Stranded

Sometimes, it takes being stranded, to help you get unstuck on a life rut.

Yesterday found me inside an fx, which is in the middle of a traffic jam. While outside, the rain battered the windows of cars and made a veritable flood of rain water in the streets. I stared out the windows, and the flood (which now looks more like a river) would likely keep us there for a while. When you're in the middle of the road and stuck in a flood of rain water, you notice a lot of things that you'd ordinarily let pass by. Like how the rain's beating down the windshield. The way how some people are out in the rain and can't get a ride, while I'm safe and warm inside the fx. How children are playing in the flood water and practically having a good time, unmindful of how many infinite number of bacteria they're soaking like a desert sponge on a drop of water. I continue to watch the children as they continue to frolic amidst the infectious soup of flood water. All of this, one notices when you don't have anything better to do.

I watch the rain as it continues its assault on our vehicle. And I remember my childhood, the innumerable times that I felt happy running around our lawn and soaking up the rain. How I would run outside when I hear rainfall and trip over myself while taking my clothes off. How me and my friends have a good time playing in the rain. Sometimes, when I look back on these things, I kinda wish that I could go back to being a child. When I was a child, things were much simpler. The only decision I had to make was which Flintstone vitamin character has more flavor and if I want to risk my existence and cross the line in Patintero. The only budgeting I did was on how many ice creams I could buy with ten pesos. And the only heartbreak I got was when Rio got trapped in a block of ice, for loving a mortal in a Maskman episode.

As I was stranded, and got nothing better to do, it got me to thinking about a different kind of stranded. Right now, my life is flowing like mosquito-infested stagnant water. Here I am, pushing twenty-two in a few weeks, and still I haven't got nothing to show for it. I'm about to retake my boards to prove to everyone that I didn't cheat on my first one, so I'm not earning for myself. And yeah, I still ask my mom for gimmick money. How pathetic is that? Right now, the decisions that I get to make will not only affect me, but other people's lives too. And the heartbreak that I must face is far more intense (and real), than a person turned to ice on a TV show.

I'm stranded. Because I don't know which road to turn to next. Because I'm still here, but I so desperately want to escape. Because he's moved on to have a new life with someone, while I haven't moved an inch ever since he left.

And I don't know which way to turn to.

But luckily, the driver does. And I was snapped out of my reverie as the cars started moving again. The rain has stopped pouring and was now reduced to a drizzle. The children continue to play amongst the flood, while some are being called home by their mothers. Commuters are now hastily trying to get a ride to their own homes. While our vehicle moved forward, inch by inch, through the flood, until we finally cleared it.

All of these, you notice when you're stranded.