Teenage life is when you enjoy romantic adventures. You get to know friends from the opposite sex and get close too. You go on outings with your clique, parties, dances, and the like. You join basketball teams, wear athletic uniforms, and be part of an athletic struggle to win.
I never enjoyed all that. I was a young man always separated from normal life. I was always a mere onlooker. I liken it to an art museum. There are people who look at and appreciate paintings.The paintings are the youth on the go. People enjoy watching them have fun and grow up.
I was never part of the painting. I always watched paintings with the crowd, and even among the crowd I was stashed in a corner. All the others in the crowd talk to each other appreciating and enjoying the paintings but I just stood there silently noting everything.
Well, I kinda enjoyed my role eventually. But still, back in my mind, I always thought I could've had a better teenage or young adult life. My teenage and adult life was practically taken away from me.
Well, I had a few friends then, and I had a taste of what teenage enjoyment was for a while before this segregation or imprisonment begun. But after, I just remained in the sidelights of everything. For instance, my cousins were all together during family reunions in our province, hometown of our dads, enjoying their youths, going out to the beach, playing basketball at the plaza, picking fruits at some backyard and returning with loads of fruits, the glow of youth in their faces. I was always there in some corner watching, often feeling I wasn't there.
Bitterness or hatred? Absolutely not. Nothing of those. There was as if some kind of a rule or law that I was not included in all the fun that was going on. I was barred. And they saw me, too, that way. I was not supposed to be among them. I was confined to being their audience. And being obedient by nature, I played by the rules. I saw to it that I didn't break them. I sat there in a corner, patient, well-behaved, careful not to make a sound. As long as I was like that, everybody was happy.
My dad never pushed me to be "someone." He accepted me as I was. He would encourage me to join my cousins, but when he saw that I was very reluctant, he never forced me. I appreciate the way my dad handled me. So with mom. He was never an added pressure during it all. There was a time I referred to myself as "the background." When everybody painted or drew, they all focused on the main subject. I concentrated on backgrounds.
Even in college I was like that. I just kept silent in a corner. I noted everything that went on around me. I had a few friends. I knew everyone but very few people took notice of me. I was like a wall or door. Everybody knows its there but no one in his or her right mind talks to them. Well, that was the rule. I had to follow it. No complaints.
Later, I joined a dreaded fraternity--I was seen as among the tough ones--but that didn't help any. They just started fearing me and stayed farther from me. I kinda enjoyed that, too, but you see, when you're at that age, you begin to wonder about your love life. I was beginning to wonder, was I ever going to have a girlfriend?
I thank God my eldest son, who's in his third year high school now, is not suffering what I did. He's a bit popular in class. He has some aloofness sometimes which he got from me, but I and my wife coach him on the enjoyment of youth. He's recognized as an important basketball player and has close female friends. Thank you God! Our youngest son also seem to have a popular personality in their school.
I never got to court any girl except my wife. She was my only girlfriend--and I'm somewhat grateful for that, because I don't know what I might have done if I had girlfriends before. I might have gotten some of them pregnant or something--who knows--and I wouldn't have met and married my wife. I would've had become more miserable. I'm so happy with my wife, and she often says she feels the same with me. Thank God!
I had some female friends in y college days--very pretty ones--who did some effort to get close to me--break up my defenses and get through me and made me feel like a real person. I appreciate their efforts. Like Maureen R. and Judith J. Judith would always sit by mi side and ask me how I was and we would talk about a lot of things and she made me feel warm. She would even look into my eyes, as if searching for something there, and I would return her stare for a while, but then I would remember the rules. Others would suspect that there was something romantic between us.
The same with Maureen. We were so close--and she was so pretty and smart--and her classmates and my friends would suspect something between us. We were open to each other. We would go out together--but not on a date. We'd just roam around. I would also go visit her at her dorm, and her dorm mates would think that I was her boyfriend. We would call each other on the phone. But there were rules. Later, I watch Maureen a she met the guy of her life and much later they were married. Did I feel something for Judith or Maureen? When you're under those rules, you'd never venture thinking about whether you feel something for someone or not. You just exist, period. Anything more would be too much and groundless expectation.
Silent years. That's how my teenage and young adult life had been. I was mentally and emotionally imprisoned, yet how my mind and heart soared to heights of imagination, even reaching places very few people had been able to to see or reach. When I talked about them a bit, no one understood. My wife never saw or reach such places either, but she listened and exerted efforts to understand. Today, sometimes there are portions she still cannot understand, but she takes pains to listen, and try to visualize. And she does see glimpses of it. She knows about Maureen and Judith and the rest--even those who thought they were in love with me.
Oh yes, there were those who were too blind about love and saw me like I was good-looking or what. They fell head over heels, and I was shaking my head in pity. These girls need a severe shock to wake up to reality, I told myself. I could have taken advantage of them, but God spared me from falling into that pit. Thank God!
