Pages from my memory for the past 24 hours...

Im getting ready for my boat trip to Cagayan de Oro with one of my older brothers and my younger brother. They're laughing coz I'm just bringing a nap sack of sorts and they can't believe that all my stuff could fit in there. Nonetheless, we make it to the pier by 7pm and we board right away, but my mom stays around the docking area coz she says she enjoys seeing us off (either by boat or plane). It's been a while since my last boat trip but I have no problems about it, actually quite relieved that we weren't taking the plane (coz i hate flying). Which is a bit funny coz I find out that my younger isn't too fond of boat trips...I guess that makes us even. I go around the boat as it leaves the dock seeing if it's got anything more to offer other than a live band and a bunch of canteens,...it doesn't. So I stay at the viewing deck instead and admire the view and the wind and how the boat slices through the waves making SSsssSSsss sounds. The only lights are from the moon and the city lights that slowly grow smaller by the moment. So I stay there filled with several random thoughts as i wait to see the city of my birth totally disappear into the night. I decide to hit my bunker by 11pm.

I wake up at 2am, and I am surprised to see that almost everyone is cozily sleeping. So I get up and go back to the viewing deck hoping that everyone else has decided to have the Z's. My prayers were answered...but i notice my older brother sleeping on the steel chairs of the lobby. I wake him to tell him he can sleep on my bunk rather than on those steel chairs or his economy class accommodations(me and my younger bro were in the tourist class) coz I wasn't planning to sleep anymore. He declines my offer after he explains that a bunch of kids were playing on his bed on the deck below. So, he went back to sleep on his "comfy" steel chairs...oh well.

I go back to the outer deck. The wind is chilly but it feels nice save for my dried-up lips. Everything is dark now, the only lights around are coming from the boat, almost seems like we are the last people on the planet. I remember how I've stared at the beach at night, thinking how the sea seems to stretch to endlessness. Right now, I am in that darkness, that endlessness. It's one of those moments when you realize how small you are in the universe but are overwhelmed by your own existence. I enjoy being alone for the moment for I honestly wasn't feeling lonely. For once, for a change, I wasn't wishing I was with someone to share that moment with. And I realize that I haven't really been alone with clear thoughts of my own, and it was a very welcome circumstance. I was glad there were no other voices, no ditsractions and no memories that invaded the sense of peace I found. Even my own head fell silent, I was just filled with the sound of crashing waves. For a moment there...I felt real. Then I was surprised coz I didnt realize I was singing...but i was. The songs just came one after the other...and I wasn't even really thinking about it...it just came. I wonder if that would've passed as a sort of meditation..ehe. But I was pretty sure I didn't bother anyone coz there really wasn't anybody around to bother, hehe. So I stayed out there...staring at the sea, singing like a fool for about three hours. Eventually...I decided to go back to my bunker. to my dismay, I dozed off a bit too much coz I was planning to see the sun rise. I guess you can't have them all...:)

...(to be continued)