You Miss It

 

Of course you know about it and of course you miss it.

For a year (or is it two now?), you missed sitting on a chair, facing another teacher, while your classmates are almos zoning out in sleepiness. But you know, deep inside, you know, how you miss it. How you utterly feel the urge to be the one to just listen and be fascinated by the things you never realized until it was pointed out to you.

 

For a time, you gave up the opportunity of sitting in a classroom because you felt compelled to work for others. It was a good and noble cause but now, you sense that restlessness driving you again. That restlessness and thirst for something sublime and something utterly profound that you are unable to grasp.

 

You miss the college halls that you once traipsed to and fro in your quest to become an educator. You miss the smell of newly bought textbooks. You miss the excessive chatter of seatmates and friends before a class begins. You miss eating that weird concoction of animal entrails with red chili in it (whatever that primitive fare is). You miss the daily hourly bus rides, the rush for jeepneys, the hush stillness of a library on a sleepy afternoon. You miss sitting on benches underneath trees.

 

You just miss the scent, the taste and the feeling of learning amidst the hallowed halls of a century old school that fostered your dreams and drove your ambitions.