Bitter Pill

It’s summer and school is over. This time of the year is most awaited by kids. There’s no more early rising up in the morning, no more rushing to school and spending whole days there and then coming home at the end of each day tired and sleepy but still with school assignments to do. This eagerness for breaking free from a packed routine is not unique to young people. All of us at some point do get suffocated with the same order of life day after day. We want a break from the usual schedule, a change, to try something else. The thing is, young people are more vulnerable than grown-ups. Their freshness of spirit and bursting energies easily make them potential victims to a devious, dreadful malady – boredom. This illness conspires with the pressure of pop culture and the kick of innate curiosity in goading the young to try the very things they are warned against. It was on a boring summer night back in the province when I and my friends had our first taste of liquor. A few days after, we were smoking cigarettes, too. It was hip to be drinking and smoking when attending the community dance, a really big event in our rural barrio in those days. Oh, yes, the beach always beckoned nearby. And the idle crop fields were available for sports activities. But those who had the same fun every day for weeks on end soon got bored just the same. They wanted to try something else. After a while, all the other things they tried also became less and less interesting to them. Their youthful bravado now craved for the more daring, more adventurous feats. Cigarettes were no longer good enough; marijuana was better. As their minds got jumbled, they set their sight on neighbors’ properties. Some of my friends held nightly banquets with fowls and fruits stolen from neighbors. In the morning, the poor owners would be filled with rage and in tears. But the culprits didn’t feel any guilt; they believed it was no sin to steal so long as you did not sell your loot. Also in those days, other boys my age would sneak out in groups at night to go to another barrio or to the next town. Their secret trips were so well planned that their parents wouldn’t know of it until weeks later. Many of my friends met their girlfriends this way, which then led to early marriages. Sadly, many of those unions did not last. They withered at the first blows of marital adversity. The parties involved could not stand the tests of married life, perhaps because their vows were not founded on real affection. It was more of an image thing — any circumcised male past his 16thbirthday was expected to get himself a girlfriend. It might have been my good luck having fiercely strict parents. We siblings were given full lists of house chores to do. There was absolutely no chance to engage ourselves in what we liked, except if it was something that matched our parents’ plans. The only real freedom I had was in my head. Not that I never had time for play. But it was up to me to do well with my assigned tasks if I wanted to join my friends in the weekend. I couldn’t remember being bored; there was just so much to do. I was always very tired at the end of the day. Listening to the radio or having a little time for reading old issues of Reader’s Digestwas something I eagerly looked forward to at bedtime. Of course, I envied the other kids who had entire days for play. But I never complained. Complaining would have made matters worse for me. The severe punishment I got when my parents learned of my drinking and smoking was obviously of my own making. The whipping I got was warranted; and so was the order that I distance myself from my errant friends. I could not complain. Conversely, I couldn’t be more grateful now for having been forced to get busy then and, thus, got spared from the boredom that often results from a lack of real work to do. It might not have been my parents’ conscious intention to teach me good discretion by keeping me away from too much play. Maybe, like other parents, they only needed their kids to help around the house, because there were chores to do. Just the same, I learned a dear lesson: “My fate is sealed by the choices I make.” My parents’ participation in my real-life education was not welcome with me at the time. It was like a bitter pill, but it was good for me. Fate would have turned real ugly for me if I was totally let alone to do as I pleased.