Twenty-three
When I was a kid, I’d go to my grandmother every time I had a tooth that needed taking out. She was a nurse, my laughing grandma whose predilection for pornography, pretty pink dresses and perfectly-articulated cuss words made her the darling of the cousins. At various points of our lives, we’ve appeared at her yellow-lighted study—with the purple-and-magenta flowered couches—to show off wobbly teeth. She would tie a string around the tooth, tie the other end to an open closet door, then slam so hard that the wood would sometimes splinter. I always thought that was how everyone did dentistry.
Whenever I’m asked how I feel about writing, I say it’s like having teeth pulled—a cliché, until they hear about my grandma. And right now, as bongos play inside my skull, manned by a monkey high on methane, it feels like a dozen closet doors are slamming at the end of every sentence. I would very much prefer to lie back and let the vodka-induced migraine take over, but I will finish this column—perhaps to my regret and to the regret of those who are compelled by nothing more than inertia to read this—because it’s what an adult would do, and I am told, in spite of vehement protestations on my part, that I am an adult.
In three days, I turn 23. In four days, I pay the rent. There’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about 23, no magical ring to it, to a 23rd birthday. When you’re a girl and turn 13, it means bras and the right to play the “it’s my time of the month” card. Sixteen means first kisses and maybe a sweaty-palmed boy holding your hand. Eighteen you get flowers and a ballot; 21, a job and tax returns and the license to get drunk in North America. But anywhere in the world, turning 23 essentially means turning 23. I suspect that the moment your own father forgets how old you are is the moment it doesn’t matter.
This, obviously, is not a manifesto on the state of the nation, or a rousing commentary on the various verbal acrobatics that our good President has been performing regarding the Mindanao memorandum of agreement. Today is the day I ramble on about life in general and mine in particular, and I apologize in advance for those who have read this far and expected intelligent thought. At the moment, I have none.
At almost 23, I have lost seven cell phones to the back seats of taxis, two in public bathrooms, one to a white-shirted blue-jeaned male in Star City (who very helpfully lifted it out of my bag himself), and three to God’s will. I am a writer who very often cannot write. I live on my own, I mooch off my mother’s refrigerator, and I am constantly astounded by how often I find my wallet empty of anything other than receipts. I have a half-dead plant in my apartment, shampoo varnishing my two feet of bathroom floor, and hair the texture of dried grass—as the shampoo, after all, is on my bathroom floor. My mother is currently humming under her breath about grandchildren. My best friend with the printer obsession—who once claimed an aversion to the marital state—has finally found love that doesn’t involve Hewlett-Packard, saying yes to her lawyer-man, of course, only after she decided on the thickness of the paper she wanted her invitations printed on. A couple from my college debate team have gotten married, begotten one giggling baby, and are on the way to producing another. They’re calling him Lucas, so that someday, his dad can look him in the eye and speak to him in the grand tradition of Darth Vader. “Luke, I am your father.”
It’s difficult to complain about being unhappy in this country, after all, the state of my own personal nation is probably paradise to the boy who cleans chicken coops for a living and barely makes enough for a full meal, or for old man Antonio who makes P80 on a good day for helping in a car park in Morato. Being born Filipino—especially after the dictatorship—is essentially being born with a chip on the shoulder. On the one hand, you’re offended by the poverty and the violence and the smiling hypocrisy; on the other, you’re wracked with guilt for going your happy way while there’s poverty and violence and smiling hypocrisy. After all, “the youth,” as we are constantly referred to as if age implies some sort of shared agenda, aren’t blessed with the particular certainty of what evil we’re crusading against. Marcos at least gave the country that. I once asked an activist how he can rally in the street against capitalism and imperialism and globalization while wearing Nike sneakers that were probably produced in Vietnamese sweatshops. His answer was that his cause is not a reason to deprive himself as an athlete, and as a person.
I wish I knew how he can reconcile it, because frankly, I can’t. And being an “adult” doesn’t give any easy answers to why I can eat in McDonald’s with a barefoot 4-year-old knocking on the glass window. I remember writing, when I turned 18, that I wanted to save the world and slay dragons. I’ve met several dragons, have realized that the world does not need or want saving, and that sometimes, terrible things happen to ordinary people. My inbox is flooded with mail from very unhappy Catholics, one of whom called me “that naughty girl who writes nasty things about sex.” I have discovered that for some, good and bad are relative, and that the teenager who is abducted or the man who has his eyeballs scooped out is not such a bad thing for as long as it doesn’t happen to them.
In three days I turn 23, and have more questions than answers. I’m going to cut this short, before I ramble on about global warming and extrajudicial killings and Toni Gonzaga and why people should stop wearing lace-trimmed leggings under pink skirts, but I’m getting old in three days, and that’s only three days left of irresponsibility. Next week, I will be rational and reasonable and relevant, today, I plan to walk in the rain, buy a burger and salve my conscience with a few coins in a plastic cup.
