I Tell All (Part 2)

Yesterday I had a homecoming with my high school friends. I haven’t seen them since I left four months ago. It was a pleasant feeling being in their company all over again. But the longer I was with them, the stronger the familiar bitter feeling I haven’t felt in months came haunting me.

Nobody really knew what it meant for me to get out of Bacolod four months ago. For the people who personally knew me, they would have thought it simply meant just going to college in a different place and moving out to live independently. No. It’s far more than that. I actually wanted to get out of Bacolod for a bigger reason – I wanted to start living my life as the person who I really wanted to be.

Few people know what I truly felt towards my high school years. Yes, I dubbed high school as “the best years of my life” and now I openly admit that I made an overstatement. I take it back. Don’t get me wrong, I was genuinely happy back in the days. I cherish every moment I spent with my circle of friends. All of the laughters I shared with them were sincere. All of the cheery smiles I gave them were meaningful. Those weren’t pretensions and fakes. Let me just paradoxically say that I loved and despised high school.

I say I was happy back then, but never completely joyful. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

Without a doubt, I had a good standing in high school. For the people reading this who know me personally, I know you would agree. I was in the star section and was a constant honor student. Not to mention that I was in the school paper and the student government. Modesty aside, I was a prominent figure in school. I wasn’t just a wall flower hanging around unnoticed. I was a social butterfly with a name other students knew.

But despite these, I wasn’t completely happy. There was an underlying dislike towards my high school years. It just had to happen. Stereotyping. I guess it’s a natural phenomenon in a place like a high school jam-packed with juvenile teenagers. People fit me into this some kind of a person. People label you this and that as if you’re a book in a library to be classified. The problem with stereotyping is itself. You “oversimply and standardize the image of a person” [that’s according to Encarta Dictionary]; limiting what he can do according to the label you give him.

It’s not a new thing actually. Teen movies like High School Musical have shown this kind of societal problem. In my case, I was stereotyped as a person I am not happy to be. I am more than that person. I wanted to do greater things than that person. But I can’t because people have fixed my image into that kind of girl. Consequentially, it made me insecure. I wanted to break out of my boundary and try new things, but I didn’t have the guts and courage to do so. I was trapped in an identity I was not. I developed a weak personality.

This is why I wanted really bad to move out of my home city. I want to start afresh and create an identity I truly am. This I have found in UP.
When I came to UP, I was still that stereotyped person whom isn’t my real self. I was insecure, had a weak, unstable personality and easily intimidated by people whom I thought was better than me.

I told myself that this new chapter of my life would mark the start of my personal empowerment. I had to conquer and overcome my inhibitions. I knew this was such a hard task, a challenge for myself. So I took it to my great big Father up above. I asked for a personal emancipation from insecurities and He knowingly knew what to do. He gave me even greater challenges, things I had to which I have never done before. Most of the time, I would be left awestruck about how God can answer prayers in the most surprising way. Life indeed, surrendered to Him, is full of surprises.

It is in UP that I have found total liberation from stereotyping. I once posted in my friendster shoutout that the best thing about being in UP is the fact that you can you’re your own individuality without being judged. Here, I can do things people back in high school thought I was not capable of doing so. I am empowered here in UP. No one can tell me who and what I should be because I am the master of myself.

At the moment of this writing, I am in Bacolod City. Seeing the “people of my past” reminds me of who I was. I don’t know if my high school friends notice it, but I am a stronger Charisse now. My transformation is far yet to be completed, but I have to say that gone is my weak personality. I guess they don’t have to notice it. It’s a personal change, a change within. I mean look at me not from the outside. I have layers of eyebags and I’m breaking out, but inside me is an emancipated Charisse.

You may not completely understand what I am trying to say here. I know. I’m not completely specific in details. But I have to be careful of what I say here for some people might be offended. As I looked over my high school friends, I realized that the moment we stepped out of high school, we began living out different new lives. Then I thought of my new circle of friends in UP and generally my new life there.

Then it just sunk in. I am happier now. I’m happier in UP.
You know why? Because in UP, I can be whoever I wanted to be.