Life is like an elevator, it has its ups and downs.
It's been 40 years to this day that I have existed in this world. And if someone would ask me what I have done all my life then I would say "
I have loved."
You see, it was my love for my parents that I have allowed them to track the course of where my life would lead me and influence one of the most crucial decisions I have ever made in my life, which is a choice to take up Accountancy. The year was 1987, I have already passed the UP entrance exam and I would have had the opportunity to take Organizational Communication, which was the non-quota course that I have ticked in the application form. Honestly, I really had no idea what that course was. And a funny twist of fate as it would seem that later on I would marry somebody who graduated with that course.
I was already losing options at that point but my friends from Manila Science High School told me that they are enrolling at Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, so I gave it a try. It was the last exam which was held in the month of April. From what I have learned there was a low passing rate from the previous batches that is why the university opted to hold a special batch to accommodate late enrollees. I consider myself lucky to have passed that exam. Not only was I able to enroll in Business Administration as what my parents wanted me to take but on top of that I have also had the chance to meet the people who are now my closest friends and still get to see some of my old friends from Masci. After 4 years of hard work, pains and often times fun and laughter I was able to graduate from PLM but not "With Honors" as I have wanted it to be with just a few points away from the 1.75 mark. (The reason for that is a different story all together but I would rather not delve into it much deeper.) But that incident made me work so much harder during the review and when I took up the CPA Board on October 1991, I passed - not bad for a reluctant accountant.
I have never really dreamed of being an Accountant. I would have wanted to be a Systems Analyst, a Chef or even a Singer/Songwriter. But since my mother have always wanted at least one of her offspring to become a CPA (since most of my cousins are CPAs), I gladly obliged. That is why up to this day of all the hundreds and so staff that I have interviewed I always ask the same question "Was Accounting (or whatever course they graduated from) your first choice for a course?" And it makes me smile inside to know that somehow I am not alone.
But I believe that all of these things are interconnected like a web or neurons in the nervous system. If I didn't take up Accounting I wouldn't have met all the wonderful people from PLM and all the nine (yes, nine!) companies that I have worked for in the past 19 (almost 20) years of my career. But most importantly, I wouldn't have met that young lady working in the Advertising and Sales Promotion Department of Ayala Plans Inc. She would later turn out to be the missing part of my heart.
Our love story is not without the tele-novela twists too. A year after we became a couple I have decided to propose to her on her 26th birthday. I have made a webpage that I showed to her after dinner and of all places the marriage proposal came in an internet cafe :) With me explaining how I made the page as I pull out the ring and proposed. It was one of the happiest moment of my life. But things turned out not quite as planned a few weeks after. We have not told her parents yet that we are getting married but decided to tell it first to a group of our closest friends. It was announced to our friends on that fateful Fathers Day of 2001. Fateful because on our way to a restaurant near the bay area we received a call from her house. My mother in law met a traffic accident a few meters from where we are going. When we reached the hospital, she already passed away. After a few months, we did tell her father about our plan to get married but it would be after the first death anniversary of my mother in law.
That union brought about the third reason my life has been guided by love and that is in the form of my daughter, the bringer of joy. She is the reason why I persevere to work hard every day. To give her our wholehearted love and undivided attention. Yes, I am on the other side of the track now and I understand why my parents have always wanted me to follow what they believe is good for me. But I have also learned through that experience that I shouldn't control my child's destiny. She has the capability to shape it on her own. And while we always keep her under the mantle of our protective love I know that someday she would grow her wings. And I wanted her to experience a life without resentment.
So in my 40 years there are still a lot of questions in my mind if I decided to get off a different floor in this elevator ride. But as I try to look back those were really the reason why I am what I am right now. Everything happens for a reason, and no matter how I try to think how my life would have been different if I decided to take a different direction, it wouldn't matter anymore because those things already happened and is now part of the past. And much like we wake up every day, it also gives us a new day to shape our destiny.
So on this day, after forty years of my existence, like any other day, MY LIFE BEGINS, TO BE ABLE TO LOVE AGAIN AND AGAIN.
Here's to the next forty years and beyond...
