28/09/2025
๐๐๐ง๐๐ฅ๐๐ฅ๐ฌ | Boon and Bane
๐๐๐๐ฉโ๐จ ๐๐ค๐ค๐ ๐๐๐ค๐ช๐ฉ ๐ก๐๐ซ๐๐ฃ๐?
I used to ask it like I was daring the world to answer. Iโd whisper it in the dark, spit it out between teeth in the morning, let it hang heavy while I tied my shoes for school. And most of the time, the answer was nothing. Waking up felt like lifting a weight I had no right to carry. Nights were worseโreplays of every stupid thing Iโd ever done, every missed word, every moment I wished I could pull a thread and make disappear. The thought of ending it wasnโt loud or dramatic, it was a quiet, sensible plan that felt oddly merciful. There was a strange clarity to it: stop the noise, stop the shame. It was tempting because it made sense when everything else didnโt.
Anger lived in the same rooms as the tiredness. I was furious at the parts of me that kept failing, at the way people handed out compliments like confetti that never landed, at how the world expected me to show up fixed. I was angry at the small things I couldnโt control and angrier at the big things I thought I should have done differently. Anger made the ache sharper. It turned regret into a needle. Sometimes the rage felt like the only honest thing I had left.
And then the rain cameโone of those sudden tropical downpours that bulldoze the afternoon. I had no umbrella, and instead of standing dry under a sari-sari roof like everyone else, I ran into it. My shoes sucked water with each step, my shirt clung to my ribs, my hair glued to my forehead, and I laughed at how soaked and ridiculous I looked. The laugh sounded ugly in my ears, not pretty or braveโa real one that burst out of me raw and unfamiliar. For a few wild seconds, I stopped being the kid who counted mistakes. I became the kid who tasted rain and felt alive. That laugh didnโt solve anything. It only punctured the day with something stubbornโa boon.
Small things kept crashing in after that. A strangerโs half-smile as we passed on the sidewalkโtoo quick to be meaningful, too real to ignore. A friend tearing a Bengbeng in half and handing me the chunk with more caramel than chocolate, like mercy disguised as junk food. The jeepney rides home where the noise and cheap voices and someoneโs bad singing made it impossible to think dark thoughts for a while. Our professorโhe didnโt give grand speechesโjust said once, after I flunked a quiz I thought Iโd fail, โTry again.โ Not a pep talk, not sympathy. Just a sentence that assumed I would show up tomorrow. Those things are not heroic. Theyโre small. Theyโre human. They are tiny, stubborn nails in the coffin of the idea that I had to disappear.
I want to be clear, the heavy stuff didnโt evaporate. The bleak thoughts came back like a tideโloud, patient, and relentless. Some nights the mind still trained itself to imagine tidy endings. But the boons accumulated, not like a miracle but like a collection of small weights I could lay next to the heavy one so it didnโt crush me entirely. A laugh in the rain. A half-eaten Bengbeng. A strangerโs smile. The smell of frying turon at the corner stall. The way people in a jeep would shout at each other about nothing and, for a second, the whole world felt messy and shared. Those tiny things didnโt fix me. They simply made the next breath possible.
If you find yourself asking that same question in a quiet roomโwhatโs good about living?โIโm not going to hand you a tidy answer. Iโm going to tell you this: youโre allowed to be furious and exhausted and honest about wanting to leave. That doesnโt make you a failure. It makes you human. And while the thought of leaving may sound sensible, staying is an act that asks for stubbornness. Stay because the small things still happenโbecause someone might split a Bengbeng with you tomorrow, because you might run stupidly into the rain and laugh at how drenched you look. After all, a stranger might give you a smile you didnโt know you needed.
Donโt make the pressure to be โfixedโ another reason to vanish. Let someone sit with the mess. Say, if you can, โIโm not okay.โ Say it to a friend, to a cousin, to someone human enough to hear it. Let another person hold part of the day. ๐ฆ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐น๐ผ๐ป๐ด ๐ฒ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ด๐ต ๐๐ผ ๐๐ฒ๐ฒ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ฐ๐ต ๐๐บ๐ฎ๐น๐น ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐๐ต๐ผ๐๐ ๐๐ฝ ๐ป๐ฒ๐
๐. ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐๐๐ฒ ๐๐ผ๐บ๐ฒ๐๐ถ๐บ๐ฒ๐, ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐บ๐ฎ๐น๐น๐ฒ๐๐ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ผ๐ป ๐ถ๐ ๐ฎ๐น๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ ๐ฎ ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ผ ๐๐๐ฎ๐. Theyโre not solutions. They are reasons. Gather them. Keep them close. Let them tilt the day just enough so you can breathe again.
๐ธ๐ณ๐ช๐ต๐ต๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐ฃ๐บ ๐๐ช๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ ๐๐ฐ๐ค๐ฉ๐ข
๐ช๐ญ๐ญ๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ณ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ฃ๐บ ๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ฏ ๐๐ถ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ข ๐๐ข๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ข๐ต๐ข
๐ญ๐ข๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ต ๐ฃ๐บ ๐๐ช๐ญ๐ข ๐๐ฆ๐ณ๐ค๐ข๐ฅ๐ฐ
