If there was one thing I never got to experience growing up, it would have to be freedom. Every time I’d go out in high school, my mind’s always preoccupied with the time, and every time I forget, my parents’ constant nagging calls and texts would always help me remember. My curfew then was 7pm if there was a party and 5:30 if I was just out with my friends. How delightfully liberating.
So this pathetic obsession with curfews and handcuffs went on until college. I was staying in a very conservative dormitory run by an even more conservative nun in my first two years of college. How conservative? Curfew during weekdays was 9pm while during weekends, it’s 8pm. Why? Because apparently, as sister what’s her face used to say, “dahil dapat pag weekends, nasa dorm lang kayo nag-aaral, hindi na kung saan-saan pa nagpupupunta”. Imagine, the latest we were allowed to be out, given we had a permit, was 10:30pm, any later than that and they’d SERIOUSLY call our parents. If that’s not fucked up, I don’t know what is.
Once in a while, when I was still studying in UPLB, I’d visit my boyfriend in Diliman (for those of you who don’t know, that’s roughly 2 and a half hours through ridiculously polluted bus rides and jeepney rides. Eek). I’d reach the campus around 10am and I have to leave by 5pm since I can only visit during weekends and it takes longer getting home. I hated leaving. One, because I’d miss him, but also because the city (smog, traffic, perverts, pee smelling walls and all) felt like home, I have no idea why, it just did. You can just imagine how horrible it felt to have to leave the place I love just to come back to the one place I hated the most. Every minute felt like the ticking of a time bomb. And my parents’ constant texting didn’t help at all.
Asan ka na? Nasa dorm ka lang?
Bakit wala ka sa dorm? Asan ka?
Sino kasama mo?
Hanggang anong oras ka diyan?
Bakit kailangan mo pa pumunta diyan? May hindi ka sinasabi sa amin noh? Magsabi ka ng totoo.
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
Nasa dorm ka na?
I text back:
Yep2, nasa dorm na ako.
That’s the only time hell would stop.
I’m not asking for a free pass to heroine or AIDS, I just want the freedom to go to the mall with my friends and enjoy their company without someone thinking I’m having sex with some stranger that they’ve creatively imagined in their heads. I don’t do drugs; I think I’m fat enough to prove that. I’m responsible. Five years in a liberated school far from parental supervision and yet I have good grades, good friends and a baby-free tummy. I think that pretty much says a lot.
I swear to God, the stories my parents form in their heads are so wild and creative, I think I’d have to admit that they’re a lot more imaginative than me. I just want to hang out with my friends; to them I’m out doing drugs. I want to spend the night with my cousin in her hotel room; they think I’m out wearing only a bra while drinking at some bar. No mom and dad, when I go clubbing with my friends, I also wear a panty– you’ll never know who finds nudity distasteful in a club.
I think my parents’ think everyone’s a bad influence to me. Funny. After high school, I never saw myself as the gullible, mindless kind. I’d like to think of myself as an intelligent, well brought up person who knows how to think for herself. Shame they don’t think of me like that.
Moving on.
I used to take the mrt going to Ortigas when I’d commute back to UPLB. I’d have to walk all the way to SM Megamall, to the overpass and wait for a bus. I remember whenever I’d rush through SM, I promised myself that SOMEDAY when I walk there again, it’ll be because I had nothing better to do. That day came today. I’ve been to Megamall countless time after I finally transferred to Diliman, but today was different.
It was already 3 in the afternoon and I was bored. Leo was flat broke and I had P350 in my wallet. Then and there we decided to go out. One thing you have to understand about my parents is, they’re not comfortable with spontaneity. I can’t leave the house on a whim and I certainly can’t leave without a clear and organized plan for the day. Leaving to go to the mall when it’s almost 4pm is unthinkable. So having the luxury to say, oh what the freakin hell! And be able to leave just like that, is a rush like no other. Pathetic, I know.
So to make the incredibly dragging story short, I got home around 9:30pm, bought me a pair of high heeled shoes with my gift certificate, and had a blast saying over and over again,
“anong oras na? oh? Good. Dahil wala akong pakialam!!!!”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not some friendless loser who can’t go out, in fact I come and go whenever I please in the dorm, it’s just that today, all the painful memories came back. The loneliness and helplessness I used to feel finally went away.
Taking those same steps I used to take those painful years ago, but this time being able to take them with a smile on my face and an indescribable joy in my heart, made today the day I thought would and could never be someday.
January 16, 2011. Sunday
