Happy Trip

 

 

Photo credit: Flickr.com

 

The only thing I’d ask the good Lord when I would take the bus on my way back to my hometown was some peace and tranquility. This was due to the fact that I was always exhausted as a horse after a week’s worth of working (or over-working) in a hospital full of sick people, while at the same time, pretending to be at least a decent teacher to students who were undergoing clinical rotation.    It was both a medical and theatrical job: I needed to balance my behavior between patience, wisdom and sarcasm.  Sarcasm was my way of life to begin with so I needed to reel in that aggressive part of myself and neutralize it with some form of fake kindness.  I somehow succeeded in duping my students that I was nice.  They would eventually know that I was not. 

 

On Fridays, I would usually try to go home by public transportation. To most of the people that lived in Bataan, coming home every weekend was a routine, but a routine despised by everyone because of the stressful process of making it there. 

We would usually line up for the bus for about an hour or so to be able to travel.   This was made worse by people cutting in line to be ahead of everyone.  As if it would make any difference if one was ahead of somebody because the horrible Manila traffic would not make anyone reach the finish line in a humanely reasonable time.  Eventually, everyone was late. 

Knowing myself, I made the travel extra difficult for me by carrying a heavy-ass duffel bag that contained my dirty laundry (because I did not like washing my clothes at the boarding house I was renting at).  I may also have been carrying a roll of Ube cake or a box of Dunkin Donuts in one hand.  Not sure which one but I just remembered that I had to be careful on that side of my body because whatever I was carrying was really fragile or else I would elicit curses if I bumped it against someone.  Curses with a mixture of icing.  It was a cute combo, if you asked me, but I was not in the mood to clean up and say sorry.  I was that tired. 

But lo and behold, the moment I stepped in the bus, after more than an hour-long wait, there was this arm that suddenly shot up in the air, waving at me from the back of the vehicle, as if nicely commanding me to sit at the empty spot beside her.

It was one of my students. 

At the back of my exhausted mind, I heard a loud scream of “Nooooooooo!” But being the nice clinical supervisor that everyone knew, I had to live up to my reputation (remember the part where I had to be theatrical?  This was it).  I begrudgingly made my way to that empty seat beside her. 

This bus ride was going to be long.  And I was not ready. 

 

I didn’t dislike this student.  On the contrary, I was amused and entertained by her personality.  I knew she was very compassionate to patients and very eager to learn, and I gave her kudos for that.  I was just so worn-out that particular day to engage in another conversation related to work because I had already spent a good amount of time earlier in the day giving them “the pep talk”.  I needed to rest my brain cells and my vocal cords because they were stretched to the limit and the only thing that was missing was this one trigger that would cause my arteries to rupture and turn myself into Carrie on prom night.  I felt she was that trigger.  Like what I said about donuts and icing, I did not feel like cleaning up my spilled blood and then offer apologies afterwards. 

 

My student, Gina (not her real name, as usual) was memorable.  I would not be writing about her if I did not think that she made an impact on me. She may have started her biography from the beginning…. when there was darkness.  Just kidding.  After she got a hold of her excitement, she started by telling me that she was an insecure kid.  She was an underdog and a wallflower- always quiet and never made a huge impact as a person.  She may have told me that she was just ordinary. 

 

But Gina was far from ordinary.  She was a character. 

 

She graduated valedictorian in high school.  She was mighty proud of this feat because her dream was to prove herself that she could do it, and she did. 

Typical of our hometown, her family printed a big banner for her congratulating her achievement, and if I was not mistaken, she was also given so much accolade for getting into physical therapy school in one of the more prestigious national universities of the country. 

In college, she played the role of Helen Keller with so much gusto she could have swept all the awards if she was eligible for any of it.  Based on the stories I heard, she did not only cry, she wailed.  She did not only shout, she screamed.  And the tears that rolled down her cheeks were formed from blood.  That was how intense it was.  I felt her intensity even though I did not see it, but I believed the tales. 

Then there were her favorite celebrities- you’d think it was a heartthrob from a teenage TV show or a popular actress from a primetime soap opera.  None of the above.  It was a group of dancers who popularized a dance craze named after an Italian Dish.  Yes, the Sex Bomb Girls who danced their hearts to “Spaghetting pataas, pataas ng pataas.” (Literally translates into “Spaghetti going up, going up and going up”, I don’t even know what the f* it means) But she adored them.  She got the chance to interview these dancers as a project in one of her classes.  And to her excitement, she apparently asked these girls to dance with her.  To paraphrase the embarrassment of her groupmates: they wanted to be swallowed by the earth once they all started gyrating to The Spaghetti Dance. 

 

I just knew Gina as a student- an emphatic clinician and an open-minded learner.  She took feedback very well, be it a compliment or a criticism.  Her heart was so full that she oftentimes cried when I talked to her at the end of every treatment session.  I always reassured her that she was doing great, because she really was.  I knew she had a big heart- so big it could not be contained into a small space. 

 

I never got to see her other side until the graduation day when our department threw an “after grad party” for all the students. Gina, and a group of her friends danced a well- choreographed number of Pussycat Doll’s Buttons.  My jaw dropped because I never saw this side of her giving all her heart out for a dance number.  This was when I began to hear the anecdotes that I have mentioned above. 

 

Gina, overcame most of her insecurities of childhood and eventually, all the obstacles she faced.  

I have a theory that after she graduated, and then passed the boards, another banner congratulating her of her achievement rose from their backyard or somewhere in her hometown.  Heck, they might even have thrown a feast in honor of this big triumph. 

She, and her family, celebrated the little strides she attained in her life, which really amazed me how people could look at things so differently.  Those little strides were not little at all to her.  It was a leap.  She was bouncing ten-folds.  Her cup was not only half-full but it was overflowing. 

 

I guess at that point in my life, I looked at the world differently- jaded and hopeless.  I don’t know the reason why I had that kind of view so early in my life.  Maybe because I was tired.  Or maybe because of frustrations I have encountered in a flawed political system and how It affected our work in the hospital, being it a state-run facility.  Then I was thrown into a river full of idyllic and excited teenagers wanting to be like us.  Then I saw the big contrast in our personalities.  Yet we were one and the same.  I was young then, but I felt I knew everything, and that everything was pointless and did not make sense.  

 

Well up to now, I don’t make sense in any of it all.   I realize that I do not know everything, that I am still learning.  And nothing I do will make a big impact in a system.  However, I know I can start somewhere.  That’s one thing.  A dollar cannot become one without a penny.  Gina was that penny. 

 

Here was this girl who was so excited to see me outside the hospital setting and showed me how she appreciated life’s random presents because it mattered to her- be it passing a test or just seeing her clinical supervisor aboard on the same bus with her. 

 

I was meant to sit beside her on the bus that frantic Friday afternoon.  All I had to do was listen.  She was my teacher at that particular moment.  And I was her student, eager to learn.   I did not know it then.  But now I know. 

 

July 28, 2021