Thursday, June 11, 2009

Blast from the Past

Cleaning all the clutter in my room was one tiring duty I had to go through that one rainy day. I remember when I was still living my childhood days, I usually answer back to my mom in my mind when she always has to remind me of maintaining the tidiness of my room. I guess, I just get pist off most of the time because of the repetitive things they say about what I should do with my life. It’s not that I ignored them all those times, although I did sometimes but at the end of the day I usually get what they’re trying to tell me. It doesn’t really sink in to me in an instant, it takes time. I didn’t get the importance of cleanliness that time. I think making one big mess was fun and all for me but of course I’m a grown up now. Everything changes as we go along living our lives. I don’t have that childish attitude anymore of getting back at my parents through my thoughts just to escape one hell of a punishment. Ok, let’s be honest here, I still do it ok. However, a one big “HOWEVER”, it’s not my usual way of reacting anymore towards instructions or teachings my parents had to shove on my face unlike the person I was way back then. I have understanding and self-control that took so long before I got a hang of it. Anyway, before my story gets scrambled up, let’s go back to my cleaning-the -clutter-mission I was tasked to do. I was told about the changes I had to make and the instruction I got is quite clear, “Clean that place up so people who come here can call it a room, not a basement”. I just couldn’t believe I was sleeping in one chaotic basement. If you got my point, you won’t really believe that my parents let me sleep in a basement. If they have regrets of having me then maybe they would do so, hahaha. It just looked like a basement because it was quite a mess but don’t be that disgusted, please. It wasn’t that dirty, really. Things were just disordered that’s all. Well, that quoted statement I told you before wasn’t directly given to me by my mom but when I was told to unclutter my place that sentence just came out of nowhere. I guess that’s how my mind interpreted my mom’s instructions. I was thinking, if my room has a life, it would probably utter the same statement to me. So, I started dusting the floor, the table and the closet. It was a piece of cake to clean those things but I really had a hard time tidying the clutter inside my closet. A closet that’s supposed to serve as a place for things to be kept when not in use but if you were able to look at it, the closet turned out to be a one big trash bag. I found old books, unused notebooks, old issues of reader’s digest and some were just garbage. I just had a punch of reality telling me that it’s going to be one long and tiring day. Nevertheless, it wasn’t just a simple “taking-the-trash-out” process. I never anticipated to get a free ride to go back in the past by doing something I don’t really want to spend my time to.
I just didn’t expect to find things in that closet that would remind me of how colorful and fun my life was. Those things have been covered by dark for years as if it weren’t a fragment of my life. It was kept in the corner as if it didn’t help me become who I am right now. The dust were all present as I reminisce those up and down times that made me laugh, cry and simply smile. First, the photographs of my childhood. The cuteness I had just disappeared as I grow up and I don’t have any idea how and why. Anyway, looking at these photos reminded me of how big my head looked big in pictures when I was a child which I didn’t notice until I had the eyes of criticism. Despite of all those flaws what I liked the most about those pictures that even though we struggled in life I was still able to have fun and be a child even for a few times. My favorite picture is when I was playing street fighter in an arcade center. I just like fighting games until now and street fighter was one of those games that made me want to stay in the mall forever. I didn’t quite got the controls of an arcade though, so I just press buttons and make the character move. Sometimes I just felt like time was really short when I play arcade until I figured out the real reason why. I get lost all the time. I realized that time when somebody explained to me that in order to play longer you have to win the game. I remember now, I wasn’t able to win a game even in the first round.
The costume I wore when I portrayed St. Joseph. I found it inside a dusty plastic. I took it out and I was just nostalgic as I felt its texture. I played the role of St. Joseph when I was in grade school when we had a christmas program which was a school-wide activity. We had a parade with all the other characters of the bible outside the school. I was with my classmate michelle, a very pretty girl, who portrayed Mama Mary. The costume I wore was too long for my size so I was struggling to walk straight and I kept looking on the ground because I continued to step on the garment I was wearing. I tell you, I was so uncomfortable the entire time. Even when we were doing the play already, I was still so worried about the costume because I might slip, fall on the ground and have the record of the most embarrassing moment of my life in front of my teachers, classmates and schoolmates, and parents. Worst it will ruin the duration of the play. I was still so young to face harsh critcisms from the crowd, no wonder I was getting more nervous as I go on with the presentation. Generally, I had fun knowing that I “broke a leg” and finished the play with no shameless situations to write on my journal. As I keep the costume back to where it belongs, I just kept wearing a smile. Now I know where I developed my self-confidence in facing people. It started from a play that made me uncomfortable the whole time but still ending it with a sweet success.
The all-white costume as Don Juan. I don’t know what to say to this costume. I took the robe and relived the Don Juan moment I had that time and I just laughed at myself. I don’t know what I was thinking why I decided to choose white as the color of the whole costume. haha. Maybe I thought, white really represented the personality of Don Juan as a son and a brother. I over-represented Don Juan’s personality if ever there’s a word as that. Well, I had good memories to keep with this costume. This helped me won my very first acting award. I was the Best Supporting Actor. I never thought I had a niche in acting. I wanted singing though over acting. The classroom paper. We decided to make a classroom paper for us to keep the sweet and sour memories my classmates and I shared together for our three-year stay in high school. We were in Third Year high school when we thought of coming up with one. Most of us submitted articles about their journey as a high school student, their life with friends and classmates and we didn’t forget the teachers we had that helped us grow as a responsible and wise man of the society. It was this paper’s fault why I had to stay late one night just to finish a poem. I’m not really used to making poems but I had to make one for the literary page of the paper. Thank God, it went out pretty well and it rhymed!!
Austral Asian Debate Module.The module is old already. This paper seem not to show significance but it really became part of my learning as a debater in high school. I studied the module, I got interested by it and through it I was able to experience the war of words. We were three debaters on the same team competing against other schools. It was one of the most knee-shaking, brain-twisting, pants-peeing competion I’ve joined in high school. The school always lets me compete in speaking competitions other than writing competitions which for me always forced me to pee my pants due to the pressure I was feeling. Over-all, it was fun and even if we didn’t make it to the finals, the most important thing is we defeated one team at least we didn’t go home not winning a round, right?. It will be more bitter if we didn’t make it through the eliminations.
These were only a few of the things that gave me a fun ride back to the past. We tend to say that we should forget those things that had occurred in the past because what we should be mindful of is the present time. Well, it actually depends. There were those happenings that we should get back at and remind ourselves how strong we became in the battle of life, it will remind us how stupid we were why we made that decision but even though we ended up suffering the consequences we still remain proud of ourselves because we were strong and confident to face the challenge that we called. We will be able to remember those times that we wanted to give up and those times that we were just so inspired to live life. We will recall those people who became part of our personal development as a person. Those people who taught us to fight and forgive. I just can’t stop mentioning those moments that helped me become who I am right now. And after looking back, I am happier than ever. Just happy.

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