Whine Wednesday

I rode the jeepney holding back my tears.

My Wednesday class don't begin until 2:30 in the afternoon. Waking up early gives me enough time to do other things, like fix my messy room, do my assignment which I failed to do the night before because of an exhausting film shoot, make my own lunch which is just hotdog and fried rice special, and realize that something is perceptibly, obviously wrong. Something was wrong, I couldn't exactly tell what.

I started fixing myself at 1:30, put on my lame white shirt, faded black jeans, sneaks and beanie hat to cover my disheveled hair. I didn't take a bath or let's just say wash my hair. The weather was intolerably humid and I was sweating even though I wasn't moving a lot. I didn't want to move, not a single muscle. I didn't feel like going to school. I wasn't prepared and my assignments were undone. It's an awful guilty feeling of wasted time. But I had to go. I had some business to do: return the video cam and halogen lights we used for the shoot and pay the remaining balance of the charge. My group mates could've shared their part, but I took responsibility of everything. Depending on other people worries me more than doing the job myself. During the trip, sweating and uneasy, my thoughts were wandering to distant places and half of my self wants to go home. NO. I have to RETURN the things I borrowed. That was just the main point of going to school. Not the school itself. I just thought, since I was already there, why not just go to class and get something from the discussion. But it wasn't like that. I should've skipped class. I could've felt better since I missed my HBO (Human Behavior in an Organization). My +1 for the final grade was blown away just like that now that I have an unexcused absence. One point is still one point. Business Statistics lessons are just too much for my brain to handle. Made me regret going to class plus I have no assignment to pass for the second time, another reason to feel more remorse. My third and final class wrapped up the day with nothing else but GUILT. I thought I could get away with an assignment unmet through my excuses but I guess our professor is just to old to be outwitted. His straight, incriminating, hey-lil-missy-I've-heard-so-much-of-your-worn-out-excuse-a-thousand-times-before look, I knew immediately my alibi didn't work. It's okay with me to miss on the 20-point assignment, but my pangs of conscience couldn't ignore that I have just caused my two group mates their 20 points because of my being irresponsible again. I know they were just pretending that it was okay, but I can feel that they were blaming me for it, they just couldn't be straight forward about it, I know they're disappointed. Just as how I was disappointed of myself.

Figuring out what have caused this gloomy, mundane feeling is hard. I could blame the unpredictable weather that goes from hell-ish scorching hot to very wet and cold, or I could blame my professors for being so demanding about school projects, that they couldn't understand that we are but mere human beings with very limited energy, or maybe I could blame someone else for this, anyone, anything except myself. I don't want to blame myself. But the truth is, I am to be blamed, I am the cause of all these guilt I've been feeling. I just don't want to acknowledge. No one does. It's a human err that we all turn our backs to. We don't like to fix this error, this disease we all suffer. Why are we so afraid to accept our own mistakes, why are we too reluctant to acknowledge that we are erroneous? Errors, don't make us less humans, rather it makes us real humans, imperfect and in an unending endeavor for perfection. 

What scares us to accept guilt or blame is the feeling that ensues afterwards. 

I was walking blindly, and everything that I see are hazy images that drift behind my vision, everything was blurred, even the sounds were inaudible, there was just me and the feeling. Thrusting in my mind and in my heart. My eyes were blurred with tears I didn't want to shed. I've encountered it before, I knew the feeling, but for a long time now, I've never felt it. The unexpected recurrence of it caught me in my most fragile, unprepared state. All I wanted were time and words. Time to sit and think, and words that will withdraw all the thoughts that have been bothering me, the things left unexpressed and withheld. Everything else conspired, school, family, self conflicts, to make me feel so down. This afternoon, I succumbed to all the suppressed feelings of pressure I've been carrying with me.