Changes

Over the weekend, a Singles For Christ friend enticed me to join a talk on single life and urged me to write about my 5-year plan, what I would like to accomplish before I'm 40.

I feel I haven't really done much so I have to do a lot of things. Cramming eto. Travel to North America, fall in love, raise a family, build my house(s), and of course, the most urgent, clean my room. Not necessarily in that order, but you get the idea. I need a lot of emotional growing up to do.
Five years to an 18-year old is not the same as five years to someone of my age, 32 . Time just whizzes by, that before we know it, I'll be 40... and the tragedy in coming up with a list like that above, is that I'll be that age and nothing to show for it.

Why the angst all of a sudden? Well, it's the realization that you plan and you plan, may visualization pang nagaganap, tapos, biglang something will be taken away. Routines will be rearranged. Your life as you know it will change.

I just learned that a batchmate's husband died. He was only 36. 3 kids. My batchmate is my age.

Early yesterday, a friend texted me that a colleague from the CCP, Sid Hildawa, passed away.

Two deaths in a matter of hours.

And I haven't even fallen in love.

Such selfish thoughts. But I guess it's human nature to always relate to things personally. What's in it for me? Magiging ganon ba ako?

Hay praning.

Anyway, look at things from a different angle na lang. My batchmate's husband brought to this world his children, who would continue and build his legacy. My batchmate got to spend time with a person she loved.

Sid Hildawa, meanwhile, was a busy person. I just learned that he was an architect. But he is also the head of the visual arts department of the CCP, a visual artist, a teacher, a writer, a poet. Andaming ginawa. I stalk him over his blog and during an event, I confessed that I did this and attempted to impress him by reciting the intro to his poem I liked very much. Did this freak him out (like I know it would if it were another person)? Nope. Because he's also nice guy.

Here's the poem:

How to Be a Door

Hinge your life on something
as steadfast as a jamb
but know which way to swing.
(Those who swing both ways
belong between the dining hall
and the kitchen.) Hold your breath
when you are locked, inhale deeply
with every knock that isn't answered
with "come in." Be still
when there is no reply from the innkeeper
of all things. Your name is Portal
so with your body keep out sickness
and greed, and builders who do not know
how to hammer a house with quiet words.
Let sorrow pass, and youth, and the goldest giraffe
who bends low to nibble from a lady's hand,
that all may enter who have traveled worlds
to be astonished; weary now of boulevards
that look out to the sea but never wave;
finally stepping out of solitude into shade,
shaking hands with all they meet inside, all
who have come before them, all who must dwell.

(-from the 2006 collection, "Building a House," revised March 12, 2007)

More of his poems here.

Hopefully, cheer will peek through these pages tomorrow.