The sky is clear and the afternoon sun is still up, however, is preparing for its departure. Salty smell fills my lungs as I inhale deeply. I take my time walking through this very old yet excellently built breakwater of this town. After so many years, the serenity of the structure against the constant crushing of waves, the sound of the birds in the sky, and the placid seawater ahead never fail to mesmerize me yet again.
As I walk, a sudden very familiar cold feeling is crawling up inside me, like thousands of needles trying to pierce through my heart. A sudden chill runs down my spine, not because of the dropping temperature of the area or the strong wind, but because I am feeling it again. I stop dead on my tracks watching the cause of this sudden outburst of emotions, a woman kneeling in front of a crying little girl. I stared at them, wondering why the little girl is crying. Is she going to leave her, abandon her, like "she" did to me? But no, she skinned her knee, that's why. Is fate playing on me again, teasing me because it knows it can? I am living the remaining years of my life away from this place, from the constant reminder of my difficult past, continuing life as it should be and I thought I did. But coming back here brings back the nostalgia I buried into the depths of the abyss nineteen years ago.
In this remote town of Concepcion, I spent the first nine years of my life with illegitimacy and poverty tagging along. Most of my childhood memories were spent here at the old breakwater; it was new then, playing mostly with grandma and staring at the sunset with my mom. I never experienced the love of a father; he was never introduced to me. That's why I came to love the place, every time I was here I felt safe. I was contented with my life then, too innocent of the changes that are happening around me. Until one afternoon, I never knew that the usual watching of sunset with Mom on the infamous breakwater will be my last day with her. I scraped my knee at that time too and was crying so hard. I was too naïve to read between the lines of her actions and soothing words.
"Look at the sun," she said while wiping off my tears with her thumbs, "it's setting but will always rise at the morning. It has been doing the same cycle for a very long time now, giving heat, light and hope to everything and everyone. It is a constant thing to earth honey," I calmed down then, not minding the pain from my knee anymore, "and this breakwater," she added, "will be the constant protection of the harbor of our town against waves, just like my love for you―always constant, always protects, remember that..."
She said she'd be gone for a few days only. I waited and waited but she never came back. I loathed her since then. And the only remaining constant in my life, my Grandmother, was gone too after seven years bidding her goodbye to me at the same time and place before joining the Creator in heaven. She told me to love the place despite of the wistful memories it brings to me, to let go of the hatred, but I did the otherwise. I came to realize that I was fooled, that in reality there was never a constant thing in this world, everything changes. Even this excellently built breakwater will someday collapse, will crush into tiny bits of sediments recognizable no more as it becomes a part of the ocean; the sun will eventually ran out of gases it needs to burn to keep its fire, giving cold instead of heat and darkness instead of light, no more rising and setting; and earth will come to a stop. I felt numb, like a walking zombie, her passing took away my sense of living. I couldn't take it anymore, I needed to move on so I ran away, forgetting everything along the way and started anew.
A giggle wakes me up from my trance. The woman swings the little girl which I believe is her daughter, into her arms and settling her on her hips; she kisses her cheek making the little one giggles more and saunters away. I follow them with my gaze, blinking away the incoming tears on the process. I look around and I'm all alone once again at the same place and at almost the same time, a déjà vu of nineteen years ago. It was here where I scattered Grandma's ashes and bid my goodbye for this town, promising more to myself than the place to come back only when I am fixed. I continue my walk until I reach the end of the structure. The color of the clouds from former white has now turned into deep indigo, and streaks of orange scatters all over the sky, illuminating the surrounding. Meanwhile, the wall of hatred I built to protect my heart came crushing down. Memories came like a flash flood. I feel so hurt, betrayed, and abandoned once again. I guess there really are memories no matter how hard you try to forget will keep coming back, making you feel the pain and melancholy all over again. I once wished to wake up with amnesia, completely oblivious to who I am and my reminiscence just to take the pain away.
Why? Why me? What wrong did I do to deserve all of this pain?
Hot liquid flows down my cheeks while gawking at the scenery beyond me. I clutch my fist to my chest.
I came back here to prove to myself that I succeeded, that I've moved on!
But now, the irony isn't lost on me. I scream into the void while pounding my right fist to my chest. I look up to see darkness slowly embraces the earth while the sun descends at the horizon, it bursts into multiple colors and the sky has turned into a deep shade of pink. It's a breathtaking phenomenon, yet I don't find myself loving it like I used to.
Realization knocks outside my mind; it has been knocking since time immemorial but I keep ignoring it, keep running away. I didn't have the strength to let it in before, but now it knocks once again but this time, I open my mind and it comes in like a light bulb― I am happy with my life but it's a charade all along, fooling everybody and myself with my bravado that I am okay, that I've been living a blissful life. I was wrong, colossally wrong. To be happy is to move on, and in moving on comes forgetting then healing but I cannot truly forget for memories and pain will keep hunting me because I never learned to forgive. The whole process of moving on does not rely only on forgetting, it also needs forgiving, in which I have been depriving myself from the last nineteen years of my life. I wasn't able to forgive my father for not acknowledging me and my mother for abandoning me, and I blamed the world for the death of my grandmother. I failed to let go of the hatred towards Mom, to my unknown father, and to the inequality of the world, instead I accumulated them all as a barrier against everything that is capable of hurting me. Why I never realize it until now is... I don't know. It's like fate allowed me to venture the world beyond this town, to try to fix my broken self and grow into maturity in a new environment with new people before bringing me back here, at this forsaken place.
It is dark now and the moon lights up above me, making a reflection in the water. I let myself feel the touch of cold wind against my skin; the breeze blows my hair to the other side and I inhale the salty smell of the sea while listening to the sound of the waves. My tears are now dry. I never knew that coming back here would bring out hidden emotions in me. I turn my back against the horizon and slowly walk away, tracing the illuminated path by the lamp posts on either sides of the breakwater.
I know that the sun will always be there, that the idea of it rising and setting was only invented by humans because we, most of the time, tend to forget that the earth is rotating; that breakwaters were only built to protect harbors or beaches from mild waves and not really from the storms or tsunamis that may come; that somehow I know deep within my heart, I still believe that there is no constant thing in this world but love, the only thing that the people I value so much left to me after they're gone.
Someday, I know that I will be completely happy―the state where I will be able to live my life without being chase by neither my past nor solitude as a company at night and no more wearing of fake smiling masks around everyone every day, in short no more charade, just the genuinely happy me; until then, I need to learn to really move on, to forgive so that I would be able to heal the scars caused by my past. And to completely fix what's broken inside of me. With that resolve, I turn my head back just in time to see the last arc of the sun sink into the horizon.
―Cherry Maghanoy, 25.12.14
