FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY JUNIOR COLLEGE STUDENT'S HEART
(Please excuse my scattered thoughts)
The clicking of the keys on my
keyboard roars for two seconds then dies out for 2 hours. Clicking noises
again, then dies out almost immediately as a flame on a matchstick blown out
before it reaches the tip of the fingers holding it. I haven’t written about
anything close to my heart or stuck in my mind in so long, all I could think of
right now is that I miss writing and that I crave to put my thoughts into
beautiful words.
I turn to my right trying to look
for some inspiration only to catch a glimpse of an instant photo lying around.
It’s a picture of my family; my family who I haven’t seen complete in 5 months
or so. No, we’re not separated because of family issues. We’re just torn apart
by priorities, academic ones to be exact. Which reminds me, I miss home so
badly. I miss the smell of fresh air with a whiff of freshly cut grass. I miss
waking up to the sound of a knife hitting a chopping board and the sizzling
sound of raw meat hitting a hot frying pan. I miss listening to the tunes on
the car stereo while rain rolls down the fogged up windows, revealing twinkling
lights from the streets. I miss having hands to hold and cheeks to kiss during
mass on Sundays. I miss what used to be my norm.
Three years into college and all of
these have turned into something else. Home is the sound of my loved ones
voices on the phone while bundled under the sheets. The smell of the air is
anything but a comforting fragrance. I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing
and water splashing on the floor as my other dorm mates get ready for school. Rainy
day commutes mean getting wet while boarding a jeep, getting suffocated because
they cover the windows, and all I hear are endless honking of every other
vehicle. Sunday mass is me having my hands empty because it’s no longer a usual
thing to hold a stranger’s hand when singing the Our Father, and awkwardly
nodding at other people to say “peace be with you.”
Clicking noises stop again.
Slowly, my thoughts that have been buried
deep beneath the sand under my sea of thoughts, bubble up to the surface,
bobbing face up. Maybe the reason why I haven’t written in a while is because I’ve
come to the point in my life that everything I do is part of a routine. My
actions, my words, my train of thought, all belong to an endless loop I’ve
created to adapt to the shift of my lifestyle that I don’t enjoy. I’ve created
a cycle to make it easier to dismiss the fact that I am no longer happy about most
of the things that go on in my life. I’ve attached myself to repetitive
actions: Sundays are for mass, brunch and the grocery, Mondays to Fridays are
for school, and Saturdays are for extra school load.
I’ve allowed college to consume me
when what I should be doing is consuming what I learn every day. I allow stress
to roll in and never let it out thinking that stress is all just part of it and
overcoming all these obstacles while letting stress overwhelm me is an
achievement, not knowing that if I don’t release it, I’m probably going
nowhere. I remember studying for a test for 4 days straight, while at the same
time, thinking about how bad I’m probably going to fail, how ugly it feels to
fail, how disappointed I and my parents would be if I failed. I got a 1.5 on
that test but knowing how hard I tried to study, I still felt disappointed
because I know I could have done better, if only I hadn’t mentally multitasked
studying and thinking about failing. I could only wish I hadn’t stressed myself
out unnecessarily.
College has eaten me up pretty
badly, I almost don’t enjoy making arts and crafts projects outside of class
anymore because I’ve gotten so sick of working days and nights designing and
making things in exchange for good grades; chart topping grades that I know
will make my parents proud. Sometimes I come to school with puffy eyes just
because I’ve been crying all night while working on a plate that I’ve worked
hard on for days but never seems to get finished until a few hours before
submission. I have even come to a point where I express how I’m secretly so fed
up with art, then having people ask me why I feel this way. I never answer so
they proceed to telling me that “art is life” and that I shouldn’t feel like this.
These conversations mostly end with me shifting to another topic while silently
thinking that “if art is life, then why does it make me feel tired and
lifeless?”
I repeatedly think to myself that I
took an art major because this is what I’ve always wanted, this is what I
always do, this is what I want to pursue. And you know how people keep saying
that if you do what you love then you’ll never work a day in your life? Then
why do I feel like a huge load is on my shoulders and I’m not, even for one bit,
having fun? I come home every day, tired. I wake up every day, tired still,
wondering when all this will end.
Clicking noises fade again. My mind
is exhausted.
A knock on a neighboring room wakes
my senses and I look to my right once again. I look at the instant photo once
more. I am waken up inside.
I realize how important getting
straight A’s are but also how it’s important to live a little. I begin to
devise a plan how I’ll sometimes take a step back and breathe a little, to
spend time on things I actually enjoy, like doing something as simple as
turning a frown upside down. I’ll call my loved ones and talk to them about
everything for hours, take long walks along the polluted road and think of how
blessed I was to have grown up in a sweet smelling neighborhood, let droplets
hit my face on rainy commutes or maybe even dance in the rain a little, and
offer to hold my seatmate’s hand before we sing the Our Father in church. Do
some, if not all, of these once in a while just to break the cycle I use to
mask my boring, stressful life. Maybe then, I wouldn’t reach the point of
emotional breakdown over a frustrating plate, or not think of failing a test
while I'm studying to ace it. Maybe then, everything wouldn’t seem so hard
anymore.
I convince myself I can stray from
routine, and even tell myself I could start tomorrow.
I close my eyes to rest and I remember that in a month, I’ll be flying back home for a 3 week break. Back to the smell of fresh air and moist greenery, to the sound of raw food getting diced and the sound of a searing pan early in the morning, and all the other things I associate with home.
When I come back to college in the
second week of the new year, I’ll be back to missing home, stressing out, and
hating art at times. Back to craving to do what I love. Back to entering the
loop I probably never left in the first place.