This Is My Life

"This is your life, are you who you want to be..."

Switchfoot's song was blaring from my radio while I was driving home this evening. It was past midnight, and though I knew Quirino Avenue would still be slow-moving at this hour, I chose to pass that way tonight. I don't know, maybe I wanted to feel alone amidst the slow moving traffic. I wanted to contemplate my life while driving in the dark but familiar streets of Manila, with the radio comforting me in my self-imposed loneliness.

I am not really alone in life. I have my friends, I have my parents, I have my family. My family with its soap-opera-like secrets. Or maybe I'm just trying to make my life, my origins, sound more interesting than usual. In any case, I know it doesn't matter. I know the truth, and I know my truth. And that is really all that matters in this life. To know your truth, to know who you are, who you want to be, and who you ought to be. A great big struggle to be who you want while still making peace with who your loved ones want you to be. Life. Life is supposed to be lived passionately, and, well, there are moments you just want to be alone, and moments you want to make a great big splash of an entrance. Moments when you want to run away as fast as your legs can carry you. Moments when you are silent, but you want to punch the wall as hard as you possibly can. Give the world all your strength, and after the fact, lie there on the floor, totally exhausted but satisfied that you fought back.

"yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead

yesterday is a promise that you've broken"

A million different ways. Life could have turned out a million different ways. I see patches of my life in other people's lives, only we have different endings. Different choices, different results, different people. Same pattern, different paths. The wheel of life turns, and there are moments I feel neglected, forgotton, abandoned, ignored.

"this is your life, are you who you want to be

this is your life, are you who you want to be

this is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be

when the world was younger and you had everything to lose"

No, this isn't really how I wanted to be when I was younger. Well, parts of it, yes. And parts...I don't know. We all have to cope somehow with what we have. The most sane thing to do in this world is to accept what you have and believe that it is the best thing that could happen to you. To believe that you are better off because of it, not inspite of it. Some people call that settling. And some people call that being strong and realistic.

"yesterday is a kid in the corner

yesterday is dead and over"

Yesterday is dead and over. But me...I'm still alive.