July 19, 2007
You know you're old(er) when...
They say age is nothing but a number. When I transitioned into 30, I didn’t go into panic attack. I only had to constantly ward off questions about marriage and kids and such. The so-called pressure builds up when most of your friends had walked down the aisle in pretty gowns. I don’t know about American culture but in the Philippines, when a woman is still single at 30 things begin to turn suspect. It is as if her marrying value begins to depreciate, thus doomed to be a spinster for life. I have to admit I overshot my goal. When I got out of college I told myself I’d get married at 25. Well, 25 came and went. Looking back, I’m not even sure if I was ready to become a wife at 25. I was too busy chasing stories, beating deadlines, climbing mountains and worrying about other people.
Besides birthdays, life presents little reminders of how old we’ve become. I was filling out a form for a state ID a few months back and I had to stop and calculate my age. These past few days, I got another jolt – my batchmates in college are organizing a reunion. Apparently it’s been 10 years since we last saw each other. The get-together is set for next month, in time for the university’s Founders Day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there to catch up with the goings-on in their lives. I wish I could be there though. I heard quite a number are already married. I looked up the Friendster profiles of some and just as I expected, kids are already in the picture. Talk about time zipping past.
I grabbed an old photo my batch has posted online and I’m still having trouble remembering some names. I know we’ve spread out to different places after surviving college and I wonder what paths, career-wise, others had chosen to take. I’m proud to say I have good memories of college. I met some of the most interesting people while trying to pass Algebra and Physics, and did both smart and stupid things. I wrapped up four years of hard work passed out at an airport runway dressed in Sunday clothes.
To my batchmates, I hope you have fun, guys! Looking forward to pictures from the reunion!
The husband said it was easy to spot me on the picture, going by forehead sizes. That jerk. :-) But the third person from the left is me, circa 1997.