Just last week I was writing about the cold weather, how I enjoy it, how I love it, how I wish it’ll last longer. And when I arrived to Tarlac last Friday night, the cold winds were still there and I slept with my thick blanket covering me. I spent the whole Saturday morning walking around the city, going to the hospital and to the barber shop and to bookstores and finally to McDonald’s, and on my walking to and fro I noticed something—it wasn’t cold, it was a little warm, if not too hot. But it was then two in the afternoon and it’s always warm, if not hot, during afternoons so I let it pass. Come nighttime, though, it was confirmed to me that the day I dreaded had finally arrived: the cold weather is finally over. It started in mid-December and I hoped it’ll last until March, news said it’ll last until February, but it was already gone on the first day of February. Why had I expected the cool winds to stay, anyway? They were already leaving the moment they arrived.
I’m not usually perceptive when it comes to the weather. I don’t usually take note when it first became cold, when it first became hot, and I don’t find anything special about them. But this year it’s different. It never had been this cold in my city for as long as I could remember, and so, perhaps, there’ll be other firsts to look out for in the coming months. Actually, I missed the first “it never had been this—” phenomena. It happened during last year’s summer, the hottest in recent memory. It never had been that hot for a long time, my friends always tell me whenever I speak about the recent drop in temperature. I could only remember the hot afternoons of April and May 2013 and agree with them. I feel stupid for not feeling it, but I know I had felt it, I had written a couple of times about how hellishly hot it is, but I was too occupied by other things that I didn’t perceive the hot temperature then the way I am lucidly perceiving the cold temperature now. Perception is about focus, and distractions make you less focused, less perceptive.
But I consider myself a perceptive person. I might have missed that one phenomenon but I’m not a poet and I’m not really crazy about the weather. It doesn’t interest me—and, as I said, back then I was distracted—so the hot summer went by without my perceiving it. But with the few things that interest me, I could see what is happening, hear what is being said, smell if something’s fishy, taste bitterness or sweetness, and feel the vibrations being made around me. It’s really crazy and it could be distressing sometimes, but if applied properly, it’s good because I know what is happening and what will happen next and what could happen in the future. Because of that I get a sense of control in my surrounding and that’s a psychological necessity for me. My being a control freak comes from my paranoia, and so does my perception. I’m also good at pretending, and I may appear to not have seen a certain action or not have heard a certain remark, but I see and hear everything alright. And I overthink them all but I learned to control my neurosis and just let things be.
I couldn’t do anything about anything, after all. What will happen will happen like how summer will inevitably happen, and if something’s bound to go away, it’ll go away like the northeast winds. I couldn’t control the weather as I couldn’t control anything or anyone. Things happen out of nada and really, no matter how perceptive I am, no matter how I overthink everything, the unexpected will happen and I have no other choice but to face eternity, or the lack of it, each day—as Papa said. Only I need to have a sense of control and I need to have the impression that things are happening with my knowledge of them happening, and that’s the reason why I still get anxious about the unknown. But as early as December I had already accepted that the cold trade winds will go away one day, only to return, albeit differently, some other day, some other time. There are still a couple of things I couldn’t accept in life, but I learned to accept most of them, and the tropical climate of my country is one of them, and the ephemeral nature of reality is chief of them.
And so, here comes again those long and hot and sweaty days and those short warm nights. Most of my summers in my younger years were filled with good memories, and it had been something that I used to look forward for, but now I dreaded it, because, for one, this year’s summer will be the first summer I’d spend as an adult, and if things go out well, as a non-student, because of my looming graduation. I have more reason to believe that I will not graduate this May, as I have not yet finished my thesis, but I know my abilities and I’m capable of grace under pressure so perhaps, just perhaps, I could finish my thesis on time and graduate three months from now. The whole graduation thing makes me anxious, because that’ll mean my leaving the one place that had been sheltering me for so long, the academe, the innocence of being a student, the comfort of being a dependent, and it’ll also mean my entering a new and unknown territory—adulthood, employment, and real responsibilities.
Last week, my friend Nico commended me and how I seem to be well prepared for adulthood. I appreciate his compliment, but I think it is untrue. This prudent and prepared and stable me is just an illusion that I’ve created, and in reality I’m still careless and unprepared and neurotic like a protagonist from a Woody Allen film. I’d even say that perhaps Nico is more prepared for adulthood than me. He may have all those vices and bad habits, but he is incidentally matured. And because of his maturity I think he could easily kick away everything that needs to be kicked away when the time comes for him to kick them away. But I don’t have Nico’s maturity and I’m still the same immature brat that he first met two years ago. I’m still susceptible to the stupidest of things and all my portrayals could disappear in a snap because they’re not really grounded in anything. All it would take is one stupid little mistake and the sound and fury will be back—I’d again get up furious in the morning and go to bed furious at night.
It’s about consistency and that’s something I’m incapable of. My thoughts are not consistent, my actions are inconsistent, and my life is a combination of impulsive decisions here and there. One moment I’m friendly and warm and kind and the next I’m terribly rotten and cold and even scathing. I’m a walking contradiction and that’s something that scares me. I’m scared because I never know what I could do. I could just ruin everything that I’ve created and destroy whatever I formerly had loved. This manifests whenever I’m having temper bursts because of the stupidest and silliest of things. This is evident whenever I have a tantrum. I’m nineteen years old turning twenty this March, but my unpredictability is of a nine year old. I’m like a kid and I’m worse than a kid because I’m not really a kid. I’m already an adult and I am conscious and aware of all this, but this is only because I am, as I said, perceptive. But just because I know something doesn’t mean I control it. Though knowing something will make it easier to control it.
So I should just control myself and keep myself from doing self-destructive things. Easier said than done, but it is easier when it is already said. Compared to before, I could now better control myself, I know what to do and what not to do, and I had learned from those mistakes that I didn’t have before. I’m now in a better situation to combat my madness and I know this time I could win against it. I wouldn’t let it take over me and this summer and the next twenty summers wouldn’t be like my last two summers. All my preparations will pay off and my entering adulthood would not be easy, but it would be easier, or less harder, because of all the perceiving and overthinking that I did. It wouldn’t be a stroll, that’s for sure, but I wouldn’t also have to crawl.
Although I am aware that I need to mature more, I am confident that I am a hell lot better than I was when I entered college. And I could do now what I couldn’t do before—which is to control myself, focus, and do things precisely and exactly.
3 February 2014
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