My mom would ask me: "What do you really want to do?" But like most girls in school, I spent my energy in many activities.
In kindergarten, I joined the Mickey Mouse Club where we would act and sing every Friday. I later switched to the Rainbow Club because my best friend was into drawing and coloring dogs, cats, house and trees with pencils and crayons. In grade school, I discovered an arts school in the neighborhood. Mom enrolled me for lessons in oil, watercolor and pastel painting (she later turned down buyers to keep my exhibited works).
Whenever I saw a group of elementary girls in school having fun, I wanted to share in the fun. Visiting the girls practicing gymnastics at the gym, I asked the PE teacher to let me jump on the trampoline, too. Thus did I assure my mattress a longer life. One day, mom thought I was sick because I had stopped jumping up and down my bed.
I tried the theater, too. In third grade, I was best actress in batch plays. That somehow qualified me to move on to play bit roles when the school staged Oliver and Fiddler on the Roof at the Meralco Theater. Mom though this was an achievement. She was already in college when she performed with a college singing team at the Meralco. It was my dad who complained about my bit role in Oliver. To fetch me at Meralco after evening rehearsals, he navigated rush-hour traffic and waited at the parking lot in the dark. He bought tickets for the family and relatives, but he missed my short performance after he left his theater seat to drink from a water cooler.
My energy must have been limitless then. I was in the second-voice group in the school’s choral group for four years starting in my Grade 3. In the campus paper, I wrote a column on what’s in and what’s out in "Campus Eye." Another columnist who also writes for Young Star sometimes asked me and other classmates to dispense advice to letter writers. We hid behind pseudonyms, which included those of our crushes.
In high school, my interest in art waned. My dream as an actress grew. I’ve always wanted to be part of a weekend TV show. Dad told me that one of my baptismal godmothers is a business manager of one of our top action stars. Maybe she could help. I talked to her twice on the phone about auditioning in a TV company. But Dad never got the two of us together after all these years (she now owes me a lot of Christmas presents).
Meanwhile, I was addicted to computers. Homework was done in Word. I surfed and chatted. I published home web pages. Whenever summer vacation approached, I nagged my mom to enroll me in street jazz, taekwando, aikido, computers, sports clinics, voice lessons, pop music lessons. Mom once suggested that I take up driving lessons. No, I said, because I dreaded mornings when Mom would wake me up to drive to the grocery or do some errands that would pull me out of bed. I thought it was good to thumb down her suggestion. But now at 17 I realized it wasn’t.
In my elementary days, mom complimented me for my energy and neighbors roused from sleep noted my lung power. I had the marks of a cheerleader in Grade 5. But I was chubby then and thought I’d only weigh down the whole team.
In sports, the on-court hollering and giggling during scrimmage stoked a dream to join the basketball team. A picture of my mom in her teenage days playing volleyball made me aspire to become a player. I wanted to be in the swimming team, too. I practiced in each of these sports but did not complete training. Where players were already faster and swifter, my ambitions were diminished. I am now in track-and-field practice. Tae bo is also now an interest, and my mom bought me a video tape on the sport.
What about my studies? That I am serious with. Math, chemistry, trigonometry and my academic subjects are well ahead in my list. The others can come next. But, like other girls, I’ll be what I want, an artist, actress, singer, dancer, athlete. I just have to decide on which one to take up first.