2008 in hindsight…


A year starts the same way every year; with the clock ticking, one second at a time…finally reaching the 12 marker. With all the explosions and varied colored lights, lighting up the dark smoke filled night sky, one may easily forget that a year has ended and a new year has arrived. Sitting on a chair, with a cigarette in hand…I try and look back at the year that was…and look towards the year that will be.

2008 started just as any other year…but I knew that as soon as I stepped into the office, changes were coming. I remember my first partner. It was gonna be her last week in the office since she decided to pursue a Masters Degree abroad…and that I’d be having a new boss by the end of that week. I was still continuing a nightmare project I was given the year prior…and much like everything…I felt despair. I was also given two nightmare accounts. A car manufacturer and a tel-co…two of the most demanding type of accounts there are and I knew that to be able to survive…I’d need to grow, both as an AE and as a person.

A couple of months later, my first boss and other partner also decided to leave, starting a trend of resignations and a massive organizational restructure in the agency…but of course…I wasn’t touched. Still handling pretty much the same accounts I was months prior and realizing that I still have a lot to learn.

But not all things were bad. Though things were getting tougher, harder for me…I was able to meet someone. Though we knew each other for close to a year, we only started getting close then and there. And when things started going badly for me…I knew that it was okay coz I met a new friend who I knew would be my friend for a long time.

Towards the latter part of the year, things started looking up. I was doing really well in the office and my new friend and I were getting closer and closer. And right then and there, I knew that it couldn’t get any better than that. A trip to the mountains, Ramon Roquetta and Machego Cheese, Grandburgers, Wall-E, House of the Dead, James Bond, Twilight, Krispy Kreme runs…Magic Moments and Nocturnal Sunshine.

And before I knew it…the year was ending. Just like that, snap…the year went by. Faster than anyone could’ve imagined.

I light another cigarette.

The year ends, pretty much the same way the year begins. If a year begins in turmoil, towards the end of the year…turmoil begins yet again. One of the things that I regret the most was this argument my friend and I had. I knew that I had something great, something wonderful…but I just had to ruin it. Took me a while to realize what I did, took me a while to realize what I needed to do. It took me a while to realize what I may have lost.

Things may not be the same again…I know that…but I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to accept it…but I know that I have to.

The year begins…with me sitting on a bench, with a bottle of vodka a plastic glass with melted ice in it…sitting next to one of my dearest friends…staring at green-lit stairs. I know I screwed up. I screwed up big time. But I look forward.

2009 has started, though I would’ve like it to start on better terms, I know that the year to come is in my hands. There’s a whole lot of stuff I need to learn. A whole lot of stuff I need to realize and work on. I look towards the year to come and I know that things may and will be different. There are a lot of things I regret doing, but there are more things I wouldn’t change in the year that passed.

I look forward to more Krispy Kreme runs, more Ramon Roquettas and Machego Cheeses. I look forward to more Grandbugers and trips out of town. I look forward to more Magic Moments and Nocturnal Shunshine.

I look forward, not in despair, but in hope. I look forward and the see the world looking back at me. Slowly, with hesitation…I put one foot forward. Realizing that I’m standing over the edge and that I cannot go back. I put one foot forward. Slowly letting go of the year that was and leap into the arms of the year that will be. And as I fall into the abyss, tread forward into tomorrow…I know that this will be the year. This is the moment. There’s no looking back now. There’s no turning back, no going back. This is me, with a cigarette in hand. This is me.