Just a Little Too Late
By Mona, age 17, Philippines
It's a new year, time to start over. I had lots of fun spending the holidays with my family and friends. Now it's time for me to get back to the reality of facing school and all its problems. Back to long tests, papers, and listening to the teacher.
I look back to 2008. My life was a whirlwind. I can't imagine a year has passed. Time does fly very fast. I had my heart broken over the past year, and I want to start over this year. I have been liking this guy. (Remember my October 2008 article "Just a Fan"?) Well, this year, I have decided to step up and make things happen. I don't want to be a fan anymore. I'm sick of having to look at him in awe every time he passes in the school corridors. I'm sick of having to know more about him through magazines. I want to know him personally.
When you read stuff about someone in a magazine or on the net, a lot of people can see it. I want to know a secret about him. I want to be his friend. I have thought about ways to become friends with him, but every time I start devising a plan something always gets in the way. "It's too hard," I say. My friends encourage me to just go up to him and talk, but the last time I recalled, this isn't my fantasy dream, it's the real world. And in the real world, things don't always end the way you want them to end. You have to go and do something about it if you want to make things happen.
So there I was on the first day of school after our Christmas break, ready to face the world with the new me. The me who plans to step up and talk to the guy I have been looking at for so many months now. The guy who has been in my dreams since the first time I saw him. I looked for him all over the campus. Finally my friend shouted, and I turned and faced her.
And there he was. My practiced lines were running through my head as I slowly approached him, and then it happened. He turned and he was talking to a girl. She was a pretty girl. Maybe the kind of girl he'd fall for. Not someone like me who was far from the looks of that girl. She was smiling, and twirling her hair as he stood in front of her smiling and laughing. They picked up their bags and walked away together. I felt my heart break. That's it. I was too late.
