Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Thank You, Law School Crush

My giddiness and utter surprise in passing the Bar has subsided. I guess now is the best time to write about one of my personal MVPs during the Bar Examinations and, most especially, during the dreaded waiting period.

The pressure of the Bar Examsbefore, during and aftercan make underbars do crazy thingsthings one, based on his/her characteristics, would not do on usual days.

I have too many questions, and places to go

To say that the Bar Exams drove me crazy is an understatement. It was an important part of my Timeline, my Happines Roadmap. Not passing it would have dire consequencesone of which is going through Bar review again, which is, quite frankly, something I think I would not have the patience or diligence for.

There are too many options, far too many unknowns

In those crazy times, I did the unexpected: I obsessed over a simple law school crush. I spoke gushed about it to close friends. I tweeted about it as often (albeit mysteriously) as I could. It was a source of amusement, not only for my tired, panicking soul but also to my friends who knew me as a private, introverted person.

You make my crazy feel normal, every time

Although I decided not to have any distractions from review (except for Gilas Pilipinas or Rain or Shine games I incorporated into my schedule), I was happy to have a source of . . . kilig (indirect English translation: fluff haha). 

You make the bottom less deep

Unbeknownst to you, that short good luck text you sent on the first weekend of the Exams (after I tweeted that I wanted a good luck text; it remains a mystery to me if you read that tweet or it was just a happy coincidence) and that short hug we shared on the last Sunday calmed my then-weary, worried soul. For some, words and a hug sound lame (because hello it's 2016) but to me these acts meant the world. The hope it sparked and kept aflame was enough for me to power through the difficulties and look beyond Novembar.

You make my weakness less weak

After the Bar Exams, with nothing to do but wait, I bought you a gift—a simple thank-you gift of sorts. But I chickened out at the last minute because I had no proper (read: logical) reason to give you a gift and decided to keep it for myself. But the Universe conspired with the gods and gave me a reason to send it to you, sort of as a hand-me-down item, which perfectly downplayed the whole I-bought-you-a-gift-because-I-liked-you thing. It was perfect. You were happy to get something second-hand, not knowing I bought it for you, all along. I was happy that you were happy. That gift was followed by another.

You make it easy to try

At this point one of my closest friends cautioned me to think twice about the effort I was putting in this, and the effort that you weren't. My friend didn't know that I wasn't expecting you to make any effort as I treated the whole thing (me giving you gifts) as a way for me to be in control of something in my life—because the Bar results were clearly out of my hands by then.

You make the darkness less dark

Me obsessing over you—liking almost all your photos, checking all the albums you posted on Facebook, engaging you in virtual conversations, wanting to know how your day went (even if it often appeared that you were too busy to reply to Facebook private messages) provided me with the necessary distraction from the four months of waiting. 

You make the waiting feel shorter

Now, that the results are out, with nothing to be distracted from, I find myself wondering about the future of this so-called obsession. Is this the end of a somewhat lucky admiration? Or the beginning of more complicated things to come? You, master of subtlety and mystery, give me little to no clue.

Regardless of where we will (or won't) go from here, I want to say thank you, even indirectly (on the off-chance you'll read this and know that it is you I am writing about), for keeping my heart busy when my mind was going crazy. Thank you for making my heart skip a few beats just enough for it not to be overwhelmed by the Bar-induced anxiety.

You are the who . . . this is the why



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Italicized lines are from the song This is Why I Need You by Jesse Ruben.


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