Where am I going?

[Jun Abines]

I just turned 36 last week and I feel it was just another ordinary day in my life. As usual, I spent some amount to treat my office mates their yearly anticipated “all shrimp” lunch in our office. For the last 3 years, it’s been my way of treating them on my birthday which makes my office mates feels like children treated to eat all candies and chocolates they love. At home, my mother and sister bought a small cake for my birthday which my two daughters 3 and 6 are asking every time someone celebrates birthday. Other than that, my 36th birthday did not mean anything to me except getting a year older and closer to death.

I don’t know what’s going on with me. I am not sad yet I am not happy. I feel that my only purpose of existence is to raise my children and provide their needs together with my wife. I also lost the craving of drinking something or going out somewhere with friends. Alcohol does not appeal to me any more like I used to and I am getting conscious of what I intake these days. I am now more contented playing computer games in those internet Cafes that offers wide screen and fast CPUs at P12.00 an hour.

Am I on a mid life crisis? I don’t know what it means. But I feel I needed to do something new, something adventurous and something extra-ordinary. I feel like I am the 16 year old me who wants to go out there and prove something to the world. With 4 years to go, I will be 40 and I don’t know if I should feel happy because I am about to reach that age “where life begins” or should I feel sad that I am now “old” as far as the children and teenagers are concern. One thing is for sure, I still feel the young boy that I was 20 years ago.

As I look back where I came from, I have every reason to be happy. We were once homeless in that remote province of Surigao del sur but now we have our own little house for my parents, my sister and my own here in Cebu. We were once starving as young kids and my father was jobless but now I have a job that can assure me and family to eat at least 3 times a day. I don’t know if this is normal, but I guess I crave for the challenges and the pressures that I been used to when I was growing up.

They said that life is not worth living if you have nothing worth dying for. As of this time, all I know is that I love my family and my little children and I will do anything to protect them even to the point of death. Other than that, all other endeavors are merely duties and responsibilities as far I am concern.

I don’t know where I am heading to. All I know I’ll be contented to be just a Nobody while I watch my kids grow healthy and happy. Life is truly full of surprises. I never thought I would settle my boyhood dream of becoming Somebody in exchange of just becoming an “ordinary father” in one “ordinary family”. I always look forward to coming home and get the sweetest hugs and kisses God ever created in the arms and lips of two little princess. I guess this where I am going, becoming a happy and contented father.