LIVING IN A COULDRON OF TEENAGE DREAMS, NOW A TEEN MOM?

She dashes down the while-tiled staircase with a familiar feeling, one that is usually a mix of excitement and gladness, guilt and courage, but courage and courage for the most part. Earlier in the morning, she walked out of her bed-ridden grandmother’s door with a kiss, “Don’t worry, I will still come home!” despite her own mother’s asking, “Aren’t you ashamed of what you are doing?” Take the eyes of her virgin-bride mother, and you may consider this seventeen-year-old a rebellious, shameless, little girl for consciously defying the parental advice of not having sex until she’s thirty and married to some law assistant. It’s easy to overlook this teenager, with all the black clothes and the careless smiles and the eyes that seem to see nothing but her lover’s sight. When she’s reached the end of the staircase, she falls into the arms of her lover (and bestfriend), with the same hair and the same dark clothes, and the same dreams of their future together.

***

Earlier today, I was thinking about getting a pregnancy test and figuring out how the rest of my life would go in case I happen to find two pink lines there. However, it’s still too early to make suppositions because I’m waiting until Saturday, about five weeks since my last period and basically the fifth week of my pregnancy (if i’m pregnant), and when home testing is already reliable. But before all, I’d like to tell you guys that right now, I’m not really troubled or anything or worried or feeling bad about it. If I’m pregnant, I’m taking it wholeheartedly and am going to raise the baby together with his/her father. Kevin and I see tough times ahead, but we also know that we have to take responsibility for our irresponsible actions, and face the consequences, and we cannot leave our child cold and hungry.

I don’t see having a child this early as a hindrance for us to live successful lives. What matters is our will to stay together, achieve our goals, build a great family and keep our love strong despite the disapproval and discouragement from society. Never at once had I considered abortion except when I was sixteen. I’ve always dreamed of a family with Kevin, who is my best friend and the man whom I adore and love so much, and for hell’s sake I wouldn’t be stupid enough to kill our child. I’ve never doubted my desire to share my life with him and to give myself to him. From that dark afternoon when we were only seeing each other in silhouettes, and I broke into tears, realizing that I’ve found the one I have been waiting for, my love for him hasn’t changed and only grows everyday. Having a child or a wedding ring isn’t supposed to be my took to glue us together, we’ve had our bond strong even in the beginning.

Maybe we’re a little unprepared, but I take all of it as a wonder work of nature. I’ll push through next semester and file a leave of absense so I can take care of our child throughout his/her first two years or so. Sometimes my heart still beats loud and fast at the thought of it, but I know that I must embrace everything, of having two hearts beat inside my body, of being a mother. Kevin and I will just work it through and never give up; just work things out for our relationship and for our future child. I’ll keep you guys updated about about my test results, or when this post had just become a false alarm and I’m having my period already. So what’s it going to be like for my parents, his parents, for us? Coming up next on LM.

Post 593

I wake up to an amber morning. My hazy eyes meet the transluscent greeting the sun, gazing through the sheer-curtained windows of this ancestral house. I can feel the provincial aroma of today’s beginning from the slow-rock tunes of the radio downstairs, quite disturbed by the sound of motorcycles passing by. In less than seven hours of rest, my body still begs for sleep, against all the liveliness of the morning. My stomach is crumbling for a fresh cup of coffee and my head slightly aches. But never mind, I can still write. I can still squeeze something insightful from painting the scene of this morning.

The morning is just like the hundreds of mornings I’ve woke up from, except that my life today is never the same. My mind hungrily grasps that word, insightful, like a freshman digging up the scattered scarce intellect left from his hell-week mind. Lately I’ve been writing quite nothing but melodrama. Have I still remembered to punch in a line of insight, a paragraph of reflection, or have I completely laid out straight messes of only whining and crying?

My life right now is a perfect platter of everything, despite the complexities and the roller coaster rides. And two months from now I’ll be back in the University, with a new id, new goals in life and a fresher mind. By then I’ll be writing consciously structured essays, the best things I’ve missed since school work ended. Everything’s as great a fresh cup of coffee. And imagining all the new things I’ll learn from my courses, the tickle in my inquisitive mind roused by my crazy professors, plus the promises of romantic escapades with my beau, I feel an air of proudness and a raise-my-middle-finger reputation. My mind, my body, and my soul have all that they need.

