Transitions

More than three weeks ago, we bid goodbye to our home for two years in the UNDP St. CLSU, and moved in to a new house at the university’s outskirts in Lingap Kalikasan Park.

The change was rather unanticipated. Carlo, my ever reliable and loyal BFF (insert smiley here, please) gave the idea of moving out when his boss at the company and our Cell Leader, Kuya James, offered their new CLSU house for boarders. Thinking that it would be a great idea to start the coming semester, and that it would better complement my current season of personal transitions (alam na!), I decided to join. No, I actually insisted on this.

All the King's men fixing and preparing their new lair. Lol.

So for the next several days, me and Carlo, together with the rest of the former Joshua Generation guys (we now call ourselves Gideon men, haha, nag-mature konti) Jhonder and Jed, who also decided to join the bandwagon and spend their remaining semesters with us and in a new home, kept ourselves busy preparing the house for immediate relocation. In between office work and enrollment procedures, we did painting jobs, carpentry, interior designing, plumbing, excavating, and exorcism. No, the last thing was a joke.

I don’t know what made me decide to leave the comfort of our home in UNDP street and move into the far-away jungle called “Little Baguio” or Lingap—the name of which CLSU students have given horrible connotations. Of course if you’ve been with CLSU long enough then you’re already familiar with tales of ghosts and walking dead haunting the area; and stories of students and sweethearts “making it out” under the mahogany trees during the stillness and coldness of the night.

Oh no, I didn’t moved in for the sake of the adventure of haunting people—or ghosts—just for the fun of it. I don’t pry (usually) into people’s businesses, and I’m old enough to still be scared and fascinated by ghosts. A walking dead is an entirely different matter though. LOL.

Well, aside from deciding to move out because it seems that I just can’t live without Carlo around me (hahaha!), personally there’s something more to that. See, I am the type of person who seems to have that deep aversion to change. I admit that no matter how I’ve been oriented to changes—the political and the social—the personal and the emotional is what demotivates me. It is paralyzing when there’s a sudden change and I don’t have the necessary strength or will to adjust. And it is very ironic that while I lecture my students the necessity of change in the society, here I am indulging myself in hypocrisy, and wishing that change is not a reality for me. But then again, when you can’t negotiate with reality no matter how harsh it could be, you go with its flow. You have to adapt. You have to accept.

And that’s what led me to this new place, new home, new chapter…all waiting for me to fill with memories, and to write with different stories. Much different, or maybe far better than the one we left behind.

Transitions.

I have been fascinated by this word recently when I have come face to face with the reality of temporariness of all things; that things do not last. Chief of them food and drinks. Haha.

Seriously though, nothing is ever permanent in this world as you’ve heard a thousand times. Not a name, or a career; not even friendship, or a relationship, or romantic love (Hashtag ohyeahbaby!). Why, life itself is temporary! It is ephemeral and there’s no denying that. And while we are still alive and breathing, we will constantly be surrounded by transitions whether we break down and howl. Life is a constant shift of moving out and moving in.

I’m currently in that season of transition, and whether I like it or not, I have to accept that as a tangible reality. Well, someone very important to me moved out just recently. I don’t know if she’s moved out of my life permanently or she’s coming back someday—all I know is that I have to move out as well. All I know is that I have to embrace this transition as a friend and never allow it to suffocate me or derail my future. All I know is that I have to accept this and move on. Oh men, that’s the proper word for it, right? Hashtag MoveOn:)

I mean, we all have to move on, or at least move. Because the last time I checked, the man who can’t be moved…is either a statue…or a dead man. LOL! Galaw galaw din kasi pag may time!

One day soon, I will look back on these transitions with a happy face. I will be grateful for the lesson of change for through them I was able to grow and mature. Someone told me that looking back will be more fun after each heartbreaking change. That after the season of moving on, you’ll be more capable of understanding and appreciating every little actions of God in your life. I agree to that. Because I believe that in every transition in my life, the God I know is the constant variable making things happen in their perfect time, and with the perfect reason. The God who promised that He will never change—that He is immutable—understands every change that I face and He knows that they are necessary for my existence. And I’m on the way of appreciating that.

P.S.: the house is almost done. Konting ayos pa at magiging bahay na. Sabi ni Carlo lalo daw akong magi-emo kasi napakasenti ng lugar. I mean the solitude and the peace; the rustle of trees and the birds and the crickets and the frogs: they serve as 24/7 musical ensemble. Well, either that “emo” thing, or this: that this is an opportunity to reflect on the fundamental realities of life and reframe myself back into the larger picture. Weh?

I remember Henry David Thoreau when he went into self-exile with nature in order to understand life in a deeper and more profound way. After that season of personal introspection, Thoreau gave the world his now great classic, “Walden”. Hindi kaya maging transcendentalist o existentialist din ako nito? Haha. Wala lang.

Well, transitions. Hashtags on that!