43,600 minutes, my proverbial clock reads, indicating the length of time I’ve spent on Mazabukan soil.

I did not even notice the hours, the days, the weeks…the month…passing by. I guess that means that, somehow, I am managing to make something productive of my time here. Perhaps, I am even beginning to “grow where I am planted”. (I’m not quite near the “blooming” stage yet). I do know, however, that this is only the beginning, and that there will be a lot more sowing, pruning and uprooting that will take place before I bear fruit in this land.

All of these seem strangely familiar though. It feels like I have walked this road before—only in a different time and place.

~*~*~*~*~

5,256,000 minutes—this represents the time that has passed since I had my initial “uprooting” from everything I’ve known and loved. From that first time I gave my ultimate “Yes” during JVP Batch 18’s Misa ng Pagsusugo to a life of volunteer service, I never really looked back. Somehow, every life decision I’ve made throughout the years flows from that definitive experience of pruning, growing and, eventually, blooming, that I had 10 years ago in Bulan.

Hence, here I am, a decade later, still believing that the seeds that have been, and will still be planted, hold future promise.

Bulan. Manila. Mazabuka. It doesn’t matter where. It only matters why and how.

It is, after all, the same road—only, in a different time and place.

~pol 5/24/07; 10:07pm