Ocarina

Author's Note: After almost a month of debating how will I best describe transcendence, I finally settled with a Spotify playlist titled "i keep trying but im just not enough for you" wherein I will link my stories with the music I embedded. There will be two parts: Ocarina (PTE 3) and Kalon (PTE 4)

One of the ways to achieve transcendence is to move on.

Move on from the shards of a broken heart.

Move on from the missed doors of opportunities.

Move on from the bruises and wounds and hate of the past.

Move on from the regrets that plague the mind every night.

Move on from the pressure and expectations that weren't meant for you.

Yet we find it really hard to do so.

It becomes more than a memory, a waking day, a daily reminder - a scar to our being - that makes us feel incomplete, worthless... and useless.

---

If there were words I wanted my parents to say to me, face-to-face, just us, it would be “I’m so proud of you” and “I’m/We’re so happy to have you as our daughter.” Every retreat, birthday, confirmation, recollection, I silently prayed every time hopefully, they will finally say these or either of these. Just say it even if it's a lie and I’ll pretend that it's the truth as long as I hear you say them. 11 years have passed, yet there would be times I’d envision them while lying on the bed in the dark - trying not to move or else I would wake my mom - and end up crying. I wanted to hear them say it so badly, like droughted soil in dire need of water. And I also ask myself, Why? Why do you need to hear them say it? People around you have said those to you, but why does it matter for those words to be said by them?

I close my eyes. Shadows of belts hanging behind the bedroom door, a glimmer of light seemingly sitting down by my feet, a cramped comfort room, the nook by the kitchen, and our estranged sofa flash before my eyes as a tear sheds and my mind drifts through a dark cave…

---

I stood up by the window… again as my mom rants on and on how careless was I and how stupid I was not to make inferences so I could have prevented those 3 mistakes I had on a test. I was quaking with fear as I held my blue-purple arm with a throbbing hand that ached from not writing my complete name on the test paper. I wanted to say sorry, but I couldn’t say it. How stupid I was not to notice that! I should have looked at the paper better.

I should have done better…

After a while, I plucked the courage to look at her in the eye and raise my voice, “She didn’t teach that-”

“SHUT UP!”

I sighed sharply and looked down, my adrenaline pumping my heart at full speed. She wouldn’t listen. She never did. I tried again.

“IF I ONLY HAD 1 MISTAKE-” I paused, looking at her eyes again daringly, pressing my fingernails on my skin to keep me from crying. I said softer, “Would you still get mad at me?”

She looked at me, then glanced at the belt she was holding, fiddling with it.

“No. I won’t.”

I bit my lip. Good. You said so. I sighed again.

I trust you…

---

A few days went by, and I received my test paper. 1 mistake. I bit my lip and thought, “She won’t… kill me right?”

I sat on the bus with a heavy heart, pounding, half-wishing I didn't want to go back home.

Finally, I arrived. My mom picked me up. As she held my hand ushering me to our house, I asked her, “Ma, remember you said if I get one mistake, you wouldn’t get mad at me?”

She didn’t reply.

I took that as a yes.

As I changed and climbed on the bed for an afternoon siesta, I put on the thin blanket instead of the thick ones I normally used to defend myself, thinking it was all fine. I haven’t even closed my eyes yet when my mom stormed into the room, pulled off the blanket, and pulled my feet off the bed, saying I have no right to sleep because of the mistake I got in the test. She kept ranting and screaming, her slippers and hangers and belt singing in harmony with her as I stand helpless, crying at the top of my lungs to only result with an extra slap to cry quietly or else the neighbors will hear. She kept asking what were the scores of my classmates, and why couldn’t I reach up to their level, but all I could think was, “What would stop you from comparing me to my classmates? FINE! Let them be your children and leave me on the streets that you have always wanted to do. I TRUSTED YOU.”

---

Time passed and I transferred to CSA. Even when I had 1 mistake and backed it up by saying, “I’m the highest in the class”, she shrugged it off by looking at my mistakes, saying “This is so easy. Why didn’t you get it right? Sayang points.” She didn’t believe the “highest in the class” scenario, even though it's true. Even my perfect scores were shrugged off, busying herself with home chores, refusing to see them, much better when I give her 10 test papers where 9 of them are perfect and one of them isn’t. She would focus those mistakes on me. Every report card giving, I’d be proud of the overall general average (ranging from 95-98), but my mom? “Why did you get 93 in Science? 96 in English? That’s so low.”

My dad was indifferent every time, just looked once at my test paper and said “Okay”. There was a time I had a perfect score and showed it to him. After saying his usual, I half-heartedly, teasingly asked, “Yun lang? Walang very good?” Then he said, “Edi very good,” sounding forced. I cried inwardly.

I worked my ass off, carried any group works I could carry, tried to perfect every output I ever made, got 7 100s as subject average because I’m so scared of being turned back by my parents, yet nothing works. Every time, I’d ask myself, “When will I be good enough for you?”

High School came by and now starts to show. Here I am, wondering about transcendence after 1 month of stalling my Profound Thought Entry because I do not know where to begin. My childhood has limited me from wholeheartedly trusting people and a world I have no knowledge about. I was jealous of my classmates whose parents are so supportive, classmates who had friends since childhood, classmates who was updated on every cartoon ever made, classmates who my parents eyed because they had beauty and brains, and so much more. I missed my childhood where I could have enjoyed being an actual kid, to live, play, sleep, mess around like an actual kid JUST FOR ONCE, instead of confining to my studies and books, trust issues, strict parent etiquette, self-consciousness, my inner fantasy world, thinking that most people use me to elevate themselves then abandoning me when they need me no more, and having these relentless thoughts in my head You are mean, why did you do that, you are pathetic, why can’t you do things right, look at them they secretly hate you, stop being annoying…

They will never end. They will always be a part of me. The past cannot be changed, but my future can be when I know how to stop them. I am a person carved by the past, but I’m trying to let go of the weights people have placed on my shoulders of what is expected of me. My life isn’t their life to interfere with daily. I have a voice, not a broken record. I am a person, not a puppet you could control. I have my own mind, and I will consider your opinions without compromising my own. I have my flaws, but I’m trying not to let my toxic traits get a hold of me. I embrace the scars I earned and collected because they made me the person that I am now. I have a purpose. I have a life. Others may not be proud of me, but I have been through so far, and I’m proud of myself for going past those hard times. Faded are the days of shadows of belts hanging behind the bedroom door waiting to strike, a glimmer of light seemingly sitting down by my feet like a ghost tugging me along with her, a cramped comfort room where I sometimes used to study when I failed a test, the nook by the kitchen where I wrote my full name on 5 pages while standing up while my mom watched TV, and our estranged sofa where my mom would send me to sleep, locking the bedroom door and all that was left was the darkness creeping up to me.

Embrace me, darkness! While I glow with light. Be my shadow as I walk through the night of ghosts and lies because from you I look back at you and learn that all it takes is to keep up the fight.