MY FRIENDS often tell me that I remind them of a yellow smiling emoji—the one with squinted eyes and a grin so wide it shows every tooth. Indeed, I am a very smiley person, and I would like to believe that this is something I got from my Manang Siony.
Every time I went home after school, Manang would greet me with a warm smile and a reminder that it was time to eat dinner. In the mornings, Manang wore the same smile as she would hand me a cup of coffee brewed perfectly to my liking. Manang’s smile was so contagious that it stayed with me even after she permanently left our household.
When Manang left, I had a lot of tears to cry. Her departure felt like saying goodbye to a huge part of my childhood. After all, she had been with us since I was in grade school.
What I hated the most when forming attachments are the inevitable feelings left when it’s time to say goodbye. For me, attachments meant having to eventually deal with a huge void in my life when someone left. That very void would pull me into feelings of uncertainty and disarray, often leaving me lost and demotivated to move forward.
Because of this, changes often made me cower, fearing that it would likewise entail the need to bid goodbyes. This fear drove me to go with the safest options in life, the ones that required no risk of change.
However, growing up has taught me that life inevitably brings everyone to a phase that may not need formal goodbyes, but requires moving forward—from certain things and, to some extent, from certain people.
Whether it’s moving to a new neighborhood or entering a new university, some people are meant to gradually fade into the background of our lives. As such, it would be a shame to fear attachments or changes simply out of a fear for farewells.
Yet, amid this moving on and the gradual goodbyes, I find it amusing that there still remains a fragment of everyone I’ve once treasured within me, shaping me into who I am now.
Nowadays, I hug all of my friends tightly when I see them, just as I used to receive the same tight embraces from my old high school friends during lunch breaks.
Meanwhile, yellow has now become my favorite color, sharing that title with blue, all because of a friend who once shared their immense appreciation for sunflowers.
Besides influences on likes and habits, I’ve also learned to trust myself more. This shift began the day I nervously approached my old Math teacher with my work asking, “Is it wrong, Ma’am?”—only to discover I had actually gotten the correct answer.
It is amazing how life leads us to phases with different settings—each requiring us to meet and let go of people. We will probably never know how much of an impact we’ve left in someone else’s life, but it’s comforting to realize that in some way or another, we have also left a blueprint of ourselves to someone else, the same way that we are an accumulation of the habits and values of everyone we’ve met.
With this thought in mind, I continue to be the yellow smiling emoji that people associate me with, a reflection of how Manang’s influence has shaped the smiley person I am today.
Azra is a Management Engineering student at the Ateneo de Manila University. With her strong affinity for storytelling, she wishes to forward effective communication while pursuing advocacies concerning access to quality education and gender equality.
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed by the opinion writer do not necessarily state or reflect those of the publication.
