Back in the ages, the only transportation traversing from our barrio to town was jeepneys. The lone jeepney scheduled for the day will leave early in the morning, so you have to get up early. This was my first introduction to the adage “Once you miss, you lose.” I recall holding tight as we pass through the bumpy, rough, and on edge of the cliff road. In the years that I have to go to town for college, I remember these jeepneys helped me carry my belongings and my dreams toward their realization.
While life has taken me to the city for many years, my work has taken me back to one of the last-mile schools in the countryside for seven years. As someone who does not own a car, I needed to halt jeepneys, elf, and private cars loaded with sacks of squash, ginger, beans, and grains just so I could go home. If there is a necessity, I will hook onto the top of the vehicle, climb, and grip the iron bars with all my power while wearing my red lipstick, which I have done countless times. Until one day I found myself in the city again sipping a good warm coffee by a glass window of a cafe and saw buses, luxurious cars, and jeepneys passing by. The busy road brings so much emotion to me.
The road transforms dramatically from a rocky path to a paved roadway. These transitions can also be seen with the vehicles moving around. Transportation changes and I am grateful that it brings so much safety, security, and comfort to its passengers. A P32 coin during the good old days brought me and my baggage the best lessons in life. It taught me to be tough, that if life doesn’t provide you the best way to get where you are going, there are other routes and alternatives; all you have to do is climb and grab onto those tiny to massive cars. It remains to be a humbling experience befriending stranger along the road with diverse walks in life. We can always sulk and choose to quit chasing roads but it will never be an option, we can rest and halt but never renounce our journey.
True enough, change is constant yet, some transitions are not supposed to reject identity, we modify them to give the best version of our past for they are meant for keeps. Yet some are to be wholly transformed but never forgotten for it will humble us and we shall remember that it brings us to where we are today. Life itself is an adventure. We have to run and finish the race before us. After all, we are all just a passer-by.
April 25, 2024
