Joey Bee

Photo by Agnes Marzan

(Please play this song while browsing through this blog post. Thank you.)


The decade from 2010 to 2019 has been the most eventful in my life. I had just graduated from high school, with no certainty of whatever would become of me in the following years. I knew that I would be taking up Education, but back in 2010, I wouldn't have imagined the things that would happen to me in the next years.

I started 2010 being heavily in social media, being a part of a generation that was heavily connected with the intrinsic peer pressure that I had to be online for everything and everything--emotions, events, everything had to be there.

For the purpose of this post, I had to revisit my old Facebook profile, and looking back, the content was more negative than positive, which made me cringe and cry, and if back then, I knew what I know now, it would never have been that way.

A screenshot from one of my old Facebook posts.

I was sure with the thought that I had to be mature, and thus, I put much pressure on myself to be different from who I was in high school. That meant that I had to forget who I was, what I did, and why I was where I was.

At this point, I actually regret not having been able to apologize to the people I wronged back then. I realized that I could have been a better classmate and a better friend, and chose their feelings instead of my ambitiousness. If ever I get to see any of them in person, I would take my time to apologize to each and every one of them. If there was anything I learned that could be applied to this, it's that it's never too late for anything, one just has to learn how to do it on their own terms and their own directions.

During my high school graduation. Photo by Zee Codizar

The uncertainty that lingered coming towards my graduation continued after that, and well into my Freshman year in college. I had developed withdrawal from my senior year, and most of it was filled with regrets--that I didn't enter my dream school with my dream program (BS Psychology at the University of Santo Tomas), that I didn't know how to take care of my own body at 16 years old, and that I didn't continue playing Taekwondo--along with many "what if's" that still haunt me as I do this post.

During an educational field trip to Laguna in July 2010. Photo by Ninia Sindac

The general regret that I had for myself in the early 2010s was that I didn't set myself to have any direction, because I left it all on dreams of grandeur, which were more floating than concrete. I had left myself to aspire for greatness, rather than delve on the importance of learning for one's self and for others, which, now I realize should've been the more important goal in mind.

During a P.E. activity in Freshman year at PNU. Photo by Angelica Delos Reyes

I let myself be drowned in the uncertainties that I grew, embedding in the negative thoughts of the past, thinking only of what and how I should be bragging to the people, who at the time, I thought to have wronged me.

My classmates during my sophomore year at Philippine Normal University. Photo by Mara Luarte

It all came to a point where everything came crashing on me and I couldn't handle it anymore and just wanted to end myself right then and there but at the same time, I feared death and the greater uncertainty it would bring to me and my family. I chose to live, but the lack of vision remained and I found myself with nothing to gain but also nothing to lose.

With former classmates during a field trip in Taguig in 2011. Photo by me

My mother decided that I needed to be someplace else so that I would be able to grow, and by that, she meant I should go to Iloilo because it was far from the distractions of Manila and Cavite. At first, it seemed like a huge sacrifice because that meant having to trade the hustle and bustle of Manila with the tranquility of Iloilo, which I thought at the time was lacking the splendor I thought I needed in my life. Little did I know what good it would actually bring me.

With my batchmates in Journalism, after one of our classes in 2013. Photo by Jade Abelida

While there were still the sins of the past, slowly I discovered myself for who I was and who I can be. I became more conscious of myself--in the right way, where I knew what I was doing and I knew where I was headed for.

Having fun during the Dinagyang Festival. Photo by Nadjah Mae Herida