"Halohalo"

I can’t recall anymore how long and how many times I’ve done this before, sitting under the tree right next to the rows of food stalls here at the Quezon City Hall open food court chilling out over halohalo on a disposable paper-thin plastic cup.

It’s been so long since the first time I’ve been here doing this but I remember it was years ago, as a struggling government employee and it’s amazing that I still do this now. My thoughts then were of the forthcoming prosperous times, perhaps having cappuccino at new world café poring over the newspaper’s business section to analyze the latest movements of my blue chip stockmarket investments.

I have since stopped being a bureaucrat and those thoughts of prosperous time have remained just thoughts but refusing to fade.

The friends that I used to visit every now and then at their office desks in the nearby city courts are not there anymore; they have moved on for better things. It gives no comfort reminiscing of my old job at Visayas Avenue, which with the passage of time have only memories to offer now, and not exactly pleasant ones.

Most of my friends don’t get in touch I really doubt if they ever pause once in a while to think of me at all. Well, since I only get to remember them once in a rare while too, I guess I have no right to expect as much.

So when I go back to my old haunts like I do today, here in this familiar spot under the tree, it brings me a feeling of being stuck in the past, of being left miles behind by those who stood beside me when I was just at the starting line of the rat race.

Maybe I should have embraced destiny instead of chasing it. 

Maybe I should have stopped daydreaming of coffee breaks at new world long ago. If I did,  who knows, perhaps i would not be feeling like this, alone in the world and lonely. There should be purpose not only bitterness for every moment of reminiscences that I spend with my halohalo under the tree.

You know what, I don’t really like the taste of halohalo but I just don’t understand why I keep on coming back and doing this…