A third of the summer’s through, and I’m expecting that the next two thirds will be great, though I’m still broke as ever. Haha. At least all of my worries have been swept away and all my lies have been flushed. Now most of my relatives look down on me as a rebel, for doing the things I do right now and possessing “liberated philosophies”. But I don’t give much of a damn about them. We know I have a way of pushing aside and denying the existence of things I don’t like. We all know how I can look coldly into somebody’s eyes and say, “Fuck off of my life.” Nevertheless, what matters is that I’ve found my purpose and my reason to carry on for decades more.

I’ve only aspired to be that special someone in my someone special’s life, and to build a home with, to write and hone my craft in the morning, and to cuddle all night and make love with him. Most of the people tell me I’m too young, but Toyang their faces — I’m not my chronological age.

My life is happening. Now I understand what’s so debut in eighteen. After eighteen years of trying to find love, knowledge, and identity, there I go in to that one moment, one time marker of stepping off from my younger days and in to a set of new years — taking off from where I lost the virginities of my soul and landing into the days of ripening and consequent decay.

we leave to go somewhere else. (lack of adjective intended)

It’s a gray morning. Nothing significant nor anything marvelous can be smelled for today. Birds chirp in the balcony and motorcycles echo from the far end of the street. Rural sounds for the faint heart. In my head I imagine a poor girl tip-toed at the canteen, located where mist is quite too thick, buying cigarettes for her father who is guilty of marital rape.

Then I go back to writing and I be writing again.

###

There’s a little thing in my head that I’ve been trying to work out lately. It’s about my writing life. Apparently, I lack enough despair to attempt poetry (though while walking home yesterday, from a sleepover, some poetic lines appeared in my head) and sometimes I ask myself if I’ve been writing enough. (That is, enough quality and quantity.) I do think I write enough sentences everyday, and I do see grammar flaws in my previous posts (having grammar flaws doesn’t matter; capability to point them out does) but I am finding something more from my output. (It’s not having to use so many goddamned annoying short-cut parentheses.)

I’ve stopped pursuing Creative Writing for some reasons (some internal, some external). I want to play safe for next semester’s enrollment; I want to avoid at all costs having to apply as a non-major student; I doubt my English subject grades making the 2.0 cut-off. Sourgraping, let’s just say I do want to expand my abilities; I’m fairly good at writing already, so why don’t I try to develop other skills? Third and for the long run, writing is not a family-oriented kind of job, if you know what I mean. By the way I don’t see writing life as how Siege Malvar had told me. To me writing life nga kasi is living with blocks of ink lang. For me, it’s write or die. Kaya nga wala na akong paastig na output kasi may buhay ako ngayon.

But it does matter that I still have a creative side to resort to, unlike some others out there who will never get to squeeze anything out of their minds. I can go back to writing anytime anyhow, and I can pursue a career in writing if i want to. But point is, I don’t want writing to be my only work choice and the computer table my only workplace. There are and could be more enjoyable ways to earn out there.

My graduation day is still more or less a prophecy, but I will do my best to finish college even if it will take me so long. A degree is a standard accomplishment in life, something for everyone you love to be proud of.

Right now I’m fighting for religious freedom and for personal liberty from my parents, and in figurative terms I’m basically proposing that we remove the sun from the Philippine flag. Cutting myself off of the church means cutting myself from my family and their financial support, because my family is the Church. I still have emotional pains but I take them privately. I can’t whine in this blog forever. There are things I’ve learned in life, and one among them is that problems can’t be solved by crying over them. I’ll handle my dilemmas more logically than emotionally. (Though it hurts.)

At school, I’m hoping to my utmost that I do get a new i.d. next semester, and keep that i.d. for a long time. I think I’ll be crawling my way through college. Maybe I’ll stop second semester and work for five months as a call center agent. We’ll never know when I’ll suddenly need the money to run away, but I definitely see running away somewhere there. It’s always been there; we know that. Even before Kevin, i’ve long decided to run away.

Now for you nosy people, why the hell haven’t I been boiling down the details of our love? XD Well first I’m not in a relationship just so I can write about it. I’m not marketing our relationship. Second, I keep for us a private notebook, where everything I need to remember is there. But somewhere maybe I’ll write a creative non-fic about it, or a poem, when I’m not on WordPress mobile. Haha. XD

Kevin and I love each other so much and we’ll go against the world if we have to. As a Nietzschean, I who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Maybe it’s the most dangerous thing in the world to depend your fate on a human being that’s human to begin with, but then maybe, the only kind of life worth living (one I would end with a natural death) is the dangerous one.