Memoirs of a Lost Childhood Love…

03:25am
10/23/07

Everybody has this one special person at one point in our life. Be it early on or in later years of our life. This is however, different from the special part that a true love occupies. I have this encounter…silly and childish memory from way back then…
I remembered this boy from my past when out of the blue I dreamed of him one rainy Thursday morning, this October. It dawned on me that I still hadn’t completely forgotten him, that he isn’t yet erased on my system. That the thought of him and everything about him had just been dormant for so long, laid there idle waiting to be stirred up. And I’m not quite sure what really stirred my brain up for it to resurface again…I hadn’t think of him for God knows how long (about 12 years)…And I remember him…
I remembered him, too well. How could one forget the popular person, he guy who’s most eligible and famous in our school way back then? How could one forget the most handsome boy in our school? Girls swoon by him every now and then. One of the most dashing in high school, a real cutie…How could one not notice the mayor’s son? He’s too cute, too neat and too smart to ignore. On the contrary, he’s also the most annoying person I’ve ever met. He’s got this weird habit of ticking me off. At one point, it occurs to me that he might not really be happy if he hadn’t had the chance to irritate me in a day. He’s way too ‘makulit’ at times and he’s sort of ‘suplado pa’. He’s also a rich kid and it’s a plain guess for me that it had to be the reason why he at times, ticks others off or was it just me? I’m just a plain, timid and ordinary nobody in school who seldom topped or excelled in the class.
Maybe he still knew me. Somewhere in my vague memory, he used to be my ‘ka-pair’ or was it just a member in a native dance ‘Kalapati’. A folkdance taught to us by Madam Caring in kindergarten. And he had been my lil secret crush since then. ‘Hala’, too young to adore. I could recall in Grade 1, Madam Paz Pajarillo would scold him and Raymund because they wouldn’t attend classes just to play ‘sipa’ at the back of our classroom with lots of ‘lastiko’ whom she warned to broil and let them eat…Hehehe. I used to sit beside him at one point in the second row (row 2…grade 1 blues) and he kept on annoying me until the next grading period where I’m grateful to be transferred in row 1 and he’s not my seatmate anymore. In the second grade, I don’t remember much of him except on the time when he laughed at me and teased me because I made ‘kalabasa’ dancing Oh La La onstage during one program. And, grrrr…I hate him then.
In Grade 3, I used to enjoy attending the nightly ‘Aurora’ on the next street, the San Roque Street. The assembly point was the chapel in front of their house and my classmate-friend’s aunt’s house. That’s Ayla Guinto, whom I fondly call ‘Lingkay’ my front door neighbor and ‘kababata’ which was also his distant cousin. We would go there right after supper just for the fun of it and for the foods right after (you know, the jacobina, kutipyo, kwati and boto ni Matong’). Then I would strain my neck long enough and stretch my legs craning just so I would see if he had ever gone out of their house to their gate to watch the ‘Aurora’. He then, would mock me the following morning in school for attending it. He would also tease another lowly classmate (just like me), Nimfa Legazpi for always wearing one and the same printed polo button-down several times a week, while she was cleaning our classroom CR.
In Grade 4, he had been my classmate and to no avail, again my seatmate on Madam Balon’s Math class. He would poke a pencil on my ear, annoy me by calling me names like ‘small friend’ or ‘little girl’ or ‘small frog’ just because I’m the smallest kid in our class. He used to say ‘ayayating’ to me, during lessons just so I would be annoyed to near tears already. I don’t even know whatever that means. Sometimes, his younger sister would tease him whenever they pass in front of our house on their way to the church by saying ‘sus, sinusundan mo lang yung legs ni small friend’…and what does that suppose to mean? I don’t wanna assume the impossible. His sister, I like her because she’s better than him and quite nicer than him. I got to know her in YFC gathering.
In Grade 5, lots of girls in our class and on other sections have a crush on him. I estimated maybe about 70% of the girls swoon on him and I didn’t even tried showing admirations because I’m one of them…since kindergarten. My ‘tropa’ knows about this. I’m quite shy about this, though since I’m not the ‘sikat’ one in school. Until Grade six, he’s still the inspiration I had and I’m grateful that he doesn’t even know about it. He’s fine to me until high school, when I discovered that I could be attracted to other guys, too. Just like Jaiv, Mb, Rj, Bo, Rc, Rp, Dp and Sm. A commonly simple and childish admiration for girl of our age. But he’s still there, within me. A part of me still wished for him to accept me for who I am. Hope for him to be close to me and be my friend. I still blush whenever he stood beside me, whenever he would casually speak to me. It’s so weird, but that’s how his impact on me was.
We graduated in high school and then I went to Bicol University to study political science…and him, I heard he went to MAPUA and now became a Civil Engineer as my source told to me. The last time I saw him was in 2nd year college, semestral vacation. We’re at the public cemetery, November 1 and we’re a group of classmates reunited again and having fun chatting away and filling the years that’s lost. I remembered how good he looked with his trademark ‘japorms’ – plain white Hanes shirt, light blue Levis 501 and his midnight blue Swatch topsider. My, he’s a cross between Richard Gomez and the now current (2007) model of Avon – Spirit Aqua perfume. A girl could really melt.
This made me rethink why I have never heard of him having or known anyone being his lucky girlfriend… We’ll except that he once dated Liza Labrador and also had been rumored to have a crush yata on Rosalia Rosalinas. Both girls are very attractive and cool in school. Other than that, nada. He’s too choosy. The last time I talked to him was in 2003. I’m dialing somebody’s # and I got him instead, due to misdialing. We then had quite some talk but I have never admitted what I had felt for him before and how I think of him except for the fact that he had been my crush in kindergarten. He even doubted me that I had intentionally dialed his number, he’s annoying me again just like before and the talk stretched more than an hour.
At one point in my life, I still have hopes to see him and talk to him in person whenever I had my chance in every vacation I take (which is very few) in Vinzons. Maybe because of curiosity, I wonder if he ever had a girlfriend or if he was ever married, or maybe to really confirm and sort myself out because of my confused feelings due to the resurfacing of his existence inside my mind, which I don’t even know why. Or maybe to have a closure on this saga that I consider as one of my dilemmas right now.
I may have a turbulent rollercoaster relationship right now, with the father of my three lil girls but…I don’t know why he’s continuously resurfacing in my mind from time to time when he means nothing to me anymore and the truth is I do love my live-in partner for 8 years, he’s the father of my children I love him so much, much more than I love myself. What about this person from the past? There’s a part of me who secretly hoped that he’s still eligible. Remembering him is a bittersweet memory unfolding. He had been my lost childhood love… I don’t know about him. I wouldn’t say a name but I wish he would read this, he’ll know it if he do…and one more thing, I guess he’ll know who I am, too.