Reminiscing Past Memories

I actually don’t know what got into my head this evening, but after my mom’s friend saw my baby pictures, I went to my room and opened my “memory box”. It’s actually a white shoe box which contains memorable stuff, mostly letters from my father, friends, and teachers. It also contains old pictures, stuff which has sentimental value, and…secret unsent letters to my past crushes! :D

Most of my letters came from my friends and teachers when we had our reflection activity back then. We call the letters palancas. Yeah, I have kept ALL, if not most, of the letters people gave me way back elementary to high school.

I cannot help but smile while reading the letters. It brings back memories. While there are happy ones, most of my palancas reminded me of the pain that I went through during my elementary and high school days. Those days of being bullied or dislike by a lot of people who can’t understand my innate weirdness. Yes, I do admit that it had been painful. I had difficulty in fitting in and socializing, and some people did not even manage to help me get through it and were not willing to help me fit in. It was really difficult. I remembered one of my high school classmates telling me that they really thought that I would not make it through my high school after my sophomore year because of all the bullying and backbiting that I received, all of those just because of my weirdness. But she also said that they were all amazed on how strong I am, having continued on my way. That reminded me of a lot of things.

I am actually proud of myself for staying strong during that period in time when a lot of people turned their backs at me.  That reminded me to be stronger in the future challenges that I will be facing. Being an engineering student, there would be indeed a lot of hurdles that I would be facing.

Most of my friends tell me in their letters that they are sorry for judging me and for bullying me when I treated them as their friend. I am actually aware of the bullying thingy, and I had tried my best to fit in the group. I had quite a hard time during high school, but I am thankful that starting, perhaps, my junior year, I’ve gained a lot of friends and I also had my own circle. I am really thankful of them. And FYI, they were the ones who introduced me to the world of K-Pop, which I am now a really big fan.

Truth be told, I am quite concerned of the “new improved self” that I could show during our high school alumni homecoming this coming December 28^th. If I’m going to evaluate myself, I could say that I have “changed”. Well, not really changed, but there are a lot of aspects in myself now that I feel good about. Thanks to my college friends, I’m more confident, sociable, talkative, and (should I say) loud compared to myself during my high school days, the exact opposite. I’m a lot better now, and I’m afraid that my batch mates will get surprised and maybe annoyed because of that. But nothing’s stopping me in showing my new self. I just hope and pray that I would not get anyone offended because of that.

I think what’s important is that I've changed for the better.

I have forgiven them. It all happened in the past, and perhaps I’ll just consider them as memories. That would be for the best.

So, AWESOMES, see you on the 28^th!