Spread Your Wings and Fly Away: There Will Never Be Enough Words for This

There Will Never Be Enough Words for This

I'm dead tired. I really am. When I look back on what I did for the day, I can't think of anything I did that made me feel so exhausted. Well, I had Media Law class though. And the nervousness and stress and worry I felt when our professor was randomly picking out names for recitation probably is a factor, but other than that, I didn't do manual labor or anything.

So anyway. It's not the reason why I am currently writing this blog.

Like I said, I felt very tired so as soon as I got home, my mindset was to sleep at once after eating dinner. In fact, it wasn't really my plan to go online because moving my arms had been a struggle in itself already. However, something compelled me to visit my Facebook page. True enough, while I was lazily going through the News Feed, I saw an album dedicated to the AB Student Council Office posted by my good friend Hazel. I opened the album and saw photos of our beloved office. When you browse through it, it may seem boring 'coz it only shows our messy workspace and the officers' desks and other random stuff, but it was in that randomness that I truly and deeply felt the sadness. But along with this sadness is that appreciation for its hidden beauty knowing that I was able to collect priceless memories and spent a very productive time in terms of my extra-curricular activities in the duration of my college life.

You see, to anyone, the ABSC Office may just be just that--an office. But to most of us who was able to work there for as long as we can remember, it is not just a mere space where people conduct meetings and the like. The ABSC Office was, and will continue to be our second home.

You may wonder, why miss it right now?

It never occurred to me until about an hour ago that this week is the beginning of the annual AB Student Council Elections. And as per tradition, the ABSC Office will be temporarily unavailable and shall house the AB Comelec until further notice. Ever since I was a freshman, I knew all these rules. And despite the fact that I used to not care about the office during campaign week when I was in my lower years because we were too absorbed in helping out our candidates, it didn't matter to me if I won't get the chance to enter the office for a while. After all, back then, I used to think that I still had loads of time to come back there, what with me being a Freshman and all.

However, time flew fast.

This academic year is special to me. It didn't just have to do with the fact that we won 4 seats in the student council (so we basically ruled ABSC, no matter how you look at it), but because it was in this academic year that I truly, honestly and whole heartedly felt like ABSC was a safe harbor; a second home to those of us who felt like ours sucked sometimes.

If I were to recall all the places where I've been hanging out in during this last few dragging months of college, it would have to be 90% inside the ABSC Office. It seemed that we just had so much stuff to do during this school year that most of the time we spent had been dedicated to projects and all.

Still, there had been so many memories made inside the office that's worth remembering for a lifetime: Friendships had been formed; love was overflowing in dizzying proportions; food was passed around (and sometimes even unshared!); conversations and jokes made everyone's day no matter how engrossed we were in working...

But like most homes, it wasn't as sweet as it looked on the outside sometimes.

There were moments (and there had been plenty of them!) when we had to argue and bicker with one another because we weren't just agreeing with one another; times when we secretly insulted others behind their backs; moments when we wished that some of our fellow ABSC siblings would just pack his/her stuff and move out of our lives forever...

Yet these issues were solved because we hung out in one office that, no matter what we do, it still belonged to everybody.

Our little home might not have been perfect, and so were the people inside it, but we had been bonded to such a great extent that thinking about leaving the friendships I have created and the memories I have made inside the ABSC Office and that there is a chance that I can never go inside it again leaves a searing pain inside my chest.

The air conditioner that can freeze us to death.

Sure, there had been an array of differences inside it, what with the people there belonging to 4 political parties as far as they were concerned, all those are unimportant because we were all bound by the passion to work and serve the AB studentry.

You think this is such an emotional blog in memoriam of a plain office?

Guess again. It's more than that.

What the office looked like from outside.

Things I'll miss inside the ABSC Office:

THE FRIENDSHIPS.
The private conversations made inside the inner office or in the narrow hallway connecting to the Flame and Pax Romana offices.
The couches which we sat on, slept on or ate on.:))
The big round table which served its purpose in a lot of ways--we placed our laptops on it when we had a paper to rush, we ate there and spilled liquids and food particles and we rested our heads there when there was no other available space to crash into because everyone else seemed scattered on all available surface:))
The white board where we wrote random stuff on (such as cell phone numbers, notes, quotes and doodles).

The officers' corkboards which never had much stuff pinned to them, except when they had notices or letters from the dean's office for a project proposal or invitations and the like.

The super crowded inner office that had more clutter than actual space in them.
Joanne's desk where I pin these random notes for her and where I sometimes slept when I thought my professor was boring, insane or just annoying.
The battered old computer (which has seen better days). No one used that thing anymore though. Everyone seemed to have a laptop of their own.:))

The inner office where we sometimes held private conversations and yes, SDP meetings.:))
The newly installed (well, new this year) glass window with the hole in it which made the office look like a pharmacy or a ticket booth for the LRT (this had been a running joke all through out the year).

There are over a million things I'll miss but filling up this page won't even begin to cover those.

I wish I could express the nagging, almost painful sadness I am feeling right now at the thought of leaving our beloved office for good. However, I know that my time is up and I should give other students like me the opportunity to experience the roller coaster ride of emotions when they become a part of the ABSC family.

Kudos, ABSC Office. I knew you well! Until I get to visit you again!