Pearl.Operaglasses

I remember flipping through a few O (by Oprah) magazines (I have a Zinio subscription) and have always looked forward to reading a section entitled What I (pertaining to Oprah of course) Know For Sure. I guess it takes someone as influential as Oprah for any other person out there (like me, perhaps) to shell out some resources and take part in what someone like her really does know for sure, and find some solace in truths that you can personally be assured of.

Because for the most part, in one of those almost all too fleeting points of our lives, we constantly find ourselves unassumingly clueless— devoid of any acknowledgement of what we know for sure.

Neither time, age, nor enough self-proclaimed intense life-experience can prepare you to start affirming any of those preconceived personal truths. And maybe that’s the kind of life-experience that makes what they call the ‘journey’ so much more meaningful and significant to us. The discoveries we encounter from our experiences, our decisions, our feelings, and our judgments continuously challenge and question all those truths we eagerly accept during one of those almost all too fleeting points of our lives.

That maybe, I know for sure.

Dreamt last night that I lost a tooth. I know it is supposed to be a common dream, but it just rarely happens to me. My dreams usually defy natural occurrence. I resorted to googling after waking up and found out the following:

Dreams about losing teeth generally symbolize:
Losing teeth in a dream: Representation of anxiety
A costly compromise or decision
Radical change going from the old to the new
Starting something a new phase in your life or project.

It felt very fitting. Acknowledging this transitional point in my life finally feels quite liberating. Even if it’s happening a thousand miles away from home and at the heart of a different city. Especially after everything I’ve been through or even everything that is just about to happen.

I could recount all the wonderful, beautiful and amazing things I’ve seen, eaten, felt, heard, experienced in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia. But that will just take away more precious time that I could be savouring and living in right now.

Maybe when I get the photos sorted or when I start feeling the pangs of nostalgia and longing for the city. I do still have Florida and Washington to look forward to.

Right now, I feel emotional. I feel emotional leaving the city behind and the people that I’ve met and shared the best experiences with. I feel emotional because endings and beginnings are converging. I feel emotional because all these changes are happening and the city reminds me of this transitional point.

According to my Google source re: my dream —
“The dramatization of these feelings in your dream through the imagery of losing your teeth symbolizes how costly some choices may be for you. x x x “The gore of the dream imagery reflects the severity of the price being paid to keep the peace or stay the course.”

Honestly, it is not that I am severely contemplating my dream. The interpretation just strikes a cord right now. I’m just trying to write it all down here for my sake.

For me to remember.

Shot above is from a recent trip to a beach in Zambales. I’m sharing some really good music to accompany you on that much needed road trip or trip to the beach.

Four years ago, while I was enjoying the last few days of official senior college life (because back in college, seniors ended early February), I genuinely felt like I was ready to take on the future with so much certainty. I felt inspired and surrounded by people whom I felt deeply connected with. I felt like I had accomplished so much within the four years that college accorded me. I remember thinking that I did what I wanted to do and went further to experience so much more. I remember feeling so grateful that I was able to discover so much of myself and what I wanted to pursue. I felt complete.

Then I entered law school and I started feeling like everything and everyday is a renewed invitation to self-discovery.

Now, I’m finishing my last semester in law school and what I feel right now is absolutely nowhere close to what I felt during my last semester in college. Already four years after, while I’m so close to the kind of reality I had decided for myself, I feel like things are just as uncertain as ever.

I am stirred with excitement. I am beguiled by ambition. I am shaken up by every possibility. I am left with so much to feel, ache and wonder.

I know it’s not exactly fair because I technically haven’t stepped foot on the that so-called ‘reality’ where my non-postgraduate friends and colleagues outside law school have continued to make their more definite mark. And while I watch and revel at what a lot of my friends have accomplished in four years, I am comforted by the very fact that despite the seemingly never-ending questions law school made me ask myself, I feel like I had not only made a right choice — I had made a better one.

It has never been easy. Nor has it been any closer to the kind of joy I get from reliving my four years in college. Nonetheless, it has been gratifying, amazing and altogether life-changing. There’s so much about the law and being a law student that continues to leave me wondering whether there’s still so much of my fresh Ateneo college grad self four years ago that has changed or in more ways, really haven’t.