speak your tounges

sometimes it amazes me how some people will say something in a mere casual conversation and the words they uttered will just make a lasting impact in our lives. just like some quotable quotes high-lighted in the pages of a book. or that particular line in the song you can best relate to. and yes, these people may or may not be the most important people to you, sometimes even a complete stranger. but you just know that after they delivered their lines, your life, or at least how you view it, will never be the same again. oh and the thing is, they don't even know how it mattered to you because as said, it is just a mere conversation.

Example 1:
I was a freshie in Kalayaan and we were having this all-girls-in-pyjamas conversation in melay's and belle's room. It was a discussion regarding our first set of exams after officially embracing the tag " iskolar ng bayan". apparently, we didn't think that the taumbayan will be so proud of our scores. so we agreed that we really need to prioritize things and use our time efficiently. and yes, that would include crossing out in our planners the "visit SM, watch movie". belle promised to put her concentration on math 11. i agreed to prioritize my acads and walk away from my im-too-confident-to-pass-even-if-i-don't-study attitude that i was so used to having even back in high school. melay swore not to let boys get in the way. hanniyah was just silently listening to what we were saying. i, then, asked her, "kaw, han, ano ipaprioritize mo?" expecting her to say that she would give up shopping , or her passion for volleyball or maybe reduce her phone conversations with then boyfriend. to my surprise she said in low voice " siguro ako, ipaprioritize ko si LOrd..." WOW! was that a slap on my face or what!? i don't know if belle or melay got affected by what she said or ever heard it but it created a somersault within me...
after some time of exchanging smiles and hellos as acquaintances, hanniyah and i became friends , got in the same org, shared secrets and dreams, travelled to numerous places as we got deeper together in our prioritizing the Lord. and when i reminded her how she touched my life back then, she could not even remember that particular dialogue we had!

Example 2:
The setting would be in our tambayan in AIT. it was one of those boring afternoons when you would be grateful that you're part of an org, you have a tambayan to stay in and people to hang out with in between classes. it was an unusual day evident by the deafening silence in the usually crowded tambayan. it was just me and my buddy michelle, who later on will be my thesis partner and will share with me the hardships and fun of coming up with that little hardbound piece of idealistic views.
michelle and i were not really close then. we were never classmates but my groupmates in one subject happened to be her groupmates in another. talk about common ground, huh! and so when these fellas joined ecotour, my beloved AIT org, she was designated to be my buddy. then we became part of the same committee and worked in numerous org projects. in our senior year, we broaden our responsibilities and bonding as execomms. then decided to ride the waves as we dig more into surfing for our thesis, together, tested the waters of life, learned the tides each surpassed. i could say that michelle, indeed, is as deep as the ocean, as broad as the horizon, as accommodating as the shore.
ok...rewind..rewind..rewind.. back to that day in the tambayan when we were mere buddies. it seemed that we had no choice that time but to bond and do some story-telling of our lives. she told me a lot about her boyfriend and how she loved him deeply amidst all the pain she had to go through because of him. at that time, my outlook on love was on a weighing scale, could not even decide if i really love the man i was so fond of. i explained to her my fear of getting hurt. the fear that if i give my heart to someone, i give him the right to hurt me as well. so as part of defending myself, i always make an about face whenever i was getting close to "falling". the result, an endless battle within me. just for example, i felt so excited just with the thought that i am gonna see the guy later that day but could not find the same ebullience when i was with him.(told you, a chaotic mind i had!) "lam mo ba kung paano ako nareremind everyday na mahal ko si vince? ", chelle asked. i did not reply, anticipating what she would say next. " kasi kung paano ko gusto na kasama ko siya ngayon, kung gaano ako kaexcited kapag magkikita kami, doblehin mo o triplehin mo pa ang saya ko pag magkasama na kami". and she said this with a look on her face that there is no denying i was speaking with a woman in love. before i left that day, she told me to assesss myself and to try to define the line between being in love with the person and being in love with just the idea of loving.
on her bday last year, i decided to greet her with a friendster testimonial, a part dedicated to thank her for the things she taught me. This, she later on averred as the sweetest testimonial written about her however could not even remember that fateful day in the tambayan.

