then it came to me. Tomorrow all
my friends from high school are coming together, ten years from graduation
night. On that graduation night I didn’t shed a tear, not because I would not
miss those people but because I was excited about what’s next. I can be an
insensitive prick and I’m the least thoughtful person I know. I’m crying inside
now, not happy with myself because I didn’t get a ticket back to m a n i l a in time for it.

I
was always a cynic when it came to reunions. I thought people came to measure each
other up, to see who got what they wanted and who got what they deserved. I
mean, after years of being separated from all the drama of growing up, of
wanting to be good enough, or of simply belonging, not to mention the years of
finally getting over adolescent acne and awkwardness — why go back? I roamed
the streets of SIC asking people to either — fall in line quietly, remove any
form of jewelry attached to any part of their body or measuring their skirt
length with a ruler. I lurked the corridors with a persistent breakout, lanky and
with a constant clumsy feeling of being too tall and hair that would never
cooperate.

 

To
me high school was a blur of classes, spiritual recollections and retreats
where we outdo each other at crying, first Wednesday and Friday masses, chats in
the auditorium, the corridors and even the chapel, flag ceremonies, talking,
laughing and snorting with Jeje, my best friend of more than two decades about
anything and nothing at the quadrangle while munching on hotdogs on sticks. I
remember the GIs I used to conduct which I think then were so serious and now I
think are a hoot. Those many precious times when I confiscated walkmans and
extra necklaces which most of you hid behind the Manila paper stuck to the
bulletin board – a place people thought the SBO would never look, I used to
secretly admire the sheer sophistication and cunning of it. I confess to turning
my eye away occasionally from little violations, pretending I didn’t know about
them. I have a lot of times re-lived in my head those many nights we’ve spent
in the nearest fast food joints talking about the booboos we’ve made in our
latest attempt at making a real high school play or those field trips where you
pass around a bag of chips in the bus during a field trip and it comes back to
you empty. I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen where Jose Rizal lived. I
mean how many times do we really need to go to c a v i  t e and stop to buy buko pie in l a g u n a?

 

We
assured each other in the corridors that friendships will never end and
exchanged letters we wrote every night, folded so artistically that I have
never been successful at refolding a letter back to its original shape after I
read one. I have, a couple of times, begged the wonderful manongs and manangs
to please fetch a shoe which fell into one of the ledges of the building on the
third floor and not knowing how to answer them when they ask ‘how the hell the
shoe got there in the first place’.

 

I
was amazingly proud of our batch, when we won the first cheering competition we
ever joined. That is, we won third place when freshmen are supposed to always
be on the fourth. I obsessed about how we will manage to tear the enormous
Japanese paper we broke through which was hanging from the first floor and how
we will get through the whole routine with voices that can take a lead in the
American tale, we sounded like little baby mice on Prozac and red bull. I’m
proud of every performance I have been in with my batch mates and I profusely
apologize to those I have shouted at or even cussed at. I guess nobody ever
really got mad at each other and instead we joke about everything that went
wrong after.

 

I
reckon what made batch 97 really special is that I’ve never seen us try to be
something that does not come naturally. We never tried nor were we ever proud
about being called geeks, nor we ever took pride at being notorious. We never
labeled ourselves because the differences and the respect we had for these
differences was the thing that made us unique. We never needed to call what we
have… something, we just knew that it was.

 

Now
hearing news from friends, checking friendster accounts (yes I am a sucker), or
bumping into some of my former school mates – I know that almost everyone is
either here or somewhere else, hard-core career people or happy mothers and
wives or both, entrepreneurs or licensed professionals. All of us are kicking
back at life with enough skill using all that we have experienced – most of
those lessons I believe we have subliminally learned from high school when we
weren’t being taught. As I write this, I am with a gin and tonic specifically
in a whiskey glass shaving seven minutes of my life with a cigarette… I didn’t
grow up perfect. I made mistakes and hurt people and I bet the Sisters would
not be proud of me cutting someone in mid sentence during a meeting when my
impatience is getting the better of me, I can be at times cocky and arrogant.
Still I try to be an honest, decent person everyday (though I still sometimes
have this paranoia that if I wear extra jewelry a nun will appear outside my
flat with a violation report hehe, kidding) That I think is what I have brought
from spending four years with those people from high school.

 

Remembering
all of that is funny, weird, scary, heart warming and downright cool. And I
have to say that you guys kick ass.

 

Yesterday,
I got a call from one of my most memorable teachers in high school, the first
one who made me feel like an adult instead of a fourteen year old who did not
know her behind from her face. Ms. Gatmaitan or Ms. G as I fondly call her
asked me if I was coming. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I wouldn’t be, as
much as I couldn’t respond to the core group members on the reunion letters
about my presence there. The core group I believe has done an amazing job with
the event. The people who have threatened my life, along with my family’s at
times, if I would dare not to come are —

Kate,
who was one of the prettiest girls from the batch who didn’t ever have to try
but only one of the few who never tried hard to impress has maintained her
winning personality and her shrill, giggly charm. Lei, the girl who I remember
was always a demure quiet beauty, whose face as one teacher said in one of our
classes in Grade 2 would break hearts — has the persistence of a raging bull
with this event (yes, my memory has not been eaten by any toxic substance I’ve
taken nor bad decision I have made). Joanne, one of the cutest and smartest
people I have known in my life and with whom I have maintained a decade of
great friendship with, called me twice from

s i n g a p o r e.

Her ability to do this
remotely shows how far she is able to go in life. All the others whom I fail to
mention here, I’m sure you guys had a difficult time putting all of it together
– thank you so much. 

 

I
realize now that there are parts of my life which I would gladly go through again
if I were given a chance. One of them is those four years of high school with
people who are different and yet still inherently the same as I. I would have
had a chance to go through all those emotions, excitement and fabulousness
today. I would have had a chance to see all those people I have spent the time
with during that period when I was just trying to figure out who I am, who I
can be. Those people who bore with my graceless, self-conscious period of
growing up. It was a truly great ride, and I’m eternally pimped.

 

I
have made it a rule to never regret any decision in my life, but I think for
this one I will make an exception. I should have been there, because the night
my high school friends are all spending together would have been another
turning point in my life. Knowing that all of them grew up to be wonderful,
beautiful and strong, that all of them grew up well even with taking different
directions, would have given me the strength and the courage to assure myself
that everything will be – okay —  and
maybe I even can have chance at doing great in the future.

 

I
hope those who came to the 10 year reunion will use that night well and enjoy
it, because they made the right choice of coming. They shouldn’t waste that
luck.

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 11:05 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.