Things Out of Reach

There are things that are, just naturally, out of our control. We may be the smartest, most powerful creatures on earth. Yet, we are not gods. We are not superhuman. And for every time I've told Gabs that I was superwoman and that I can do anything I set my mind to--rubbish--I take that back.

In full truth, the only way one can survive any unfortunate life is through the consideration of other people. We live so luckily because someone else is there to back us up. Take my circumstances, for instance. I've had these hallucinations since I was three; I was born with binocular vision anomalies; I was born with a weak upper respiratory system. But I survived each day with the provisions of my parents. Food, private school education, medication and all I need are provided by these two people.


True, there are things that I learned to do on my own, as I grew up. But it didn't mean that I could control everything. I did my best, and only hoped that my best was good enough--just like a lot of other people. For the longest time, yes, my best was good enough. I was smart enough, I tried hard enough. But I could not do everything I wanted without paying the price.

My health was always at stake, and everything got worse and worse as I grew up.

I still did try to continue to do my best at anything and everything that comes my way. All the quirkiest ideas I had, I tried to bring to life. There was so much I wanted to do--I still do now, you see. I was ambitious. I grew up in a world where I was exposed to the heights of accomplishment: what I could become, and what others already are and how I could surpass them. Learning, on its own, was great fun to me. And my education seemed to me like an adventure than a burden. Every bit of information was an enjoyable delight, a new door to open in the palace of insurmountable knowledge. The only thing I could complain about school is the grading system with which we are cursed. Perhaps it is to challenge students who think studying is a burden to their lives. But to people who actually enjoy it, why else? It becomes something to fear.

Fear? Fear numbers? Fear mere numbers, when in fact, humans like we invented the very system by which the existence of numbers was made possible?

Absolutely preposterous.

But it is the truth.

On each day, we fear the number of how much we spend, and how much is left. We fear the number of days before something terrible might come. We fear, in fact, all numbers with which we are judged by society: rank, marks, salary, and the like.

Numbers are, by design, the materialization of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's Monster.

And the more we look at these numbers, the more we fear them.

And what we fear most would be the numbers we could not reach and the numbers we could not control.

And though I was never the one to be grade conscious, I always told myself that I should not fail anything at school, simply because I know that I can do things. But then, I must remind myself now that I cannot do everything. I will fail at something, not meet the standards of a particular number. And I will have no power at all to change it.

For that is the circumstance of life.

I cannot change the number of the levels of colonies of streptococci I carry, to be specific, it is 200. I cannot change the fact that my erythrocyte sedimentation rate is 41. But I also cannot change the fact that due to these things, I have been absent for ten days, which I can never regain. Recitation marks, seat works and school activities which I could nevermore take.

And for another day, I was absent. The day of the Christmas party, marked by the numbers 12-18-2009. It was also the day when I was supposed to take an English Oral Exam, depicting the character of Hera, Goddess of Marriage and wife of Zeus.

By a number that I could not predict, nor control, I was absent on that day. That was the day when 10% of my grade would be erased from the class which I attended least due to sickness.

Needless to say, there are certain things, certain numbers, which are out of my reach. Things that are out of my control.

I am human. And whatever outcome of my grades, these numbers will never make me any less human than I am now.

I just hope that they're enough for college.