My Turf

It had been more than a year since I familiarized myself with the lyrics of the songs from the popular musical, Avenue Q. One afternoon, as I typed away at my work station, I decided to play a couple of Avenue Q tracks. It has been a while since I last listened to them

One of my favorite cuts is I Wish I Could Go Back to College because I could very well relate to the sentiments expressed by the characters in this song.

While I had a blast in high school, college offered a different brand of fun. But there are many things I miss about college other than the fun times and the gimmicks.

I wish I could go back to college.

Life was so simple back then.

What would I give to go back and live in a dorm with a meal plan again!

What would I give to go back and live with my parents, eat home-cooked meals (my Mom is an amazing cook!), receive an allowance (it was never much, but at least it was constant!), never have to think about rental fees and bills… These are realities that adults like you and me often have to deal with almost soon after graduation. 

I wish I could go back to college.

In college you know who you are.

You sit in the quad, and think, "Oh my God!

I am totally gonna go far!"

Back in College, I had an “After-graduation-master-plan.” Work in an advertising agency for two years. Save up. Go to New York (or London) and study. Go back to the Philippines. Earn more money. Buy a car. Buy a house. Meet a wonderful, intellectually-challenging, gentleman and get married at 26. Have kids before 30.

I am now 27 and I am not even close to achieving any of these plans. And I tried and gave my best. I really did.

It is said in the popular Sunscreen graduation address, “Don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. YOUR CHOICES ARE HALF-CHANCE AND SO ARE EVERYONE ELSE’S” When I look at how my life has been so far and start to feel sad that I am not ever half of what I used to believe I would be when I get to this age, I think about these lines and I feel better.

My choices are half-chance. So are yours. So are everyone else’s.  It really is a fair world.

Feel proud and be humbled.

How do I go back to college?

I don’t know who I am anymore!

In college, I was so aware of my talents and skills. I had so much confidence in my education. But joining the real world (i.e. the world of the employed) caused me to doubt all of that. Less than a year after I started working, I was struck with the realization that there are tons of people who are smarter, better-equipped, more experienced–this knowledge made me feel insecure. And as the years passed, the growing discomfort that I have been left behind by my batch mates often gives me a sinking feeling that, despite how big I thought I was when I was in college, I am now a failure.

I wanna go back to my room and find a message in dry-erase pen on the door!

I wish I could just drop a class…

Or get into a play…

Or change my major…

Or fuck my T.A.

I need an academic advisor to point the way!

Half a decade ago, all I had to do to lift up my spirits after an insanely bad day is go to our college org tambayan (which we call “The Verandah”), puff a cigarette, go for a drink and rant to my friends. If not that, I go to the nearby mall and watch a movie. Unsatisfied with my first course, I shifted to one that fit me better. I consulted professors and older friends for concerns I could not understand. If I ran out of money, I asked my parents for more.

It was that simple in college. There was always a constant refuge. There was a comfort zone that I was confident would always be there. There were stable pillars to lean on to. But after leaving the portals of my university and getting a separate apartment, I was beset with problems I did not even think about when I was still studying! Now, nothing is constant. You can be loaded today, and wake up jobless and with nowhere to go tomorrow. “Complete trust” ceased to exist.

I wish I could go back to college!

How do I go back to college?!

I wish I had taken more pictures.

True. Very true.

Even with my Bogart hairstyle (my hair was a really short crop then–like a boy’s—that college orgmates baptized me with this nickname), I still do wish I had taken more pictures.  College for me was a colorful, fun-filled, significance-filled experience. And having missed capturing plenty of my life’s most wonderful moments make me feel extremely irritated with myself. 

But if I were to go back to college,

Think what a loser I’d be-

I’d walk through the quad,

And think "Oh my God…"

"These kids are so much younger than me."

When I could find the time, I attend gatherings organized by the resident members of my college organization. To this day, I still couldn’t help but be surprised at how much time has passed—most of these kids are at least 8 to 10 years my junior! That it had been exactly a decade since I was a short-haired, wide-eyed freshman in jeans and sandals, walking along UP’s Palma Hall, Form 5 in hand, struggling to find where my 7 AM Philosophy 1 classroom was. Geez, time does fly fast!

For me, reminiscing inevitably brings about introspection. And in my introspection, I review what I have done and what has become of my life 5 years after I graduated from college.

In the novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, the heroine, Sayuri, gave much thought about “Lives of Purpose.” Her musing led me to think about the whole point of existence, my own “What am I doing here?” ruminations. 

Reminding myself that I am still living a Life of Purpose saves me from drowning in depression over my present condition. I may not have done even a portion of what I sought to do when I was in college, it remains to be a purposeful life nonetheless. For every help I am able to give to my own family through every work I take on, I am living a life of purpose.

On a bigger scope, I consider myself luck to be given the opportunity to help my countrymen in Japan who need assistance, whose sadness and homesickness need alleviation regardless of magnitude—through Satellite Pinoy TV, through affordable and efficient telecommunication, through Philippine-made products, through door-to-door delivery…In effect, through all the services I am able to help bring to them, I am living a life of purpose.

Then I do not feel so small anymore. My skills are not useless. And I am not a failure.

It has been repeated, time and again, that where we are is where we are meant to be. And we have long left college because there is a mass of things that we need to do, plenty of roles we have to play, a number of lives that we can touch.

It is a good life. It always has been. And it is bound to get better.

I am glad to be here.