Example 3
During my early months at work, I was so fond of what i called "my morning coffee with God" just before heading home ( yeah, graveyard shift and all..). I would fill my company-provided mug with steaming coffee and consume it in the RCBC chapel. surrounded by the aroma of the coffee and the scent of sampaguita, i would do my quality time with God. as this was usually at around 5 to 6 in the morning, i found solitace in the chapel thus having the freedom to read my Bible aloud, even talk aloud to myself. okay fine, i admit, sometimes i sing also, enjoying the place's good acoustic, reliving the frustrated singer that i am. lucky me, the guards never checked me out or they might report to my company that they just hired a psycho.
one time, my batchmate albert chase who i fondly called cheska, decided to tag along when he learned about my morning roundabout. after a time of saying our individual prayers, we decided to stay longer. we talked about a lot of things- how he learned that he is gay, how his being a product of a broken family contributed to it, the acceptance and the lack of it from the people around him, the assurance that God loves him just the same and how he viewed himself to be living alone when he's already old and gray.
when it was my turn to do my "dear ate charo" ( the maalalala mo kaya song playing in the background would complete the scene), i told him some secrets only few of my closest friends know, which of course, i will not put here. at a particular one which had been bothering me a lot, he advised me to let loose, that there is nothing wrong if i would say it. he told me to be good to myself, that i do not deserve all the worrying i was going through. "alam mo les, the things you could not express are the things that control you". I could still remember his line. it just kept echoing in my head. the things you could not express are the things that control you... the things you could not express are the things that control you...and yes, that is exactly how i felt - controlled, jailed in my tiny cell, tied up to the ball and chain i've created.
on my way home that day, in between the jammed mrt crowd, i promised to give myself freedom. i wanna break free! (one would have to say this with both arms stretch out a la oblation). gone are the days when i would contain all the emotions within me. and yes, i have the right to make mistakes, to let the world know that i am hurting, to speak my thoughts, to fall in love like there is no tomorrow, to declare what i like and what i despise, to break silence if there is something wrong, and to let go of the strong facade i have been trying to build all these years. i don't wanna see that girl cry again because of the bursting emotions she could not contain but was not able to pronounce thus finding crying as the only outlet. if this overcome-the-things-that-control-you project is the anodyne to my rotting heart, why not? if people will think differently of me because of it, who cares? after all, that liberating tete a tete really made me feel better of myself.
and if you're going to ask me if chase still remembers that chat, forget it! not for him whose memory capacity is nowhere better than mine. we actually agreed that that early, we were already good candidates for alzheimer's.

i could go on babbling more of these "you change my life in a moment" type of confabs like how a friend said that she finds girls to be full of courage and maturity when she can admit to herself that she loved but was not loved back. or how one explained to me that love, indeed, is a choice. this, for the longest time, i have been trying to deny because of my clinging to my butterflies-in-the-stomach, too romatic notion of love. and a friend would always say that she will never forget the time i uttered "i would always enjoy the company of friends i dine out and have fun with. pero mas vinavalue ko pa din yung mga taong nakaramay ko sa pagkain ng sardinas." (of course, this is in the context that we can only spare 10 pesos at that time for our meal, and not stereotyping sardinas as a food for the "brokes"). and these type of talks continues to amaze me like the lines were written intently for the climactic scenes in the soap operas.

so what exactly is my point? well, i came to a realization that words, which we thought are just ordinary part of our daily existence, evident by the fact that some people could not even remember they said those, can actually change life. and so we should be careful in choosing the words that would come out of our lips. and just as i learned how these affected my life should make me conscious of the words i say. i sould be reminded that i always have a choice to say lines that could make an impact in a person's life positively rather than the opposite. and though i cannot say that i can now face life's challenges with aplomb, the lessons from these people would help me to face those yet to come in a somehow more mature manner ( i hope so...)

oh yes, one more thing, i learned that my being a forgetful leslie is somehow normal (again, i hope so...) ;-)