Milieu Euphony (In Act Series #2)

Phase 26

PHASE TWENTY-SIX

THE COUNTERFEIT SCULPTOR

I felt like I received banishment from a place that I hadn't been to.

It wasn't the best feeling that I could ever have because the hollowness at the pit of my heart was too painful to bear.

Why would I have to feel this if I wasn't a part of it, anyway? There was no probable cause for this to happen, or maybe this was also one of my instances where I deceive myself to protect myself.

But was that possible—you hurt yourself to protect yourself?

I think it sounded ridiculous. It sure was, and it was painful. However, it's happening, so I was living proof of it. And no matter how I tuck it deep in my bag so I could forget it, just like my hopes, it kept resurfacing at the top.

So, I went on and tried to live with it, just like how I used to.

A few weeks had elapsed, and Michelangelo and I grew even more distant. Giuseppe was hesitant to ask about what happened, so he didn't do anything. He didn't comment about Michelangelo's seat that used to be beside me was now far from me.

It doesn't matter to me, anyway. Because, to begin with, I was aware that this type of thing won't last.

I won't last, so this was just an early farewell. I expected that I won't be hurt a lot, but my expectations won't always be met.

That's why I buried it, so I won't be reminded of it.

Masyadong marami na akong bitbit kaya kailangan kong maging mapili sa dadalhin.

I also try to go home at least once a month. Kumukuha ako ng permit sa school para ro'n pero kalimitan ay hindi ako umuuwi dahil nakukulong kapag nananatili ro'n.

They were all about the bragging rights of their children, and it was all too suffocating that's why I opt on staying away. It was the decision that I had been making ever since.

I was reminded of my feeling when I was with him—it was all too foreign.

He was guiding me, and he was giving directions, but instead of being directed, I felt the opposite. I felt confused, and I believed that it grew when he asked me who was I asking to come home?

Or maybe I was the one who misled myself by declaring that I'm asking Lael to come home? That he was correct with what he said—that I was the one who tormented myself and put myself in a path that I knew I couldn't get out of.

I was unsure—and it irked me, but should it? This was journeying, and journeying was all about uncertainty because the end of it wasn't promised.

Because as you walk, you'll always be in the middle—in the middle of walking, in the middle of stopping, in the middle of trying, and in the middle of continuing. Since you're in the middle of a process, confusion and forgetting on keeping track of was given.

Comfort ourselves with the idea that this confusion was normal—from what had Tres Lagdameo had led me to believe—and that there was nothing wrong in being lost. It just happened that your status of being 'lost' was early than others, as a phase in everyone's life.

But along the way, I knew that I had forgotten what I was doing—I had forgotten who I was. It all felt foreign—which shouldn't scare me because I had been used to it. I had been spending the rest of my years immersing myself in disciplines that I was unfamiliar with, of course, it should've lessened my fear about it.