just a thought

i don't know how life does it. you know, how it makes you love life sometimes and loathe it just as fast as you fell in love with it.

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today after getting permission from my father to go out tonight, i remembered a night when my sister and her boyfriend plus alej and i were at Somethin' Fishy hanging out. we sat at the tables outside and i noticed a lot of young people (think high school pre-teen years) were going about with their own agendas for the saturday night. at 12 midnight when my sister and i were already preparing to go home to beat the curfew (our Cinderella curfew), these "kids" were just arriving. i couldn't believe that while my night was coming to an end because i'm supposed to be home, these "kids" have the rest of past 12am to party and their parents actually allow them to. i was so JEALOUS that i started to whine. i'm 20 and they're what? 14-18? HAHA. well, i did the whining inside my head. i just thought it was really weird because when i was 14 or so... i spent saturday nights watching movies on VHS with my family or reading a book inside my room. isn't that sad? but i had a lot of fun on saturday nights. just not the kind of FUN these kids are having.

my college friend Apple and i spent our first sembreak (the first day too) with Scelda and April at Eastwood in a club, dancing. we were chaperoned by her elder sister who refused to let us go by ourselves. hehe. the "night life" was too new to us but we did have fun. come sophomore year sem break, apple and i partied all weekend & came home in the morning. we lateron concluded that the "night life" wasn't for us. eventually i got bored. come 1am i was already sleepy, aching to go to bed and rest in peace. er, peacefully. so i retreated back to old habits and started spending saturday nights at home again-- reading, watching tv, or hanging out with my family. while alej and i were in the car yesterday, we talked about how he was a "party boy" before. he used to go out almost every night (or weekend...basta often!). then he said it must have been maturity or the mere fact that he was getting older that he outgrew that phase.

my theory is that when someone (in the right state of mind) tastes something, for example drinking, partying, smoking or staying up all night, one stops being curious and stays away from it after tasting it. you get it? like parents are too nervous these days that their kids might do this and do that. when in reality, kids are just curious. or maybe it really depends because some kids tend to abuse the right amount of freedom given to them by their parents. if parents will give the right amount of freedom and kids won't abuse it, then they'd get to see both worlds and realize that it's just curiousity that's pushing them to try the "unforbidden fruit" (translation? it's up to you to replace a word with that metaphor). then again, this is just me or rather, MY STORY.

i still go out a lot but not as often as i used to. i go out because i want two worlds-- the serious, and the fun. if i limit myself to just the serious world, i'd be in a mental facility by now-- all locked up with a wasted life. i don't want to waste my youth. i think my parents know that too because they brought my sister and i up really well by not imposing too much on us. the result of this strategy was that it played tricks on my our conscience. they were right to trust us with our own judgements-- from knowing what's wrong, what's right and what's enough.

i've been to both sides of the fences-- to both the good and the bad. i liked both sides and i think i was fairly a "good kid" because i didn't give my parents a hard time. i'd like to think i was a responsible teenager trying to have fun. and i still do! i still want to have fun! yes, i have the urge to be rebellious sometimes but my idea of rebellion is just cutting my own hair (oh yes, i did), coloring it to brownish-red (only to have my old hair color back because i dyed it to black before), drinking until i can no longer breathe (i'm allergic), and sometimes going a few hours more beyond curfew.

my advice to teenagers out there? have fun! there's nothing wrong with what you guys are doing just as long as you know your limits, you're not stepping on anyone's foot, and you're not having too much of a bad thing because we all know too much of a good thing can be bad. and when parents give you FREEDOM, don't abuse it or else they'll put a leash around your neck (or tighten it more if you already have one). trust me. you wouldn't want that to happen because beeing in your teens? FREEDOM is so IMPORTANT. without FREEDOM, you'll just watch your teenage years pass you by and i'm sure you wouldn't want to grow old thinking how much fun you missed in your younger years.

i'm not imposing. i'm just sharing because teenage years are the best years of growing up. you're tasting and feeling things for the first time and nothing can beat that. now that i think about it, it's as if the universal motto for teens is the slogan of Emirates Airlines: When was the last time you did something for the first time? so remember... BALANCE is the key.

okay. now i feel OLD. HAHA!