Rough Cuts

If my life was a movie, it would be one with rough cuts with no smooth transitions.

The last semester of my last year in college kicks off tomorrow. Wow. Typing those words just gave me the chills. As the age-old cliché goes, “Time flies.” It gives not only me but also my parents an unparalleled amount of relief and satisfaction that after two decades of conforming with the rules of the academic institutions I’ve entered into, I will finally be on my own and show to the world the person I became after getting through a very rough road.

I really don’t know how everything came to this. Or shall I say, I don’t know how everything went by so fast or perhaps, how things and people have gone too soon. I can still recall so vividly my days in grade school and even if you ask me to name every adviser I’ve had since I was in nursery, I can instantly do so with much confidence and no amount of skepticism whatsoever. The point is, it only seemed like yesterday when I was just a futile lass in my bloomers with no care whether the world was flat, or round, or an oblate spheroid.

Now, look at me. I am no longer a teenager but I still feel like a 16-year old.  I may be young but I’m not naïve. In fact, when I had a few drinks at my friend’s house the other week, we talked about serious, pervasive matters like the country’s current economic status, politics, the global recession, et. Al. We used to just talk about the latest issues on other people’s lives- who’s the newest teenage mom, who dropped out from school, who fucked whom, etc. It only proves that somehow, I can charge my personal development to my experiences and I can proudly say that I have already matured and outgrown those qualities that once consumed me.

I must say I owe, if not everything, most of the person that I am today to my professors who taught me not only the pedagogical phase of being a student, but they showed me the reality of life. Reality was forced right into my mouth and shoved right down into my throat so I had no choice but to swallow the whole of it like a bitter cough syrup. You don’t like it but you still take it in because you know you need it.

Their slave-driving efforts really paid off. Just like a sword, I have been soldered, put into fire and hammered. Excruciatingly, I must add. But just like a true fighter, I wrestled with all my might and brought out my greatest weapon- my passion. I know it’s not time for me to brag yet because I still have five months to go and only God knows the future, but I think I have the bragging rights to say that I’ve been through a lot but I’ve managed to get through by putting my heart into every task that came my way.

I was deeply touched when a famous TV host interviewed a world-renowned singer who already stood the test of time and an awful lot of controversies, asking, “Why are you still singing?” The singer simply replied, “I love what I’m doing and I don’t see myself doing anything else.” I would like to be able to say the exact worlds one day. I would like to be able know where I really want to be and start working on it.

In the end, it all boils down to one’s definition of success. Others may define it as having a big fat bank account and being a big shot professional. I say otherwise. For me, success is doing what you want while enjoying doing it. As what is said in the business management’s famous Theory Y, “Work should be as natural as play.”

And though my life at present only seems to be a series of rough cuts, my foresight tells me that the cuts will be linked to form the greatest montage and I will gladly sit back to watch it on the loop.