Have You Seen Me Lately

At my age, my mom gave birth to me. At 22, I’m still trying to find my place in the world. Fortunately, I am blessed with parents who understand their only child’s need to be confused. Of course, it does not exempt them from wanting me to be the best I can be. They don’t pressure me – no whispering in my ear when I sleep – nothing like that. They simply drop hints here and there how I should make use of my easily spent (and my parents’ hard-earned money) education. The thing is I don’t exactly have the most practical degree in the world. I’m pretty handy around computers, but I can’t program one. The extent of my knowledge in repairing a computer is banging on the CPU so I don’t think I’m going to be such a success in that department. I’m pretty good with numbers; I can add, subtract, multiply and divide in my head with accuracy. Then again, so can a number of people. I’m absolutely terrified of calculus and back in college, I once cried during an advanced Trigonometry exam. I’m happy to say that I passed that exam, but it put me off any kind of mathematics that I shifted to a liberal arts course the following semester. While I don’t quail at the sight of blood or entrails, I just don’t see myself as a nurse (with their long hours and bed-pan duties) or a caretaker (I can hardly take care of myself).
So what does that leave me? A career in media or the arts. With the advent of artista searches, maybe I should join one. But then, I’m too old and I don’t think I can toughen my face up to sing (very badly) and dance (mediocre at best) in front of a crowd. I don’t have stage-fright – far from it. I do have boo-fright. Thankfully, I have never been booed off a stage, but I’ve seen some of my enterprising friends trying to put a brave face in front of hecklers. Scratch a career as an artista off. My organizational skills are confined to my hapless managing of my own schedule with the help of my trusty cell phone’s alarms and my hastily scribbled in folio. So that makes me such a terrible manager then. As for being an artist, I can’t draw worth anything even with a gun held to my head. Exhibit A, in college when I was shopping for a course after my ill-fated foray into Economics. I had the audacity to apply for admission to the College of Fine Arts. The University of the Philippines Diliman has produced some of the country’s inductees into the National Artists of the Philippines. And there I was, armed with my newly-borrowed serious artist-looking palette, brushes and pencils. I was standing outside the building where I was to go in for a talent test. One thing kept playing and rewinding in my head, “What talent? What talent? What talent?” I opened the door to the room and saw the professor telling the students to draw the muddy shoe on the table taking into consideration the light… I high-tailed it out of there as fast as I could. Nope, there is no such thing as the fine artist in me. Then there was the College of Mass Communication. I was in a Dawson’s Creek high. I wanted to become a film director. Several courses there and I realized that, nope. I’m no director. I can be bossy, but I can’t be creative on command. I can’t summon visions. My brain is not overflowing with creative juices.
After college-hopping, I ended up in the College of Arts and Letters. This March I graduated with a degree in BA Comparative Literature. Before you can ask, “What’s that?” the easiest way to explain it is that it’s a liberal arts degree. We study literature from all genres and – you know what? It’s not exactly a science so it’s quite difficult to explain what it is. Suffice it to say that it’s a pretty interesting study. But once you take it out of the academe and the sheltering walls of the university, it’s going to get lost in the crowd of the really practical degrees. It may impress some people for a while, but after its new-ness palls I’m left with a dilemma – what am I going to do with my life?
I’m a very big supporter of taking things one step at a time. This always worked for me when I was in school. It puts everything into perspective – everything that threatened to overwhelm me. It’s like a military strategy: regroup and rethink tactics. I was able to do my schoolwork and still have the kind of fun some people only see in movies. I went on road trips while writing notes on my paper due the next week. My friends and I brain stormed ideas over coffee and onion rings at a roadside café. I could watch a movie and make that a jumping point for my report. However, in the real world I’m floundering. I’m faced with a problem with which I cannot ask other people’s help: do I take any job that comes my way or look for something that makes use of what I was trained to for?
While I’m contemplating that I’m hitting the Internet and newspaper for want ads. At age 22, I’m still looking for myself. No one will ever see her, but me. In the meantime, my parents are waiting in the wings, wringing their hands in anticipation of what their daughter will turn out to be. Thank God for them.