COULD IT BE?
I live in a country where public trains play a vital role in an employee’s daily life. I, as a person who does a day job in an office based in the busy city of Makati, understand just how much. My workplace is five rides away from home so every day, I have to endure riding two jeepneys before reaching the LRT station where I ride a train and then ride another jeepney again. You won’t believe how much sweat I shed by commuting every day.
Others might find it stressful.
But not me.
Long travel makes me think about things that don’t usually pop into my mind during short rides.
Just this Friday morning, a question suddenly entered my head. Right after watching people squeezed themselves into a train that was already crowded with passengers.
What should we do when we already know where we are going but can’t get there because the train is already too crowded to take us?
Could it be that the reason we are not doing anything to achieve our dream is that, secretly, we have this thought that goes, “My hands are full with so many things right now. I really want to work on that dream but where does it fit in?”
Or perhaps we are just afraid to take a step that would make us a little odd to the people around us?
There was a time when I was almost tempted to forget my dream because I was too busy with my day job. I wake up early and go home late every day. There are even times when I unconsciously carried the stress from work to sleep. (One time, I dreamed about being fired by my boss because I fail to submit a file on the deadline.) I cannot find time to write during weekends either. I don’t know why, but my body seems to shut down on its own. All it wants to do is to sleep the exhaustion away.
“Maybe I’m not meant to be a writer,” I told one of my closest friends when she asked me about the website I’ve working to build for my works.
“I thought writing makes you happy?” She asked.
I looked down. “Yes. But things aren’t running smoothly at the office right now.”
“Then keep writing.”
I stared at her unbelievably. Whoah. That’s so easy to say.
But then she grinned at me and said, “Didn’t you say that the world you create when you’re writing is your safe place? Then don’t let it get ruined. Protect it.”
In a way, she’s right. Don’t we all have to protect what keeps our souls alive?
Thinking about it was what motivated me to write my new poem—The Alice Who Had Never Been to Wonderland
PS: The writing on the photo was a part of that poem. I have a beautiful hand, yes?
Miss Oddly 