EVERYTIME

First, call me Isabel. I was born in a humble nipa hut, inside Pagadian City. The year was 1978, a year of the horse. The house which I was born into still remain standing up to the present but with little modifications and revisions, it looks larger today. When I was four, my parents decided to transfer from the city proper to a distant barangay, still in this city. Maybe because, Mamang earned a little and perhaps fulfilling her dream of having our own house, too. Papang was also working at that time but I guess Mamang was earning high then than father. I could still recall we were so abundant then. I was pampered with all the things I needed and one thing I could never forget; I was sitting on my father’s lap together with my two younger brothers, in front of the façade of our new house, eating a dessert prepared by my mother; a picturesque of a happy family then. But things didn’t stay the same when our eldest sister suffered an incurable ailment, a brain cancer. The usual happy atmosphere I was born into changed rapidly. The usual sweetness of my parents turned to fade, and was replaced with sadness, depression and temper. And since we were too small then to understand the things that were happening, all we can do is to abide by the words of my threatening father. The usual father whom I have known was no more. And things even get worst when my sister died. I have experienced the drastic changes of our lives right after my sister’s burial. If such a phrase “from rags to riches” is for fairy tales alone, then I must have experienced it for real. Emotionally, we were greatly affected the way my father’s behavior was corrupted. His voice was always angry and thundering whenever he would start to talk. He turned like a monster every child would be scared of. For years, I viewed father that way that is why when I finally graduated from my secondary, I decided firmly not to stay near to them when I will be in college. t was in my college days that I experienced how it is to be free. I didn’t waste my time enjoying myself to the utmost. Parties here….Parties there….Overnights….Beaches….Billiards…., and Bars, where young boys and girls are taught to be proper alcoholics. To make this long, messy story short, I grew up with no control over my college life. But despite of that, I could sometimes foresee events in the real world – teenage pregnancies, unwed young mothers, unemployment, poverty, drug addiction, and rape; to mention just a few. And these may be the possibilities I would be into if I wouldn’t refrain from being so vulnerable. I had my first taste of success though I have not graduated yet when I was employed as a service crew in a newly established prominent fast food chain sometime in 1999. But it did not take me long to be working there because my father came into the scene. He forbade me from working because he intend to suffocate me and he brought me back here in Pagadian. Of course, it took me quite long to adjust to a life that I was not accustomed anymore. I am imprisoned by too much protection of my parents then. Luckily, I graduated. Perhaps with the help of an inspired heart……It was so overwhelming……At long last, I can be free from now on. Geared up with the state of mind that I can now be free, I will be living my own life; I went away from our home to seek the independence I have been longing for and to be with the person, dear to my heart. At first it was fantastic, as if it was a dream that I would not want to wake up; afraid that the moment would end…but life is really cruel. I had my first experience of a tremendous heartache when I was betrayed by the person whom I loved most and the friend whom I shared with my intimate secrets…It really sucks…as if I can’t breathe and I felt the intense helplessness. I experienced how Cinderella felt sleeping in a pantry. That was the time I realized that I do need my parents well much more than I need the person whom I almost traded-off for my parents. After a couple of months away from home, I finally went back. I felt a little relief somehow. It took me many months to get rid of the memories I had with the person who deeply hurt me. I focused myself in searching for a job and I found one, where I am now connected. Having the feeling that I have lost my self-confidence because of the pain of betrayal and rejection, it came to me that I need to lift myself and fight the struggles I had, which led me to pursue a higher education for myself’s improvement as well as to bring me prestige. A sort of a preparation maybe, anticipating the possibility that in time our ways will cross again. Being busy with my work and studies, I successfully may have forgiven the persons who caused me sufferings and pain. Until it came that a new door was opened for me. At first, I hesitated to enter for I know that the newly-opened door was tricky. I just didn’t know what opted me to be in that threshold, perhaps due to my adventure-natured personality. Though the moment was just short, I enjoyed it more than I ever know. I began to fall in-love again, this time a little different because the man I almost fall for is no longer free. And since things were not meant to be as it was from the very start, the short journey ended. Accordingly, things will never be the same again. So, I continued to live my life normally again. As if things didn’t happen. Sometimes, I would wonder if this life I had is a destiny or fate. Maybe, things really happen with reasons behind it or else I wasn’t born this way at all, and something must have happened in life itself, to make me this way.