It takes time to grow. But sometimes you wish everyone had grown with you. I realized it is not easy to start over if the people around you are still stuck with the things they are yet to out grow.
We (me and some of my friends) are in a point of our lives where we try to have fun without alcohol or any other addicting influence. We gather and bask in our presence, with laughter, food, movies, stories, jokes, games, silliness or anything we find fun. We realized things are the same if not better without alcohol, our laughter or fun is more pure and authentic.
But as I start college all over, almost being a freshman, it is inevitable to encounter people or students who are as fresh and as ready to ruin their lives. My group mates planned a meet on thursday for us to work on our assigned group project, but the first thing they uttered was, "tara thursday inom tayo." Being who I am, I instantly wanted to say, "inom nanaman? project to hindi laro." But the other transferies who are the same age as mine said, "sige tara inom tayo." That was when I laughed and just said, "haha, sige inom kayo, gagawin ko yung project."
It is easy to remember that those people, those new friends are in a point of their lives where they want a place to belong to, ala cloud-9, "I belong". And that this awareness of mine is a gift from all the stupid things I also once did. I remember my current favorite movie line from Optimus Prime: "They have the right to choose for themselves." They can have fun the way they see fit, because up until now what they see is limited, but that does not make them any less or me any better, we all once did something wrong or stupid, but we never regret them, we learn from them, we keep the memories because it is through those memories that we learn to appreciate what we are now.
Growth needs sometime, my new friends need to see the mistakes for their own, and on their own, they have every right to ruin their lives and try to rebuild themselves from the ashes. And I have no right to impose, as they can only listen to me as much as they want to, but at the end of it all they will be the ones to choose for themselves. As a friend all I can do is try to keep them on the balance, but if they want to jump off to the other side of the fence it is still up to them. It's called respect, respect to what the other is capable of, and hope, hope that they don't get lost along their way, and that even if they get lost hopefully they still have the strength to rise above from it.
