27/07/2025
#𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐌𝐁𝐀𝐘 '𝟐𝟓 | 𝐈 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐈 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓
I really liked the topics given to us by a teacher before, asking us what we want to be in the future. "What would I really like to be in 5 or 10 years?" "What would I like to be when I grow up?" I have so many things to say, dreams I had want to reach. Those essays I had passed about that? I knew I aced that.
Well, not until I went to college.
When I stepped foot on that spacious green land, walked on that scorching hot of an aisle, trembled on a first meeting introduction, clutched requirements on a deadline: I realized how college was truly a scary moment. Literally experienced running on caffeine, deadlines, and a rapidly shrinking attention span and an anxiety too stubborn to let go. In college, I was humbled.
And for the first time, I can't think of the me growing up achieving the dreams I wanted. Unsure of what I would like to be in 5 to 10 years. And if someone asks me those questions at that time, I wouldn't answer them because I know that I'm also gonna be clueless on this thing as they are. I'm as blank as the paper of essay I had passed.
And with that, existential crisis began.
Unsure, unplanned, indecisive. Full of self-doubt, hesitation and vulnerability. I just thought that, maybe I just do not belong in the future I wished. Oh, how I tried to run away.
But with uncertainty comes with growth. I wouldn't have gone far without my support system. College was scary, but I survived. I did it scared, I did it doubtful and I did it with content. I did it—and I'll never forget how far I've come.
Though I figured that time wasn't as controlling as it had been in highschool, but it sure was short. Now that we're holding a cap we fought so hard to have, wearing a gown flaunting to everyone—or mostly to ourselves that, "We did it", my mind is slowly letting the truth sink in that "I did it". And what do you mean all this experience and emotions I had will end on a random Wednesday?
Well, I'm sure I'd go back to that insecure me as I take another walk on the adultish road. And I will still be scared about the future after graduation.
But no matter what, I will continue chasing buses just to go to my destination, I will breathe the polluted air in that dream city, and just as what I always silently hope...
I will exist in the future I was worried about.
And I'm gonna hold your hand while I say this.
YOU will also exist in the future you were worried about.
Written by Joycee Angelique Soriano
Shots by TFP Photojournalist
Designed by Cherille Mae Closa
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