I first fell in love when I was in third grade.
I thought it was sheer infatuation. A temporary madness bound for oblivion in my later years. But even up to this date, no matter how I tried to get him off my mind, the thought of him just keeps popping in my head. They all say that love stands the test of time so I think: then this must be love!
It wasn’t love at first sight, mind you. I got to know him through my teacher. I remember he wore a blue shirt the day we met. He really didn’t look like a dashing prince charming ready to save a damsel in distress. Imagine admitting to me at that first meeting that he was a fan of Juday! “Whoa, this guy is a bit questionable, huh?” I thought. But his eyes twinkled like the stars when he smiled. “On second thought, he’s nice. A new friend wouldn’t be that bad,” I told myself. I entertained him as if he was like the others. But even in my childhood innocence, I sensed that there was something special about him. While I had other friends and I would assume that he did, too, I would say he was the best among the rest.
He was sincere and understanding. He listened to me as if no one else ever would. He would wipe my eyes dry even before the first drop of tear could roll down my cheeks. He never judged me for being a tad foolish at times. In fact, he was my accomplice in everything else. We shared secrets and dreams. We sang the same songs. Ahh, young love it was indeed.
That love I nurtured until it bloomed into a lifelong passion. First love never dies indeed. Even now in my senior year in college, I keep going back to the “thick and thin” times we’ve been through – the times when I felt like giving him up, the times when I almost denied my feelings towards him, and the times when I had to hide him from my older brothers in fear that they would beat him up.
But looking back at all those only makes me fall helplessly in love with him again and again and again and again…
Yes, my friends, I am in love. Sooooo muuuucchhh in looooove!
So much that I took up Mass Communication to cherish the young bud of love. So much that I set up this blog to whisper sweet nothings to the world with him. So much that I decided that he will always have a piece of my heart even if I stay single for the rest of my life.
It didn’t occur to me that the “love of my life” would start from a journal-writing class. My first diary was a blue notebook with Juday posing on the front cover. I didn’t take diary-writing seriously back in third grade. I had lots of those dear-diary-Carlo-sat-beside-me-today and dear-diary-I-ate-spaghetti entries in my notebook. Nonsense, yes, but I wrote all that crap anyway than end up being scolded for not doing my homework. I don’t know what got into me but one day while strolling around the bookstore, I found myself picking up a real diary and dropping it into the basket. (while adding a “puppy dog look” on my face when my mom gave me a weird look) Since then, when I wasn’t playing, I would be writing about my experiences, mostly during summers and Christmas breaks – how I got lost in whatever-place this time, how I met my crushes or simply how my day went. I hid my diary carefully just in case my brothers or my neighbors would snoop around my room and pounce on it like a hungry prey. (Those days, I had an invisible sensor attached to my brain that would send an alert signal when a brother or a neighbor would try to invade my room. I would appear at the doorway with my hands on my hips, sporting a really huge scowl on my face, a raised eyebrow, and a stern voice that would say, “Out!” Sometimes, it doesn’t work and I either had to drag them or push them out.)
As I grew up, I wrote more than what the diary pages could accommodate. I bought a new diary, filled it with my heart and soul, and treasured it more than anything else in the world. What is more fulfilling is that every time I read what I wrote, I seemed to be traveling in the past. How I laughed at my silliness, cried over my frustrations, and yes, cringed over my wrong grammar. I wrote what I thought. I wrote what I felt. No pretensions. Just me. The real me.
I took up Mass Communication because of this passion to write. And even if I don’t really pursue any profession related to journalism, I just know that writing will be with me until the very end of time.
Note: This is the first of a two-part blog post celebrating the joys that writing almost all of my life gave me.
Preview to Part 2: What is it like to talk to people and write about their stories?
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