I went to the Katipunan area today. I went to a place on Dela Rosa Street to be exact. A familiar area yet it wasn’t the kind of familiarity that gave me comfort; it was the kind of familiarity that gave me discomfort.
I parked at a spot away from the building I was going to. I parked away from the view of the guard of someone’s condominium building, afraid that he might again mouth someone’s name when he sees me. “No, manong, I am not here for him. Duty calls that’s why I am here so banish that sly smile I see through you,” I thought, imagining a conversation with the guard. One time I was in the area, it was unnerving how the guard still related me to someone like I could never have another reason for being in the area but him.
Inside the studio, the place on Dela Rosa Street I went to, I stayed in my little corner and pushed the thoughts of someone away from my mind. I had buried my dead and there was no use resurrecting it. No, let me correct that, there was no death; just an ending, a chapter that I had to close on my own. Death is morbid. Closing a chapter is gentler, kinder. I am now writing a new chapter.
As I was leaving the place, I thought that my life has been having a lot of fleeting presences lately. Several people just seem to be passing by and I guess, in a way, I have come to accept that some people are just meant to be passersby in my life. No use asking them to stay if there is no reason to or if they don’t want to.
I had been going out with someone recently. At some point, I realized he wasn’t meant to stay as he had been wont to do in the three years I had known him. After the third date, I said goodbye.
As the sun set on Katipunan Avenue today, I found myself seated across a smart and funny person, exchanging stories about a common past. When it was time to say goodbye and leave the place, I knew that it would be our first and last personal conversation. I also told a girl why I was fidgety inside the studio and she told me she would take care of me. I didn’t doubt her sincerity but I knew it wasn’t a “friendship” that was meant to last a lifetime.
I have learned that I don’t have the gift of goodbye. The few goodbyes I’ve had at the end of a relationship were of teleserye proportions. But I think I have the gift of knowing which people in my life will stay and which ones will just come and go…fleeting presences…people just passing by (although, I sometimes had tried to make them stay…and failed).
As I was leaving the area, I saw that the light in someone’s condominium unit was on. Was he there? Should I have resurrected the dead? No…Should I have reopened a chapter and erased everything I had written since I had closed it? I decided to speed away.
Today, I was just a fleeting presence on Dela Rosa Street. If only it could speak, Fabian dela Rosa (the street) would have told me, “Mar, you’re just a passerby here. You don’t belong here.” And I would have answered, “Yes, I don’t belong here. I never belonged here,” and whisper to myself, “although I once thought of staying, of being a constant in this place, not merely a transient visitor.”
I thought I had said goodbye to Katipunan. But I learned that I couldn’t say goodbye. Just as there will be many other fleeting presences in my life, I will again be a passerby in the area on March 14, I suppose, when I would again park at a spot, wait for someone, then later speed away…and on many other days after that.
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