That was the correct answer to my professor's question this morning, an answer I was not able to give. Several minutes after, just before I got out of our room for lunch break, my professor asked me if there was something wrong with me. He observed my lack of focus, and told me to recompose myself, for he expects a lot more from me. "Hindi ikaw yan", he said.
After the class, I confronted myself with my professor's words. Yes, he was right when he told me that the student sitting in my chair is not the real me. But this time I'm no longer speaking of my pathetic, my-goodness-where-have-you-been-all-along, performance during the recitation. Here is someone who has become a stranger to her own self.
I used to be the free-spirited, liberal-minded little girl who has gone through a do-it-yourself journey to maturity. No one dictated how I should move, what I should look like, who should I talk to, and how I should live my life. Yes, even my parents trusted me enough to shape my own future. I like how I have become after all the ups and downs of dealing with my decisions.
That was then, until trouble hit me when I started to confuse "compromise" with "surrender". I traded my individuality for comfort. Knowing that someone else is there to rearrange and manage my existence became my idea of happiness. But when I looked inside me, I saw someone I don't know... someone I don't like.
I can decide to just love the new person I have become, but I won't because I will only get weary and end up hating myself. I can't live my life not being me. The person I used to be - the real me - is just hiding in one corner, ready and dying to bounce back. I can't keep her a secret and suffer forever. Disclosure is the rule.
I'll do what my professor told me... to recompose myself. I know that once I have done so, everything will go back to its proper place.
(And maybe I'd be able to hit the "A" in my next recitation.)
