While the world waits for me.

Lately, writing has become an exercise in escape. Any place becomes somewhere with my black Moleskine notebook and a random pen fished out from my bag.

Censorship is limited to syntax while your own thoughts are free to wander. There are no dead ends here, except for the occasional writer’s block – something that coffee and smokes wouldn’t cure. (Alternately, wine in the evenings can be quite stimulating, especially when you’re in the confines of your room.)

The world, I sense, feels a bit betrayed. In my youth I dreamt about an exploration in time and space, consuming and being consumed by what it has to offer. Now it just waits for me longingly, impatient yet hopeful. That’s all it could do.

Eight years in cryogenic limbo. That’s what it is. Your life on pause.

In three months I anticipate liberation; and with it comes a lot of difficulty. I’ll have to be many things at once: a capitalist soothsayer, underpaid scribe, caffeine pimp, and academic whore. Kayod kalabaw never had so much meaning, until now.

It will be all worth it. I know that for sure. I’ll never have to be answerable to anyone except myself. Independence is not relegated to “doing what you want, because you want to.” So selfish and media-created. I’ll finally get to live my life as it should be lived. Responsibly. No waste-away Saturday nights, just quiet solitude and massages at Sonya’s Garden. Or jazz nights with my adopted little sister and that new guy she’s seeing. Or breakfast brunches with the soul mate. Or tripping out with my camera in Batanes (and mounting that second exhibit).

Or…

For now, I write.