One of the many things I have learned all throughout my 23 years of existence is this: the world may be unfair but making the journey worthwhile is up to us.

There came a point in my life when I almost gave up due to the disappointment of finding out about the harshness of reality. I still distinctly remember looking outside my high school classrom, at the field outside, and wondering about what the "real" world offered. You see, before college, my entire being was sheltered, uncorrupted, naive, and ignorant about the world outside the fences of MC, as well as beyond the walls of my home. Where I grew up, everything was peaceful, tranquil, filled with good memories, and wrapped in honesty. I was anxious at what the future held for me then, so innocent in believing that my values were enough so as for me not to be influenced by what I was taught to be immoral and superficial. I kept on convincing myself that my will was stronger than any other worldly artificiality, and that I could survive amidst all the chaos and deception.

However, in all honesty, I admit that the moment came when I just lost it. Every principle instilled, each wise adage told, adn all warnings were for quite sometime forgotten. I opened my door and welcomed all sorts of forces which slowly pulled me towards disillusion. I became jaded and corrupted, up to the point of becoming someone I wasn't. It took me 4 years to experience everything to make me open up my eyes to the entire truth...about life.

There are still some things that I don't understand. Sometimes I still get exhausted from thinking too much, in trying to conjure up explanations for things that have no rationalizations at all. Things are never what they seem... and life is just as it is, the way it has been, and the way it should be.

I am now thankful for the failures. No longer regretting the mistakes I have made...have learned how to forgive, and have freed myself from all the pain.

So, does that make me a better person?

Perhaps.

But you know what's more significant?

It is having found myself...and the comfort in knowing that somehow, in some way, my true self will keep on finding itself even when it may lose its way.

There is a history lying underneath the sheets, not that of bare vulgarity, but that of sweet and tempted innocence: an innocence bestowed upon our then cherubed souls, but we allowed to drift away, only to be sought again.

This story is a story of truthful contentment and of simple happiness, free from all the complexities of paradoxical definition.

This story is not at all mine, but ours.

Remember how our mother used to tuck us into bed when we were little? Maybe some of us have forgotten, as our memories have been clouded with recollections of being misunderstood and misguided, or because we may have been just toddlers then, still unable to store those deeds in retrospect, yet I still do believe that our mothers have done this for us.

And then remember when we wished we were old enough to do the things we wanted to do, without anybody telling us not to? That was the time when our mothers have stopped tucking us into bed, and I fear that this wish has come to materialize. We have come to the point of believing that we can be independent, that our actions need no guidance, and that we can stand on our own.

However, the reality exists that we cannot survive on our own, and we can only but surmise that we do not need anybody, because the fact remains that we wish somehow somebody would tuck us into bed once more, to somewhat cast away all the fears and comfort us in times of confusion, or that we could wake up at the sight of our loved one's face and feel that we are truly loved back.

Life used to nestle us in pure innocence until we allowed to lose our grip on it, out of haste to immerse ourselves in living life those ahead of us have. The consequence of aging and the burden of becoming an individual all our own has dawned upon us, leaving us more lost than we once thought we were, as the search in finding the person that we used to be has become a tiresome voyage, sometimes even hopeless.

Throughout the years, our beds have cradled us, without judgment nor blinded prejudice. Since childhood, our pillows have absorbed our dreams and swallowed our nightmares. What have become of us now? If only our beds and sheets could speak, these perhaps know us much more than we know ourselves: our deepest secrets, our most hidden fears, our innermost sufferings.

And yet, as we grow old, we lose respect for ourselves, albeit the continuous desire of becoming the person we always wanted to be. Our pillows still catch our dreams and nightmares, along with the tears that trickle down our cheeks, but we do not gather enough courage to become like a child anymore. We seem to have no intentions of bringing back the innocence underneath the sheets, because perhaps we are contented to feel the warmth, to get us through one cold night. Is there no more sense in at least trying to rekindle the light of innocence? Is there no point in bringing back that childish enthusiasm that once pervaded our being?

There is a shallow understanding of life, a comprehension limited by truths that have been passed on for generation, yet what kind of life would we have if living was based on mere knowledge and not out of our own experience? Life cannot be dictated by fate, much more by other mortals.

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I want to live life as if I were still unjaded and uncorrupted by such a venomous decade. I want to wake up as if each day were new...And so when the angel of death comes for me, as I lie underneath the sheets, I want it to bear witness to the life that I lived, to this conquest in finding back that innocence...to this history... and in knowing that I tried to live and die the good fight.

I am 23 years old, yet I feel this is my beginning, only a beginning, to prepare for an ending to my side of the story.

My Life.