Finding my parents old photo album wrecked me a bit. The reality of the past captured in faded photographs contrasts too much with my present foggy reality.
I will be honest. I have an aversion to having my photos taken. I never had that as a child but as I grew up, I avoided the camera unless I am the one wielding it.
However, yesterday was a revelation. Photographs are beautiful. They carry the weight of a thousand memories we often tend to forget… sometimes because they are too painful to remember or sometimes, because they are too beautiful that looking back hurts you a lot.
Looking at photographs is like walking down memory lane. It helps you piece back together the tattered pieces of yourself. It makes you remember your essence as a person. It makes you recall the equally beautiful and painful memories of your yesterdays and by so doing, it enables you to remember what matters.
Having your pictures taken with the people you are with captures the moment forever – something for you to look back on once the moment and sometimes, the people in them, have left your life.
Well, ‘selfies” are another matter. It only enhances the vagueness of the moment. But, having group pictures taken with your friends, your family, your classmates – well, these are the photos that are really worth looking back on.
This was probably taken when I was only four or five years old, with my baby sister then, my Nanay and Tatay (they don’t look anything like this now and I can’t remember them looking this way at all!), and Tatay’s younger sister.
With Tatay, and my younger sisters. My sisters keep laughing at how attention-deficit I was back then. I always loved having everyone’s, including the camera’s, attention. ( I wonder where that girl went though).
With Nanay and my younger sisters… So much has changed over the years…
At five or maybe six years old… with Nanay (and I don’t know the person beside her). Nanay used to be the Canteen Manager at PNHS.
At seven or something, with my sisters and some cousins and neighbors taken during the baptism of a cousin…You will no longer recognize these faces anymore… I haven’t met some of them again…
Plaza forays in my elementary days….
Fiesta Shoot: This was during a fiesta celebration at my father’s home town. I was with an aunt, my siblings and a cousin I seldom see nowadays.
Two or three years later at my father’s home town. I was in Grade Six and just had an operation. I remember not wanting to go there because it was too hot and my forehead (a node/lump/cysts was removed a week ago I think) was itching a lot.
Grade V, during a fiesta event in our hometown… with my sister who was then in Grade II.
In church, after our “pag confirma” which I still don’t understand until now…All I remember at that time was I want to go home already!
Grade VI Recognition Day with Nanay and my sisters…
Still in Grade VI, when motherhood for me, began. I am holding the current youngest sibling in our family. To think that I was nanny for the two youngest boys, and now, they are all taller than me!
Pieces of the me falling in line… now, if I can find the remaining pieces….
PS… will buy a camera for all those memories to hoard in the future…
Sometimes, when you keep setting a target or a goal for yourself, you become blinded by everything else.
Goal setting is okay but goal obsessing is not. When we were informed of the post for Education Program Specialist for ALS, I got a little off tangent. I coveted that post since it would solve a lot of problems for me. And I am ashamed to admit that its foremost attraction was on the financial side.
That obsession made me forget a lot of things. For a few months I was driven. I was so suspicious of all the people around me who may apply for the post.I warned my co-workers that if I did not get that post, I will no longer do all the stuff I have been doing for ALS. I will only focus on my basic responsibilities as a Mobile Teacher, as outlined in our PAST (Performance Appraisal System for Teachers). I will no longer work on those reports except those I am required to do as a Mobile Teacher. I will only do what is specified in my job description. When I realized that my chances are slim to none, I felt depressed. I withdrew a bit inside myself. I felt really awful all the time. I felt guilty for my covetousness but I also felt more guilty for my suspicions and my conspiracy theories. I played the blame-game with God, with myself, with my superiors, with my mother, with everything else in my life! I told God that His plan was not so good after all. I had not wanted to become a Mobile Teacher right from the start. I planned on becoming an English teacher in my Alma Mater. That was my plan. If I did not get promoted anywhere, I feel I would be happy if I grew old and mold inside my English classroom. At least, I would be doing something I love. But He led me into this work, this painful, raw reality of the other side of basic education. Every year, He just gives me something to cry about, to be hurt about or to feel insecure about. This job is a lonely job for me. Looking for learners, watching ill-prepared learners take the test and fail, every year – it’s just too painful. Always, you are reminded that nothing is under your control. That once your learners leave your learning center, they are at the mercy of the Higher Power. There is no other option than prayer… for their protection, their success, their guidance, peace and maturity. I should have been a writer, a romance novelist. Then, I could have just stayed at home and churn one novel after another without meeting a lot of people who will only hurt me, betray my trust, talk behind my back, misinterpret my actions…. I was really becoming over-sensitive.
I wanted something too much. That should have been a warning to me then. I wanted something so badly I can almost taste the desire for it. Realizing that this was all out of my control freaked me out a lot.I mean, I should know right? I just keep forgetting.
But somehow, somewhere, a part of me has started to let go. It really is all out of my hands. I am not fit for the rat-race, as they call it. I am not a rat. It does not fit well with my skin.I know I will just fulfill my responsibilities as a Mobile Teacher as best as I can. I want to inspire my learners to be much better than who they were when they first entered our CLC (Community Learning Center). For now, that sounds a much worthy goal than obsessing over something that is out of my control.
God can see all my tomorrows. I can only see this moment. So, I will entrust all these things to Him, unburden my heart from all its fears and doubts and believe that His plans for me are all good.
