A letter to my 16-year-old self
MONTREUX , SWITZERLAND — The sun is setting in this French-speaking city as I write you this letter. I gaze at the Geneva Lake and there I find the subdued yet sublime rays of the sun that bids adieu to a day that is about to end.
You always liked the sunset. Armed with pen and paper, you would write poems as you planted your butt in a paddy, unmindful of the unruly blades of grass that pierced through your khakis, in the middle of the rice field in Gulod.
You always had a poem written for your friends. Your deep appreciation of a good deed done to you by someone was always in a form of a poem, handwritten in blue ink, on a scratch paper, on a tissue box, on pages of your notebook, even on wide leaves you found while hiking Mt. Makiling.
Even your apologies to a juvenile relationship that you did not want severed were in stanzas, replete with rhyme and reason, with a promise of love, a love that you thought would go so far. But I also loved it that you questioned the concept of “far” when all you could see that time was “now.”
Even that concept of “now” is past now. Still, I love to look back and see you rekindling the concept of now, of far, of love. They were words that you wove to become thoughts. Your experiences, happy and sad, were your poetry. And your experiences have helped you become your sturdy self now. The couplets are gone. In their wake are the sinewy paragraphs that extend thoughts. Thoughts that are explained in several words. Even if, in your poetry of the past, they could just be a word, a line, even just a punctuation mark.
You had so many ideas in your head. You wrote poems out of them, hoping that someday those verses and odes would have their own captive audience.
Your older version does not write poems anymore. Forgive the age, though you and I are only separated by 28 years. The gap is short but for a heart that yearns, it is still very long. And there’s no excuse for not writing poetry anymore. It’s not only your poetry that I miss. I miss you. Period. I miss your laughter that was unbridled. Those days when you laughed like there was no tomorrow. I don’t mean to say that the older version of you has lost the fun. It’s just that the trouble with growing up is you are preoccupied with a lot of things that are perceptible in many names — responsibility, commitment, accountability. They sometimes steal the mirth in you but you find your way of enjoying them still.
I miss you — especially during the days when the greatest of your concern in college was which between lunch and dinner you would skip on a Friday because you had to make both ends meet. Life was hard but you never complained. Even when you would sleep hungry, your dreams accompanied you at night. And you woke up full and filled with the resolute will to continue the fight.
Yes, that’s what you were at 16 — a fighter. Nobody could harm you because your defenses would always be up when you sensed danger. Survival was not a merely word for you. It was a way of life. And you did it with passion.
At 16, you thought you were already mature. You took care of yourself in college. Depended on your strength. You thought you had wisdom when in fact you only had dreams. You had big dreams. And you knew you would fulfill them.
I thank you for teaching me to say the truth. If, in your standard, something was not beautiful or proper, you said it as it was. A beautiful dress was beautiful because you knew it was. An engaging prose became more engaging when you poured your heart in discussing it. I miss the days when you did not mince words. The trouble with age, for many, is it knows diplomacy, which is needed in business, because mature lives know commerce to survive. I miss the days when all you needed was the concept of love to survive.
Did I love you enough when you were 16? To this day, I do not know what is enough when it comes to loving. But I knew in my heart I loved you in the way I knew how. There were times I abused your youth by daydreaming a lot. I ask apology for that. But that’s how you survived. It is my fervent prayer that you like the older version of your 16-year-old self.
To this day, I still follow your simple principle of spreading joy and making someone happy every day. The older version of you takes that to heart and it makes his soul young and light. I always remember your juvenile attitude that helping is not a way to earn brownie points in the eyes of God; it’s human nature to help without feeling burdened. That’s one joy of your youth that I keep as a privilege to this day.
I wish I loved you better when you were young. I wish I prepared you better for the world. The protruding cheekbones on your 16-year-old face are gone. Your reedy frame has already gained flesh. But I still recognize you. I still celebrate you. And in moments when I lose my bearing, I look back to what you were before and there I find myself — 16-year-old again.
Bye for now. I will try to begin writing poetry again. Maybe the lake in front of me, humming in soft orange ripples, will serve as an inspiration.
Thank you. I don’t get to express my gratitude to you all the time. As a sign of my utmost appreciation, please know that I still wear the smile you gave me when you were 16. That’s enough for me to last a lifetime.