Cutting myself didn't work, so the other night, I ran away.
I was 16. Senior high was almost done with three more months to go before graduation. I remember it was Friday because I had my cadet training gear with me. I left home the usual time that morning but I didn't go to school; instead I went to a park a few blocks halfway to the school. It wasn't my first time there, and it wasn't my first time cutting classes. I stay there the entire day reading, writing, listening to three or four cassette tapes I bring with me.
Nobody disturbed me during these excursions, and I never really thought about it all that much. To me it just felt right being there, where the sounds of the city were muffled by the trees. It felt like a completely separate world, walled off by the buildings that stand sentry along the park's perimeter.
I'd write about being afraid--of disappointing the people around me, of life--but mostly I'd write about a boy I fell in love with. Randy, I found out his name was. I forgot how I did, now. I was a batch ahead and he never knew me at all, but I was in high school and love will never be as intense and as pure and as powerful as a trainwreck or a flower blossoming as it was in high school.
And so it was a Friday. I just got settled into the bench I'd usually sit on and started the first few paragraphs of the most recent litany I had for Randy when someone sat beside me. It was a schoolmate. A batchmate, as a matter of fact. We were classmates once, but we were never really friends. He asked me what I was doing. I forgot what I said but I remember being cautious and unsmiling. I remember he accepted whatever my reason was with an 'Ah' that could have meant anything at all. He lit a cigarette and offered me one but I refused.
I don't remember if we talked, but it wasn't long before a teacher was suddenly there asking why we weren't in class. I remember panicking and apologizing. I remember the teacher saying that he had an important errand to run and that he better see us when he gets back in the school. The teacher left and me and my schoolmate looked at each other. He shrugged and started walking back. I proceeded to fix my things, thoughts whirling in my head. I was about to pick up the bag where my cadet gear was when I felt my mind shifting gears. I left it and started walking towards another direction.
For the next eight hours, I wasn't thinking of anything else but walking. By 5:00 pm, I remember reaching the end of the LRT station, in Monumento. I sat on the sidewalk and stayed there for about an hour, an hour and a half. I'm not going back home, I thought. Once again, I have been a terrible disappointment to the people around me. I started walking again. Eventually I saw a bus that said Malinta, several jeepneys that said Plaridel, and signs that said Valenzuela. I remember stopping at a closed sari-sari store. It was dark and there was a bench not immediately visible from the streets. I laid down to sleep. It didn't take long for me to decide to go back home.
Life is just as terrifying for me now that I am 29 as it was when I was 16. Everyday I live with that same fear--of not knowing what I am good for, of coming up short, of disappointing the people around me, of life and all the disappointments it brings. I tried to kill myself two weeks ago with a primary school-grade cutter, resulting in a gash and a couple of scratches barely visible now. The other week, I didn't report for work for one day, physically unable to get up with the thoughts of terror weighing down my entire body. Two nights ago the whirling of fear in my mind was too much to bear, I needed to run away. 'I can't pretend anymore,' said the text message I sent to my manager. 'Life terrifies me. I am not right in the head. Please don't tell anyone.'
I left everything in my locker except my ID, which I needed to use to leave the office, and my ATM, which I used to withdraw what's left of my salary. Baguio would be a good place to die in, I thought, so I took the 5:00 am to Baguio, nothing but my office clothes and P5,000.00 to my name.
By noon I was at Session Road, cold air nipping at me as only mountain air could. I got about buying more comfortable clothes, a small bag, and a book--Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. I didn't need money where I was going I figured, but I needed a book. For hours and hours I walked around Baguio, up and down streets separated by steep inclines and long flights of stairs. I was desperate to drive out the fear in my mind with nothing but exhaustion.
It was dark when I stopped walking. 8 hours of walking and still I ended up back at Session Road. It was a waiting shed still moist with the afternoon rain. I sat, got my book out, and started reading. Words never reached my mind, however. I want to go home, my thoughts screamed. I want water and food and a warm bed, my thoughts screamed even louder.
Memory fired every nerve in my mind and I remembered the people I saw while I was walking--how every step they made had purpose, had direction. I want to live, their actions seemed to say. I wandered into a school some time in the afternoon and I had trouble finding the exit, but I heard every single student in that school say, I want to live. I passed a wet market with old ladies selling vegetables saying, I want to live. I passed people going home from work, I passed lovers in the dark, I passed several homeless people grinning toothlessly at passers-by, rummaging through the corner-garbage, sitting on a wet bench at Burnham Park, all saying, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.
These memories--novel and bright and burning--seared through my mind, and I wept. I was not at all like these people. I did not want to live. With all my heart I wanted to die. But I continue to be a slave to my body, and I was tired and thirsty and hungry. For me to die I must step through that door of mortal pain, and that adds another fear in my mind. I am defeated by life, and I remain its prisoner.
