reluctance
So many things are ending for me this New Year. One of them is Palladium, the school publication I've headed last year. Ryan, my friend and successor, called a meeting yesterday of the new editorial board. He invited me, and since I had nothing better to do I decided to go. As the new editors came through the door one by one, I started feeling old and displaced. They probably felt awkward seeing the former editor-in-chief in this gathering of new faces. I felt alone and I sensibly was. I busied myself with the literary folio laid before me, trying to find company with words among the poems printed on its pages. This worked quite well. The new ones were spared the trouble of behaving too politely and spent no time in talking among themselves. I was spared the necessity of speaking. I didn't feel myself capable of any words as I tried to tune out their voices. Their laughter was not one where I'll be in the middle of. Their worries are no longer going to be mine.
The meeting started after about a half hour. I caught sight of my cubby hole stashed high with my readings, calling cards, forgotten water bottles and a seashell. Loneliness seeped in and rushed coolly in my veins. Palladium was my home for two years. Its office was a fortress when life in the classrooms outside it become too much to handle. More than anything, being with Palladium has made my resolve to be a journalist more firm. I'll be finishing my law degree and taking the bar yes, but it doesn't mean that I have to give up my Muse. In many ways I pray that my heart for journalism and my career in law will intersect. There are not many successful lawyers who are also journalists out there. They're quite rare. Father Bernas is one. I want to be another.
Halfway through the meeting I felt like leaving, and I would have had I not been so inconveniently seated in the corner of the long table. I watched Ryan talk and I felt proud. I have found a worthy successor, and Lord knows I will never leave something as precious to me as Palladium in the wrong, or worse incompetent, hands.
At 2 a.m. this morning I was still busy talking with a couple of my fellow outgoing editors. I burst in tears after I said to Ryan I'll miss him and Palladium (I'll have to clean out my office drawer and surrender my office keys soon).
Letting go is a violent process. I was overcome with reluctance, which I've realized was so different from what my predecessor felt when she turned Palladium over to me. She was quite happy and relieved. I, on the other hand, was crying like I did at dawn. Sadness bent me low. They say other people fight harder battles, and I should be thankful all I'm sad about is my term ending. But this is one of the hardest ones I have battled so far, although it's smaller compared to others'.
I guess I just have to be thankful to the Divine for paying me some attention. Or why else would He bother pruning me?
posted by Sara Jane at 7:52 PM
1 Comments:
I remember a question a college professor threw at me during my senior year. It led to a little conversation that was at least entertaining for the class after discussing a business case (very different from the nails on our law school coffins).
"So, Mr. Samson, what is it that you'll be doing after college?"
And I said, "I'll be going to law school."
He replied: "Ah. A lawyer, eh? Isn't it true that you're also the head of some new magazine?"
And I said, "Yes."
So he asked, "What about that?"
And I said, "Sir, there are a few things I want to have along my career path, aside from either acting or becoming President of the Philippines... (pause to accomodate laughter at prospect of me becoming President)... One, I want to become a lawyer. Two, if I can, I'd like to be a journalist too."
Pause. Smirk on professor's face.
Professor: "Do you realize that more and more lawyers and journalists end up being shot today?"
Me: "Of course."
Professor: "And do you realize that there may be very little use for your management degree, except maybe for your accounting subjects, and that's assuming you become one of those AC-DC lawyers or journalists?"
Pause.
Me: "Well, sir, if you talk to Dr. Ibarra, I dropped my first accounting class. Not because accounting's evil, or because the professor was. That aside, I'm sure I'll find some sort of application for my management degree."
Prof: "Such as?"
Me: "Well, I can put up a new magazine, and that's probably entrepreneurial. Or I can do what a lot of Pinoy lawyers do, and open a restaurant which will excuse my getting fat as I age. Or I can be like a journalist and put up a bar. All will involve the use of my marketing, strategy, accounting, finance, and other management courses."
Prof: "And that, class, is how you try to apply what you learn in marketing to fool your audience into believing you've actually got a product worth buying."
We all go through reluctance when it comes to leaving fortresses or our babies behind. Of course, leaving the fortress means that there's a chance for us to experience the sunshine, to be unshielded in the rain. And leaving our babies means weaning them from overdependence.
In a sense, we're condemned, as aspiring leaders, to both discover our own strengths and weaknesses, and lead in a way that makes us obsolete.
If that means we can grow, and let others grow, then I think the risk is worth it.
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