I always wanted to leave,
live a different life;
be a not so different person,
just an ordinary person.
But that what is written
on me is with my own hands.

How many times did I think this way? Several times. Too many times. Not that I regretted what I did or who I've become, but there were occasions I just wanted things to be different. But they couldn't be without the "givens". You know, like it's a given that I'm female, that I was born into a well-to-do family, that I am my parents' eldest child and only daughter. Stuff like that.

These musings of mine may be called fantasies of some sort. Like how I often daydreamed most of my adolescence of becoming a criminal lawyer by day, a stage actress at night, a novelist on the side; living a fast, highly sociable, independent life. A life alone, with no one allowed to get close enough to hurt me. A life with everything under my control.

Reality was far from that. I decided on my third year in college to not anymore take law because the Philippine legal system sucks and trying to understand and memorize all those acts, executive orders, and codes were just too much for me. I loved the stage and for five whole years of my life everything I did was centered on that. But Philippine theater is highly competitive and only once in a generation is a star born, and for my batch at Repertory Philippines it was my childhood friend, Monique Wilson. As for being a novelist, I have become professionally a writer; a novelist, no. I tried writing a novel and was promised to be paid and published if I followed the guidelines: feminist character/s (pretty easy for a feminist like myself), original plot (tougher, but I thought I could swing it), written in Filipino (which was at that time a language I wrote well in), and filled with romance (something I just couldn't really do). I finished four chapters within two weeks and took a three-year break. I'm now on my fourth.

For a while I did live a very fast life, particularly when I was still based in Manila, running from one meeting to another and working late in the office in the hope of getting ahead for the next day but never really getting to. At the capital region you just couldn't help living on the fast lane, because you'd get caught in the traffic otherwise. And yes, for some time my life was highly sociable: attending two to three press conferences in a day, weekly parties, luncheon gatherings with friends, weekend dates, and out-of-town/out-of-the-country appointments. Most of the independence was there for my taking, except that my dad still gave me a daily allowance higher (or almost higher) than my salary, and I freaked out when I couldn't take the car for some reason or another and it meant having to survive getting around in a cab that recklessly sped on the highway and narrow streets by its irresponsible driver.

Years passed and I wanted to become a publisher. To own my own business and publish my own magazines, instead of slaving myself as an editor (who does everything else from writing to editing to managing to laying out to post-production quality control) to help make someone else richer. So I did that. It wasn't easy. Not especially when all the capital only came from one source -- me. So when the Associated Media Workers Service Cooperative came along, I decided to focus my energies on the co-op and The Independent Post. But that's another story...

A little before that, though, I started making drastic changes. I turned non-alcoholic, got myself out of a self-defeating relationship, and quit smoking. Friends said I evolved into some strange creature. My parents thought it was a miracle. This guy whom I was going out with then saw a wonderful person whom he consequently fell in love with. And my life changed all over again.

I've changed from wanting to gracefully age into a bachelorette into this joyfully married person, living what my barkada calls a "wholesome" lifestyle with hubby dear. Career-wise my ambitions have changed from self-centered ones to collective-driven. And I'm truly happy and I see the coming new millennium bringing more positive changes, successes, and joys for my family and friends.