Aga Aquino

I have been meaning to get back into drawing again, which is one of the many dreams that I want to work on. If I look back, there was a time I did like to draw a lot, I would be filling notebooks with random scribbles and sketches, but somewhere along the line, pictures and cartoons just didn’t seem that important. I was drowning in heavy text books, and several gigabytes of notes taken from the blackboard, no sooner was I drowning in notes that wasn’t meant for me, as I made pages and pages of condensed information to my students when I began teaching.

But in a few years, it just stopped. The notes, the books, the academics noise, and now I find myself in different kind of void. As I look back in the past 10 years, what kind of hell was I in?

I’m no longer happy…

The thing with running the rat race is that we become comfortable with the routine, of coming to work, grinding out the hours, and waiting for the paycheck, but for what? As I look around me, I keep thinking about what else can I buy? Do I even have to anymore?

I am tired…

So I cut my time in the rat race, lesser early mornings, lesser late evenings, more time for me. But when you do take that leap of faith, you find yourself too damaged, mutated, distorted, no longer the person you were.

Old passions no longer excite you, and the future just seems bleaker now that you have more time for yourself. But in one moment, you decide that you will try again.

I have BEEN meaning to get back into drawing again, but what should I draw? What was happy memory? Early 2011. Maybe. I can’t be sure, where am I? It’s possibly the SM Starbucks, it is my go to place in between classes, my 9:30 just wrapped up and my next class isn’t until 13:30, or was it 14:30? I can’t be sure anymore. But I came in, I made my order and I sat down.

The coffee is bitter again. But the barista’s is new, he couldn’t have gotten the art of the pull just yet. But this is an Americano, it’s easy. How hard can it be to pull a shot and add hot water?

I couldn’t mind it, because across the table was a girl enjoying her coffee, but given how fuzzy the memory is, it was probably a frap. Girls those days really liked their fraps. She probably had a sweater, one that was meant for a taller girl, but she just had to have it, the color was cute and the pattern was also cute. She couldn’t be bothered with the sleeve, it was more cozy to let it drop to her arms, it’s like a make-shift cup warmer or hand shield. Either way it doesn’t matter, she looked cute.

Suddenly I’m not tired again. It was nice to reminisce. Maybe it’s just enough to take in the moment, and I may probably try to draw some more again.