Metamorphic

Just like Harry’s world, I feel that mine has become darker as I grow older. Not that my life is something magical and exciting. It is dull actually. The only excitement I got - most of them, anyway - I get from movies and books. It’s pretty boring to live a life like mine, especially if I consider I still might have at least another twenty years of lease to my life. 

Should I spread my wings and fly away?

I have cried a lot in the last two or so years. But I am selfish, and I don’t share my tears with anyone. Well, except in one instance when I could not take it anymore and just had to break down in front of someone. I don’t like this feeling of being helpless and disappointed. My life is going in circles, covering distance but going nowhere. But it is so tiring being like this. I don’t like it anymore. I’ve been pretending even to myself, but I no longer want it . I’m still too young to be feeling this old and jaded. I’m not a saint. I’m very far from being a saint. But I’m not mean. I don’t hurt people and animals and I don’t take advantage of others. Why has my life ended up like this? I’d like to think everything is my trial. I admit I’ve become a bit stronger and more mature because of everything, but am I supposed to just smile and let things go on? I don’t know. I believe in fate, but I don’t like my life now. I feel like wanting to create a change, for myself and for the ones I love. It’s scary, but perhaps this is also a part of my destiny. 

No escape… yet

I have been so complacent and so comfortable with my life that I had not taken even a minute to think about my future. Somewhere along the way my life got so tangled up that I now find myself regretting some of the decisions I made. Not that it makes any difference. I’m not given to introspection, and I always make it a point to absolve myself of any mistakes I might have made and talk myself out of feeling guilty all the time. Though I know some people would stand by me and would perhaps support every decision I make and help me rationalize my decisions, I could not let other people, especially my family, suffer because of me. It’s just I never thought it would reach a point when the only alternative left for me is something that I cannot consider yet. I’m in a bind, and the escape I so long for is not in sight. But I know, no matter how much I want to crumble and cry - or, for that matter, escape - I cannot show how I’m feeling inside. It may be hard to do, but I can only hold my head up and smile. But it’s getting wearying and tedious every day.

Time has moved quite so fast

And our little Kolai is not so little anymore.

When she was born about six years ago, I couldn’t quite know what to feel. Sure, I was a little excited, but that was just it, only “a little.” You see, I was - still am - not wild about babies, and she was the first baby in the family. Later on, though, she grew on me. And before I knew it, she has become one of the most important persons in my life. She was precocious even as a baby. For some reasons, we thought that she would have her father’s and uncle’s (my other brother) intellect and her uncle’s temperament. She did not disappoint us. She has a smart head on her shoulder, and she has quite a volatile temper. When she was four, she got quite angry at her teacher, whom she claimed to really like, when the later marked one answer in her testpaper wrong. Kolai was in the right. I know because I saw her paper. The item asked the kids to connect the ends of two parallel lines to form a square. But one pair was quite long that when you connect them, it would be a rectangle you get. Kolai followed the instructions, and indeed she got a rectangle. When the teacher marked it wrong and asked her to change her answer, her temper got away from her. She took the paper from the teacher, erased her answer, returned the paper, and returned to her seat where she cried. We were aghast of course that she acted that way. She was never brought up to act like that. But what could we say? She was still a baby, and it was the only way she knew to show how she felt about what happened. But I really wanted to smile when I was told about it. For one so young, she already showed us she is not one to willingly turn the other cheek.

She’d turn six on April Fools’ Day.

At her age, she already shows signs of being bossy (although I’m not saying she’s spoiled). Sometimes, she would act like she was the parent rather than the child, the one with more maturity than the other way around. With her playmates, she would assume the role of the leader (although she is the youngest among them). She also shows a knack for understanding concepts most kids her age still don’t have a grasp of, like saving or earning money to buy something. But more than that, she already shows interests in my clothes and books, and in some things I do. When she was about two and still too small to wear my clothes, she would make do with wearing my high-heeled sandals and carrying my bag. Later, she had taken to wearing my scents, lipgloss and, sometimes, eyeliner. She also liked to have her nails colored whenever I did mine. She then progressed to wearing my shirts. All my smallest ones are now with her. Not that I mind - they fit her and look good on her than on me anyway. And I don’t mind sharing my books with her. I’m even impatient for the time she can already read long sentences and understand what they say. I am hoping she would share my passion for books and reading.

I cannot wait for her to grow up.

But I already miss the times when we would lay on the bed and laugh over something silly and sometimes over nothing at all. Just her and me. (Her mother, my sister-in-law, is kind enough to understand that we want to be close to her and to share her with us.) I miss it when I could still carry her in my arms. She’s now too big for me to do that. Even her parents look awkward carrying her. And I suspect she feels she’s already too old (she even have crushes now!) to be carried around and made to sit on laps. I miss, too, the way she used to run to us for comfort whenever her parents raised their voices at her or something. But things have to change, time makes sure of that. I’m just thankful we had those precious moments together. I’m sure we still have plenty to share with each other. And though she is no longer a baby, in our hearts she will always be that.

A Little Whacked, Maybe

Until recently, when it was brought out in the open, I have not owned to being wary of changes. Perhaps I know it all along. But because I have the tendency to automatically distance myself from unpleasant things and to push problems at the back of my mind, I have not really taken the time to consider what is it about changes - especially sudden ones - that I object to.

I’m not really scared of changes, per se. They just freak me out sometimes. Oh, I can make changes when necessary and I can adopt to them when I need to. It’s just that the thought of moving somewhere not familiar or changing my routine, especially when I’m opposed to it or am not ready for it, discomfit me. I suppose my reactions to the sudden changes - some minor and some not - that had to happen in the past should have told me I don’t take too well to being asked to move out of my comfort zone all too suddenly. But they did not. I don’t know how I did it but I’ve somehow convinced myself to think nothing wrong of getting annoyed with someone for changing the arrangement of my books or my clothes, or for changing plans which involve me without giving me time to adjust to the idea of changing them first.

I know I might just be scaring myself over nothing, that my reactions to sudden changes are just normal and it is okay for me to freak out over even minor - but sudden - changes. After all, changes are really disconcerting. But it’s so depressing these days. And depression always makes me want to rustle up old ghost, take insecurities out of their vaults, wallow in self-pity, think morbid thoughts, scare my self, or rant. Or do all of them. 

C’est la vie, I know. And I have to live it.