A Letter To My Crestfallen 10-Year Old Self. With All My Heart, Thirty-Two.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
My dearest Ten,
Some mornings ago, I couldn’t thank all the stars in the heavens enough for finding a crisp twenty-peso bill inside my pocket just when I needed it most. As I handed it to one of my students who didn’t have a snack for recess, my first thought was you. When she stayed inside the classroom while the rest of her peers animatedly marched their way to the canteen, I am stung with an awful, familiar feeling.
“Take this, dear,” I urged but she shook her head, no.
It wasn’t much, really… just enough to buy her a decent merienda we normally have at the canteen. But still she refused. I tried to be insistent, so, I took her hand and placed the money on her palm. My student’s gaze dropped on the vinyl floor. It was rather an awkward task I took upon myself to convince her that there wasn’t anything embarrassing about accepting a bill of meager value in such a situation. After a moment or two, she straightened. Lifting her head to look up at me, she flashed a slim but genuine smile and finally said “thanks, Miss Anie,” much to my relief.
I started keeping extra twenty-peso bill in my pocket since then, crisp or not, in case any of my students need it – a courtesy I wish someone from grade school extend when the struggle of poverty first zing you. The age when you felt like the rest of your seemingly compact but colossal life has truly begun. I know about the long nights that kept you awake, or those mornings you weren’t quite sure if you can make it to grade school and those days in between that looks as though they’re never ending. It’s tough when your family’s financial security has been shaken, this I know. Your crestfallen state should have been the opposite but do not lose heart because this season in your life will pass. It will pass and things will never be the same for you. And though no one, not a single soul from that unfortunate place notice the apprehension and heaviness of your heart, nor the distress of not being your powerful, engaging little self, you will see how much resilience you’re made of. You do not know it yet because anxiety, at times, anger, gets the best of you, but in time you will. You internally told yourself, what you lack in money and in looks, your brain will have to make up for it. And that, my dear Ten, is strength in itself. This internal bar will become your very drive to flourish beyond academics.
“You’re a rebel,” they say and how this weighs you down, but the truth is, it should not. Because you know what, they are right. You are a rebel. You are a rebel when you refuse to consent to feel inferior whenever everyone looks down on you because you can only afford to buy yourself Pop (bottled carbonated drink) for recess… sometimes, a small bag of chips but never both at the same time. You are a rebel because you held your head high whenever you are met with an odd stare every time you’d bring out a can of tuna (in Afritada flavor, our fave!) that goes with the rice Mommy packed for you at lunch. You are a rebel because you chose to stand against prejudice and injustice when your supposed champions failed you. And within these arduous times, and these lengthy moments of rejection and pain, you will find your courage, your character and your passion. The process, tumultuous to all appearances it may be, will do you good. It may not make sense today but know that it will be full and rich with lessons and experiences.
Cry if must. Be sad if you can’t help it but only for a moment because even if the odds seem up, there will be a happy ending to one of the dreariest episodes of your life. And when it’s your turn to sit behind that teacher’s desk, you’ll be able to look at every child that enters your classroom with sincerest care, utmost respect and tell each and everyone of them how they truly matter. You will choose to be the champion they need regardless of what they have in life. You will guide them to see the good in everything and when they can’t find any, you will encourage them to create it.
In Nayirah Waheed’s words:
“There is peaceful.
There is wild.
I am both at the same time.”
And I am here to tell you that YOU ARE BOTH. Yes, AT THE SAME TIME. So, have faith and be a force to be reckoned with, in spite of. I'm rooting for you.
With all my heart,
Thirty-Two
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