Limbo

One of the best things about New York is Broadway. Knowing that my time in this city is limited, I have committed myself to watching as many as I can. So far, I've been lucky enough to see Lion King, the Book of Mormon and Once. Oh, and then, there is Wicked, which i have seen thrice. Yup, three times. If you're a hard core broadway fan, or if you have acces to this thing called google, then you'd know that Wicked is one of the best shows that this city has to offer. This isn't a review of that show, but it must be said: Wicked  is wickedly good - from music to spectacle, it's up there.

But there's another reason why I keep coming back to it, why I love it enough to watch it three times instead of spending a night watching another show. Escape. I want to escape. And maybe, even fly.

The truth is, I'm in limbo. I feel like Austin Powers when he lost his mojo. I don't like saying this because nobody likes exposing their wounds to anybody else. What sane person would be fond of looking at festering wounds, especially if it's somebody else's? But there you are. My wounds. Already, I could hear the flies buzzing around it.

I know that i'm not the most detail oriented person and I don't like planning my day-to-day activities. I can hardly say yes or no to any event that's yet to happen two weeks from today. But when it comes to the big things, to the picture I thought I had it figured out. I won't go into details because I don't like ruining peoples' days with my emoness. Let's just say that something bad happened and my plans fell through. And now I'm in limbo.

It's been more than 6 month and I'm all better now. I'm no longer sad about it, in fact. But now, I'm just lost. The terrible thing with getting lost is the feeling of helplessness. I'm not sure if you've experienced being lost, but I have. I was 7 or 8 and was a boy from the province. Once a year we would go to Manila, the big city of my home country, to buy back-to-school things such as back-packs and notebooks. On such a day in the 90's I strayed away from my mother and found myself in the women's shoe department. I looked around for a while and realized that I had no idea where I was or where my mother was.  I was surrounded by ugly shoes and a whole lot of strangers. I ran around for a bit in the hopes of bumping into the familiar figure of my mother. But finally, tired and afraid, I sat on the floor and cried. I have very few memories of my childhood and this one stuck. And it wasn't just the memory that remained, but the feeling of being truly lost, so lost that you are unable to do anything but sit down on the floor and cry.

And this is exactly how I feel right now. Like a little boy, helpless and unsure of ever being found again. I have never been this uncertain in my life and it is frightening. For all my claims of being spontaneous and I have actually treasured the feeling of being certain of what's to come after the next step. I have never resigned from a job without another one waiting for me. 

Sure, I'm not really jobless. I do have a part time work and internship. But the only certain thing in my life right now is the knowledge that this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. People tell me to be patient, that everything will fall into place. But what if it doesn't? Friends tell me to just wait and the right job will come along. But what if it never does? And so my days are filled with a black hole of uncertainty such as I've never known before.

Thus I watch Wicked. To escape, yes. But also, to remind myself that the impossible may not be that impossible after all. That happiness comes in different forms, and maybe in one that you least expect it to.

Truly, it's not so bad. This city is comforting enough. But it's the people, the ones that wait with you for the next big thing to come, those that keep believing for you when you've lost all faith, those that stand by you when you are unable to fly - it's these people who keep you both grounded and flying.