RE: Live

I: Misery

My name is Andrei Manalo, I'm a 30 yr/old Architect in a Small-time Firm called "Dream Designers" with a douche-bag boss named Tommy Lopez. I haven't done much in my life, me getting into this firm might've been just sheer luck since they only have a few employees. The pay-check isn't that much for an Architect but it's enough to get by. I don't do much on the planning side since I wasn't that good way back in architecture school, I got low grades and had trouble keeping up. I barely passed the board exams in which results to a job as a drafter in this firm. My boss would often scold me because I lack inspiration on the drafts that I make. My boss would say:

Tommy: "This is outrageous!! These are simple drafts and you can't even do it right!!"

He'd always question my skills by pointing out how I was always flunking my subject in college, since he was one of my classmates in one of the drafting classes I attended. But there's always someone there to comfort me when the boss is like that. Her name was Samantha, she was my office mate next to my desk. She would often say

Samantha: "It's going to be alright. Just look at the bright side and make your best out of things."

She would sometimes cover for my shift every time I get sick and would help me out on my drafts whenever I encounter problems.

I was never acknowledged when I was young, since I did nothing but disappoint everybody that had high expectations on me, especially my family. I've been living alone in a Small Apartment ever since they've turned their backs on me. I haven't been in touch with them since then. Talking to me would just be embarrassing for them, having a son as a failure.

Through all those hard times in my life, I had a few friends who were by my side even though I was nothing compared to them. Well, best friends rather than just my friends. Joshua who's an Animator, Kris who works as a Mechanical Engineer in a big-time company, John who has his own Grocery, and Patrick who makes tons of money out of E-sports. They've been beside me way back when we were kids, since our dads were practically working together. They were the family I had, they're already big time in their Careers, but they will still be there even if I've already messed up most of the things in my life. I'm still trying to get back up on the right track and they are always there to support me in my decisions, no matter what it ends up in.

We have this kind of thing once a week where they would visit my apartment and bring some snacks and alcoholic beverages to bond since we rarely see each other weekly, as we drink we start blabbing about our work problems, sometimes thoughts on how the government is functioning, how our lives have been, memories of when we were kids, and also our Married lives (although I'm the only one who isn't married at this point). This has been kind of a long tradition already since we do this kind of stuff back in High School. Some nights we fight since we trigger each other on what we were talking about, but most of it is politics and we all knew we all had different beliefs on it. But all is well, as we finish we part ways and get on ahead with our daily lives. One time we were all having the nights of our lives, reminiscing our times as youngsters, then as we were all laughing about things we have done before there was a moment of Silence and all of us looked at each other and smiled. Joshua broke the silence saying in a calm mannered voice:

Joshua: "You know, I never thought we were going to make it this far in life. Like, look at us now, grown-ups already. Who would've thought that problem children like us would end up being like this."

All of them smiled, while I was hiding my pain because I know for myself that I haven't achieved much in life yet. Then I muttered a joke: