Portia Silva

I always assure myself that someday everything will figure out. The way I imagined things to be, I don’t know. And it has been the same fighting mantra I’ve patiently hold on to in the last two years since leaving the academic environment and plunging head on to the “real world.”

The real world —- a quarter of “what do I do with my life,” another of “shit, I wasn’t prepared for this,” a pint of “why am I here again,” and a full bite of “I am young, wild and free.”

Sometimes I’d really rather take advice from a fortune cookie yanked straight out of the retreat counselor’s cookie jar, than listen to myself skip along and down the rabbit hole. 

But sometimes I think I just might be another egoistic, twenty-something full of hopes, dreams and love for the future I see myself in. Self-absorbed and insecure, I am often told by my Father (in all the glory and wisdom of an almost senior citizen) to chase my happiness while I can afford to and to make mistakes while my age can forgive such.

To what extent? “When you no longer question ‘why’ over and over again,” he says in a tone so calm, so sure. 

Perhaps it’s time to go back to the basics and remember what made me feel alive in moments of deep confusion and expectation. And upon always, I am fronted by the demons of self-doubt who push me to reflect: what exactly am I doing with my life? 

I’m just 22, yet why do I feel so mediocre about my decisions?

Wala lang. Sana PMS lang talaga ito. 

There are those rare, precious moments when I look back at the last few months of 2012 and relive how I have fallen in love beautifully and immensely. That in the aftermath of several heartbreaks, I have learned to fight back with forgiveness. That in the death of relationships which promised forever, a parade of positive energy came crashing through. 

Often, the universe reminds me to stop trying too hard to learn all there is to know about love. Not because of the existence of rejection, betrayal and contempt —- although unnecessary, for these are part of its uglier side. Because to resist knowing what is love makes it more meaningful and less complex —- for knowing is only inferior to experiencing. 

In the 1996 film “Dream for an Insomniac,” it was said: 

Unless it’s mad, passionate, extraordinary love, it’s a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life. Love shouldn’t be one of them.

Because once in a while, someone comes into your life and you are shaken, terribly worried how this one person can be so sure of you when you aren’t even certain about yourself in unusual levels, in many ways.

But this is also exactly why I get it now when they say “you just know.” Trust me, I know.  

I cry an awful lot.

From the most absurd of reasons (like watching an elimination of America’s Next Top Model) to the abstractly teeming what ifs that I never seem to find the answers to (what if I have waited a couple of months more?). I let the thoughts consume my being and trigger that feeling, good or bad, in an incredible level of deepness I have never explored before.

Most people avoid being seen when they cry for fear of scrutiny. In fact a friend once caught me crying in a corner of the school library because I haven’t reviewed half of what was to come out in the final examination. “Crying is showing that you are weak and in all senses, defeated,” she said. With arms covered in bright yellow highlighter marks and eyes numb from pulling an all-nighter, I cried even harder for a good five minutes.

After that encounter, I have allowed other close friends watch me cry. In times of failure, we cry together alongside several paper bags of Chinese takeout. In happier times, we cry and laugh and cry some more to the sound of High School Musical tracks.

While crying does make you look weak and defeated (plus ugly, too), I think crying is a clear indication that you are human, that point when you acknowledge your own limitations.Crying is touching base with the core of your emotions, igniting the most genuine expressions known to men.

Crying. It’s that feeling of exhaustion when you pull yourself back and remind everyone else, “Hey, we have tomorrow still.” It’s that moment when you subscribe and drown in the warmth of your own soul. It’s that newfound happiness when you have finally mustered enough courage to let go in exchange of something far too great to hold in.