Questions for a 15 year-old from 8 years into her future

(written for Isa's Better Story Project )

1. Rough over your thighs, the plaid skirt had been woven with the smell of rubber and mint. It was the color of crushed gumamela and you wore it five times a week for more than a decade. Neither you nor I were (or ever became) overly fond of that uniform: black leather shoes, ankle socks, and a blouse with a navy-collar. All standard fare. Remember, you stared and stared at yourself (daily) trying to understand how the garment fit, how it hung loose, where it went wrong. On you, you were convinced, it looked ill-fitting (it was square) and, vaguely, too masculine (it was square!?).
Did you (really? really?) feel repelled by your body and the way it was designed? Was there ever a time you didn’t feel that way?

Students were allowed (and encouraged, remember) to carry small vanity kits (a comb or brush, a small mirror, a towel, hand soap, and lip gloss the only luxury) but you will never admit how afraid you were of your reflection: four feet and nine inches, your round face pockmarked, small hands balled tight (I kept everything). You were (in)famous for two things: your hugs (still popular) and your vocabulary (don’t worry, it improved).

Despite grievances easily and readily aired by your classmates (Ang pangit ng legs ko, ang daming pantal! My boobs are too big. Why are my feet huge?!) you resented all the clothes they wore and all the clothes you never had the courage to try on. Even now, you can’t admit it. Come, come: you were fat. You resented the sleek button-downs, you bought no tank tops (not even the red one you wanted), and the shirts you did buy were two sizes too big (to hide your girth).

At the end of it you convinced yourself you were too much of a tomboy to wear summer dresses with empire-cut waists. And quietly, you embraced the belief that you were, perhaps, not cut out for all that girly nonsense (those were your words, not mine).

Then, you were wicked. You believed you were above clothes shopping (abhorred it and was bored by it!) and forced yourself into loose denim jeans, the sneakers your brother outgrew, and shirts your father could have worn. Because the thought had crept in, nested deep, twisted so far down it had hatched into something hideous. At first, you didn’t like how you looked. Then you began punishing yourself for it.   

2. Shielded on one side by a gray wall, the lawn adjacent to your high school building overlooked a parking lot. Weevils and ants nested in the deep shade of a large acacia, its sole occupant.
One day during lunch hour, you joined four friends you can’t remember. You sat under a tree on a blanket spread over itchy carabao grass to serenade your geometry teacher with Iris (Goo Goo Dolls) and Torete (Moonstar 88) their voices strained and frayed.

You did not remember the conversation, only light and heat (mid-February’s cloudless sky and the humidity). Friends peppered the teacher with questions but you consciously limited your participation to giggling at the edge of the blanket.

They all knew, of course. Girls grew up attuned to that frequency. You played with grass, fingernails stained freshest green.

Your teacher wasn’t (and never became) particularly guwapo, that was common knowledge, but he was made exceptional by his sex, Adam in an Edenic all-female exclusive high school. You and your peers romanticized him because there had been no other choice, no other subject. But he was kind and he walked like an orc. In the cafeteria his gait was part strut and all confidence, unmindful and ignorant of your staring; during class, he danced a jig, knees bent, sometimes tiptoeing to reach the top of the blackboard. He remembered his students’ names.

You heard he skipped lunch to tutor your classmates who had trouble with high school algebra, calculus, or trigonometry. That was how you convinced yourself you had fallen in-love with him (convinced yourself everyone who was kind or charitable was easy to love). Did you know you would remember that harmless afternoon?

‘Di ba mainit? That was a friend. The teacher looked over, nodded, and looked away. He stood up and brushed blades of grass from black slacks. He wore cracked  leather shoes and you were impressed at how different they were from the pointed suede pairs your father favored. Your Pa remained a standard, a given, a natural law other men either defied or followed.
You shook your head. You were wearing a bulky, shapeless maroon jacket (with a detachable hood) to hide in, ashamed of the way your body had been formed. Remind me, when did you learn to blame yourself for the way you did not look?
Your classmate asked: Okey ka lang? A nod.

3. During college a professor will ask: how do you know you’re bisexual? I learned the answer was another question: how do you know you’re straight? 

I will withhold her name for my sake because we remained acquaintances: black hair tumbled above olive shoulders. At that time, she smelled of new-washed linen and fresh milk. Her blouse was too short; it hung loose, a tantalizing tease, just long enough to hide her navel but she was the kind who, during class, raised her hand so often you anticipated the appearance of a constellation of moles and blotched birthmarks (on her waist, already the deep valley that defined her shape).

She was a leader and charismatic in a way that you found irresistible. (You asked: how can other people, your classmates, ignore the way she was?) She was magnetic with a brilliant smile and dimples to match. I have put on a crooked grin just thinking about her. She was the kind of person you never wanted to disappoint (for one reason or another) because she was the kind of person who forgave and forgave and forgave again, whose mercy and empathy were readily available. You never wanted to take advantage of her.

And though this happened at an age when no one is certain of anything — least of all themselves — you never attempted a serious courtship. A small hard part of you had grown up attuned to the electric energy of romantic love and so you knew with the same dreadful and precise knowing (rooted there in a solid place in your heart) that she would never feel the same way. She had never been like you (that was part of her appeal).

You sat next to her for an entire (school) year but the friendship never deepened past paper deadlines and rearranging book bags around respective seats to make room for each other. You were only acquaintances. It wasn’t for lack of trying (rehearsed conversations, a volley of autograph-book questions, giggling during class). It wasn’t because you were uninteresting. She was, simply (and most painfully), disinterested.

You, a victim of (feminine) beauty, were certain it wasn’t just a crush. I made a big deal out of it and built an identity around it.

4. I will not lie: I forgot what was important to you (I don’t know when it happened). I had forgotten how you were and what you liked. Your voice in my mind no longer exists. That’s how far you’ve come. We are wholly different.

What questions have you asked? It’s what you do not know (the future, how to make sense of your past, and where to go) that colors your choices. Suddenly, you will be afraid of different things. You will be a junior in college when you take your first few writing classes. One of your professors will teach your class never to use that word ‘suddenly‘. Of course you believed in him and in uncomplicated sincerity.

If this had been addressed to me (from the thirty-five year old we will both become), I would appreciate some vindication. I would demand it, in fact. So here it is:

You will keep believing in a lot of things: kind strangers, safety during (the long and necessary) commute to and from home, the irresistible pull of deep currents, fresh apples during a hot day, friendship, the loyalty that comes with it, and (despite all odds, and all your reservations) you still believe in the all-consuming power of passion and perseverance.

You will discover: your friends will still make you laugh (albeit in different ways and the laughter will mean different things); good food does (and always will) help you feel better; despite griping about it, you enjoy spending time at home more than anywhere else; time is the only real currency and we barter it in exchange for money, experience, the chance to feel shame, regret, love, happiness.
You will forget: why you never talked about yourself, your first tattoo idea (conceived, I remember, at some point during sophomore year in high school), the first time you bought anything for yourself by yourself, the first time you wanted something enough to starve yourself of other luxuries, why you chose to cultivate your loneliness (every 15 year-old girl is lonely because every 15 year-old girl harbors the fatal and desperate belief in her own individuality), and how you convinced yourself that the loneliness was healthy.

5. Do you want to meet me and what would you say about me? I knew you, once upon a time. And although there is no chance of visiting you, you remain the only person I have to answer to.