When dreams falter
It has been a year since I shifted my sablay onto my left shoulder.
As we were cued to stand, my hand lingered for a while underneath the woven fabric. It moved toward my opposite shoulder most naturally. I gasped in excitement at the feel of this monumental milestone, without knowing what it meant for us.
Within a year, fear overtook the anticipation of life after college. I daydreamed for the clock striking five every weekday at 111.9 meters above the sea level. That’s 111.9m too high for where I wanted to be—height-wise, at the very least.
I thought I could head straight to the ocean as I gunned for jobs that would take me there—always yearning to work for a nongovernment organization (NGO) advocating for marine ecosystems. I even scrapped my first thesis proposal just to work closer to the waters.
But I was struck by two rejections I have grieved over. I cannot seem to set sail from the foot of Mt. Makiling, which has witnessed all 24 years of my life.
With only quick glimpses of the ocean behind these mountain trees, I wonder—do dreams ever falter?
I now understand that things don’t come as easily compared to college. I suppose when you shift your sablay, it becomes heavier. You feel its weight when you start paying your bills. You feel it more when you start measuring the value of things by the number of hours you have to work for them. You feel it especially on days when you wish you could rush to the hospital without worrying about the expense.
In the midst of wanting to stand on your own feet, sometimes, survival comes at the cost of dreaming.
While you yield to learn the gears and the ropes, everyone else seems to be ahead, passing by you. It rushes you into a career. This road, where everybody is running, feels too fast.
I then received an email from an international NGO based in Mindoro. I could use my degree for their advocacy! I’d get to live by the ocean! They were going to put me up for scuba diving lessons! Of course, I was going to say yes.
In my head, I had already lived a life in Puerto Galera. I knew how much I’d spend in a day. I had lines prepared for meeting their clients.
But I had to make a U-turn after all that excitement. I opted to accept a job in my hometown—at the foot of Mt. Makiling.
Is it so bad for me to stay in my hometown? Mama had one job throughout her life. After moving out of Manila, she never left the University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños. Would it be so bad if I didn’t leave either?
No rent, almost free food, caring family, and a familiar community. Los Baños is my harbor—I continue to deepen my roots into the nooks and crannies of this small town. It wouldn’t be so bad if I stayed here.
Yet, nothing changed as fast after I shifted my sablay. And this town has never felt more unfamiliar to me, a local all my life. Friends, from elementary to college, moved out one by one. Raymundo used to be a street of people I know. Now it’s emptily crowded. Morning runs at the Freedom Park were now rushed, fearing tardiness on my daily time record.
It felt like a shame if I didn’t spread my roots like my friends. “Ships in the harbor are the safest. But that is not what ships are made for,” Kuya Mark read somewhere. He echoed it to Mama once.
When I rode the bus to UP Diliman for a job closer to the sea, my Papa even gave me pocket money when he dropped me off at the bus stop. I told him I’ll pay him back. He declined and said, “Ipasa mo lang ‘yan.”
Holding back the tears, I sat on the bus and confessed to myself that I may not be ready to leave just yet.
Despite this confession, leaving home is an itch I couldn’t scratch away. I cried over the rejection email a couple of minutes after, right in front of coworkers who had rooted for me. I called my parents and my brothers right after.
I still haven’t gotten a ticket out of the harbor. How silly of me to imagine leaving this town, I thought. “It’s a rejection closer to your dream job,” Kuya Jerard comforts me at Seoul Kitchen.
I asked myself, were my dreams ever meant to be mine?
Here I am at the harbor on the mountain, making all the turns I haven’t taken, learning to drive, growing my roots deeper, still dreaming of the sea from the top. It’s only been a year after all—just a minute of my life.
When I shifted my sablay, it meant many things: rejections, doubting myself and questioning my dreams, facing growth and stagnancy at the same time. It meant making my dreams truly mine. We cannot simply aim for the stars; maybe we have to build a boat by hand to reach them. And as we lose the wind and our boat stops, maybe we simply have to trim the sails until we catch the wind again.
As I took a bite of my comfort rappokki about 37m above sea level, I thought—I’ll just take my time with rejection emails then.
Gloria Therese Deauna Eusebio, 24, is an artist, athlete, and graduate from Los Baños. She aspires to be a full-fledged science communicator for the oceans.
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