Wistful Nostalgia by Drex Le Jaena

Wistful Nostalgia 

By: Drex Le Jaena

Nothing's more bittersweet than recalling teenage moments from their wonderful, dazzling array of fun memories down to their bleak and mature perspectives as one leaves this particular moment in life so crucial to the foundation of who they will be. 

When you reached 19 it was as if you were 18 and 366 days old. The idea of being 19 is not something of importance until you get asked "How old are you" and then you get startled. Am I 18? What? But I just had my birthday. Then the person who asked will probably be slightly confused as to why it's taking so long for you to figure out your own birthday. You didn't mind. You were sure. "I'm 19." But the thought lingers. You didn't know you were 19 until that very moment. And believe me when I tell you this will happen many times. 

In passing times like taking a ride in a jeepney you might probably wonder when was the first time you rode a jeepney alone? Without a company. Was it in high-school? In 4th grade when you were running late in class and your parents allowed you to ride the jeepney to your nearby school? And because you memorized the location you spent most of the ride admiring the little television that shows the mundane lives of people you were passing by. The vendor of kwek-kwek, the humming of the man who were grinding ice for iskrambol, the sari-sari store you always went into whenever you ran out paper and you were shy to ask from your classmates. And now you're riding, perhaps the same jeepney, with a driver you know only with his face that is always sweaty, and his blue uniform with a white towel on his back, but instead of a school bag you are holding requirements for a job application. Resumé, birth certificate, NBI, Pag-Ibig, SSS and other requirements you took pleasure in queueing. And when you found the television inside it was no longer there. It was merely a window. 

Remember the first time you wash dishes? The way you were so eager in soaping the plates, even reaching the deepest inside of the glass while your mother stands beside you in case you broke a plate, or perhaps in your being careless hurting yourself in a shard of broken china. So you did it delicately, in calculated movements, gently place the glasses, put the forks here and there, sharp point of knife away from me. "Yes I got it, Mom." Water felt like a different entity back then. Its ability to clean the plates, make glasses sparkle in cleanliness, forks glitter in the fluorescent light, plates white as new and knives standing proud in the kitchen rack as you are. Little by little you were growing up. Honey, you didn't even know. 

Some might tell you, somebody might praise you for it but you would only be conscious of your youth until it passes, in a distant past.  

Remember siesta? Afternoon naps. Every summer vacation our parents would constantly threaten us saying they won't allow us to play if we don't sleep. Time is such a valuable moment as a kid. There's so much things to do and yet so little time. Sleeping against your will was definitely a waste of time so you devised a plan on how to appear as if you were sleeping, and then a few minutes later wake up and if asked if you slept, you will say "I did." But for the meantime you have to fake it and so you made a promise to yourself. "I'm gonna count up to one-thousand and then I'll get up." But you didn't finish. You were fast asleep and you didn't even reach 100. And when you wake up rather late you can clearly hear your friends banter regretting the time it took you to sleep that long. Nevertheless, your Mom allowed you to play. There were so many afternoons like this. There are even times where you managed to not sleep at all. 

No one tells you that you're a grown up the moment you opened a can of meat loaf using a knife, the moment you wash your clothes, how growing up every noise disturbs you from thinking, how much you crave for silence to nurse the growing demand of a speaker inside your mind.

When we were still a child, most people wish we'd grown up fast. So they can see us navigate in a world they once had the pleasure of experiencing. To see the world in an adult's eye, with a keen sense of everyday life such as knowing if a meat or fish is fresh, which kind of radish would make sinigang even better, or what routes we'd have to take to get requirements to a job we're applying from a faraway city. 

People were always telling us what it's like to grow up but they never told us how we would wish we weren't. How growing up all of us would wish that we were always a child. How it is daunting, arduous and hard. And how every morning we wake up, it's no longer the feeling of a new day but an extension of the yesterday we want to cut ourselves from.