What will be...

Vague items, I’ll admit. Just some coincidences happening these past days. I thought it best to thread lightly, carefully, just in case.

*****

Found myself in some building’s parking lot in Alabang just a few hours back, chatting with an old friend from college. It was an hour’s worth of catching up, apparently a lot has gone on in the past 9 months since we last met, and a lot more in the last 5 years or so since we were neighbors. How time flies, indeed, yet everything seemed as if it were yesterday. As we said our goodbyes, there was this nagging feeling that it might be for the last time but there was nothing to be done. A pat on the shoulder, that last awkward look and finally the words ‘take care’. Que sera, sera.

*****

I accompanied another college friend yesterday to one of those iconic symbols of UP Diliman, the “isaw” stand. Despite having moved to the vacant space in front of the old arcade, it was still the same stand that fumigated the Ilang-ilang dorm each afternoon years back. The trademark orange coloring, packing the skewered intestines into small plastic cups to be drowned in spiced vinegar and of course, the smoke. Memories of extravagance in a time of meager allowances.

Trudging through memory lane a bit further, we dropped by her old college boarding house and soon found ourselves willing captives to a nostalgic drinking spree with the former landlady. As can be expected from such reunions, flashbacks were being served as fast as the empty beer bottles multiplied all around. Despite not being privy to most of these stories, still there was my fascination about how much things have changed over the course of a decade.

I tried figuring out how much I have changed since those times, from being a reckless and carefree student of the university to a cautious and independent salary man struggling to secure each step up the corporate ladder. Regrets, of course, are plentiful, and yet it now ever hardly matters. What is important is the present, and what we make of it. The future? Well, I’ll take my chances. Que sera, sera.

*****

A friend recently went back home to the south, right after a visit from a ghost of sorts. I could only imagine the odds of that happening, a foreboding, perhaps? Of course, I can only guess as to the significance of that appointment at a time when idleness is imminent in the coming days.

Making matters even more serendipitous are recent discussions and realizations on the current going-ons (or the lack of it, I must say) between said friend and her ghost which seem to point in the direction of a hypothetical collision course. Hypothetical depending on which branch of physics you subscribe to (Newtonian or Quantum) relating to parallel lines. To which ever eventual end, all I can say is, que sera, sera.

*****

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a small pair of flip-flops (not mine) at my apartment. Those long strands of hair clogging up the bathroom drain as well. Two empty coffee mugs waiting to be washed in the sink when I get back home, and the inevitable hint of perfume in the morning. I guess I better learn to live with the fact that my sister now resides here.

A bit less than an act of charity, her presence gives my personal finances a significant boost in the direction of empowerment. Quite a welcome change from times past, I must say. It’s just strange, to be reminded. Que sera, sera.