In Life's Dark Corridors (Part II): To The Road Less Traveled

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
(From "The Road Not Taken", Robert Frost)


After 6th grade, most of the neighborhood children decided they had gone as far as they had wanted to go educationally. Their parents' goal for them was no different and reflected that age-old apathy towards learning that had been ingrained in them by their parents, and their parents before them. However, looking back, I do not believe it was truly a lack of ambition on either side that made them forego the chance for higher learning; rather, it was lack of foresight, or probably, that understandable trepidation to venture into the unknown or even that easy, complacent attitude towards life that they had been so accustomed to. No one in the barrio had managed to graduate from high school before, I was told. One or two had started secondary education but the persistent common belief of the barrio people that "wala namang mararating" (nothing can be accomplished), was a formidable and exacting barrier that the faint-hearted was unable to overcome. Indifference on the part of the parents due to meager financial resources, that they decided would not sustain further educational ventures, cemented the barrier. The path of least resistance was marked by the ones that came before them and the cycle of life for the barrio folks remained unaltered for generations. So did the clutch of poverty that they were unable to shake off.


I remember a quote from Alexander Pope which says, "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace". Poverty is a frightful monster in itself. But whether it was the barrio people's lack of perseverance masked as contentment, or that easy, laid-back attitude that seemed to characterize the way they looked at life that made them accept their lot without even a whimper of protest, was hard to define. Familiar with the ugly face of poverty that had been their constant companion, they seemed to be at ease and satisfied when there was a promise of food on the table for the next meal. Blessed by such unerring forbearance and that enviable, unquestionably emancipating attitude toward life, they may be the lucky ones. But I want more than that.

So I ventured into the unknown. I was prepared to force open the tightly clenched fist of fate and discover what it was withholding from me. I knew it would not, by any means, be a simple, painless mission but there was nothing I wanted more. The years of privation, scarcity and disappointment did something to the young, untamed, uncompromising mind. The spark of bold ambition had seared the fringes of the soul until it grew into a fiery orb that refused to abate. The stubborn will must prevail and could not be contained even by the menace of the uncharted way that seemed to stretch out to forever.

My enrollment in high school invited many raised eyebrows and unsolicited, unkindly remarks from skeptics. The audacity of my decision went against the grain of the traditional and the acceptable in their limited, simplistic view. There were articulated, disdainful bets of how far a daughter of a penniless, dirt-poor, landless barrio couple could go educationally. My own relatives were no exception in that predestined assumption although it was not out of malice or unkindness that they questioned my desire to enter high school; rather, it was out of concern on how we would finance the expenses that it would entail. The fact that I chose to register at Batangas Eastern Academy, a private high school which was considered to be the more elite of the two high schools in town, was another blatant display of arrogance, in people's opinion. There was nothing bold and calculated in what I did, however. BEA was a more prominent and respected institution of learning where the town's finest went, whereas the other school was widely considered as the school for the barrio folks and where the mediocre congregated. Of course, it was a stereotypical hypothesis that would easily invite acrimony from those who were concerned, but that veiled stigma was one of the reasons why I went to the "school of the rich kids". Although there were some that I became friends with, early on, I was the social pariah. My rich, sophisticated classmates were out of my league but I was determined to find that elusive "place in the sun" that I knew Someone had carved for me, that Someone who loved me and blessed me intellectually. I would use that intellectual edge to my advantage but as in the past year, it would fall short, and disappointment would be waiting eagerly in the wings (Continue to Part III).