And So It Goes...

..na tiguwang na diay ko.

(hahahaha) I guess this would have to be the best realization I made today. You see, this is what happened.

As I woke up this morning, I did the ritual of opening my Facebook account and checking out any new updates. As I browsed through the numerous posts and links, I had this one notification from an old friend - and this one said that the C.A.T. Commissioned Officer's Training would be conducting it's final session by today. This got me excited. Because as much as I was more than invisible at last year's training, I loved my time as a CAT-1 officer. It was the one venue where you had a family of twenty-three fellow cadet-leaders who looked after each other with all the sincerity one could ask for. You couldn't seek for anything more for from this select group of officers, and that my friend is one thing no one can ever take away from us.

So here I was, standing in front of both the new trainees AND the outgoing officers of the battalion. As Romeo Diaz asked me to introduce myself to them, I promptly told them my then rank and designation - and I also included the fact that I came from batch 2007.

Hey wait.

If I can pass a subject that's talking about triple integration, then I can surely do this. We're in 2010, and to do the calculations would mean that 2007 was more than three years ago. Damn. I could still remember way back then that Charles Dolfo was telling us then-trainees the same thing. And then I considered those alumni to be old - which made me laugh at myself now that I'm somehow finding myself in their same shoes. Maturity for the win.

But of course, to talk about my age would be greatly doing injustice to those that have far outlived me, and have done so much more in their time. As of this writing, I'm still incubating myself from the outside world, simply because for the past year alone, so many things have happened, and these "things" have changed me so much that I don't know where I stand anymore. In isolation, I hope to start from scratch and have an idea of where I'm going with the decisions I'm making - and I badly hope that this time, it will be the right one.

"Regrets are but those actions that have taught you to become the better person you are today"

-Ruffy Heredia,quote from SEEDs Yearbook 2007

It seems that things have come back to those memorable moments in my life where I felt that this is what I wanted, that this is what I was going to do. You see, the way of life moves in mysterious ways - and it is this uncertainty that makes it all so wonderful, and at the same time makes it overly dangerous.

A couple of days ago, I decided to get out of the house because I needed some time off from the boredom people more commonly refer to as 'summer break'. As I left the house riding on the usual transport, I still didn't have anyone to meet up with - but this didn't matter, simply because as I was still contacting people about meeting up, I was secure in the fact that there would be someone who'd be lingering around looking for something to do too.

And so there was.

Spending a few weeks away from Manila was this girl I see as more than a sister - the bonds that Rachel Castañares and I share go beyond that. Even when we were still in secondary school, it always felt like we could share anything to each other - all our joys, our pains, our views, and most importantly our outlooks on life. That day, we found time to catch up with each other, as hanging out at Ayala reminded me of her short attention span, and I reminded her of how corny my jokes were. It was a real fun and spontaneous get-together, and talking to her about how my life was and how it's turning out made me realize one fact - I've strayed away from my planned road too far. It was then that realizations (the good ones) came flooding in, as I saw that there really are times when people make stupid decisions, and have to pay for it. Thanks to this blessing I nicknamed Aki though, I got to the realization early enough for me to do something about it. And this time, I am going to do something about it. As we were walking around, talking, and laughing our hearts out, I felt something which I hadn't for more than a year - genuine happiness.

There's something about blessings that make you smile just because you know you've received them - and sometimes that's enough light for one person to see through the darkness and go into a path that's been long carved out. Carved out by the person involved, yes, but the problem then was that an outside factor came into the picture and distractions may have been the order of the day. But then again, there's always this thing, this hope, that can bring people back on the path they were originally making. It doesn't have to be deduced to a mere thought alone - trust me, when you've gone through what I have, you'll see that a single talk with someone can do so much more than a year's worth of lectures and discussions.

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love isn't the only thing that's blind. if anything, love isn't.