When my life seemed easier before, I became addicted to drawing as if it was a form of new language I'd been learning. Despite my lack of experience and knowledge of it, I could say that my young self's art style was still a kind of beauty created from the 'strategic uncertainty' I had and could, at least, communicate a message to its viewers. I don't even know if it is appropriate to call myself an artist because I only rely on the visual harmony created by my randomness, but when I fail it, I throw it.

If drawing something was a friend of mine, probably, nightmares were then my worst childhood enemy. I have always hated waking up from the worst scenario I dreamt of and realizing the possibilities my nightmares hold. I guess I had a paranoid childhood because I never dream about zombies, ghosts, and boogyman back then, but I often get nightmares about failing my grades, mourning over the dead, and living my life on bankruptcy. I swear I have always feared these things that my practical parents always warned me about. They said adulthood might seem fancier to a child's dream but it is the most unexpected area of your life that you would fear walking into again. My daddy often says that adage of: "Papunta ka pa lang, pero pabalik na kami." (trans: You're still about to get there, but we are already returning).

Now that I am in my seventeenth year of life, a thought crossed my mind to combine that randomness and my childhood nightmares on a sheet of paper. I wanted to see how creative I could be and to share my nightmares with Hive. If only my young self did this before, he could have tamed his fears better, not growing into some sort of unhealthy overthinking I have nowadays. Here are, maybe, my three worst childhood nightmares:

One morning during my kinder years, I woke up from a nightmare where I stood among the crowd wearing black and surrounding a coffin. That coffin had my mother's body, and as a group of strangers de-escalated it into the pit, I could feel sorrow and discomfort in me as a child who knew nothing and never experienced that kind of grief.

In my eyes, I have always seen my mother as the stereotypical vessel of all universal comfort, love, and home. She is, in fact, someone who can understand you and be there whenever you are at your worst point of life, but knowing she is gone, makes me uncomfortable in a stranger world.

After I woke up from that terrible scene, I saw my mother alive, knitting her clothes. I told her about what I had seen in my sleep, and she taught me that whenever a nightmare visits, I have to bite the four corners of my room and whisper "simba ko, palayo" right away (trans: I pray for it to be far). It is what she does always whenever an unpleasant nightmare visits her.

However, as I grew up, I realized what that "practice" of "simba ko, palayo" means. It prays the tragedy to be "far", but the tragedy is still there, waiting for its time to come true in the future. And I... don't even know how to be emotionally prepared for that.

In my fourth grade's nightmare, there was allegedly a store extended beside our house, and my girl cousin was there.

When a fire broke out, my father quickly rushed inside to save my cousin, but he didn't know that she already escaped. He was left there, being burned into the huge flame and locked into the fallen debris. His face started to show that layer of muscle and bone as if he was a candle man whose wax melted away due to heat.

Consumed by a mixture of anxiety and dread, I quickly rushed to the neighborhood's garden to retrieve a water hose so I could aid the fire. My solution didn't work, and I felt so helpless that I didn't know what to do. That nightmare... that terrible nightmare might be telling that some tragedies are often meant to happen.

When I entered high school, I found some philosophy in that dream. It taught me to value my father more (whom I have seen as scary before) and to remember the sentimental value of each thing, each experience, but it paired me with an unusual anxiety each night.

Whenever my father snores, I always wake him up in fear that he might choke from it and die of suffocation. It happens almost every night, and I worry about it because my father is always a tired man from work. And before I sleep, I check every plugging outlet in our house just to make sure if everything's all right. I don't want my family to flee the streets and be homeless if ever a house fire becomes uncontrollable.

This behavior became an early mark to me that preventing the possible tragedies is a must in life. We didn't know when will it happen, so we have to stay vigilant and live in our silent anxiety. Sometimes... it becomes unhealthy that you can't help yourself but overthink.

I don't really hate the town where I live. In fact, I don't hate anything about my life, but I'm anxious of something-- my future.

I'm a seventeen-year-old teenager whose current battle is between passion and practicality.

First, passion. I want to be a writer, but in my scholarship, I am obliged to enroll into science-related courses only.

Second, practicality. My parents want me to become a nurse because of demand abroad, but I don't want to enter that path.

It's a difficult life situation that my elders often advise me that don't think of these courses because the final decision is still in the future and we don't know what will happen as per God's will, but I know that advice made a lot of lives miserable. Some people earn sums of money, but they don't enjoy what they're doing. Some people have low incomes and can't pay basic expenses, but they are in their dream jobs. Many Filipino kids are confused of what to take in their future and how to do it, and annually, a part of high school graduates end up working in Seven-Eleven stores or gas stations.

In my childhood nightmare (around 12-year-old. I still do look at this age as a part of my childhood), I found myself returning to my old school in Davao City after deciding to quit my current scholarship in Dipolog City. I thought it's a good choice to make because I get to pursue literature, but my nightmare showed me that my life became a laughing-stock.

The townspeople gossiped that I lost my scholarship because of bad grades.

My parents even expressed their disappointment of me leaving such promising opportunity behind. My mother said that I became a "panakot sa bata" (trans: "scary story for a child"-- In Filipino contemporary culture, some elders often tell the life and background story of other people, such as neighbors and relatives, to make them bad examples to their children. For example, that "teenage mother", who lives next door, is often used to scare little girls about having sex at an early age. )

I realized that I can never be sure of following between practicality and passion, so I ran away and never knew where I went into. Maybe, somewhere far. Somewhere people would never find me crying about my life choices ended up failing. Then, I woke up from the bed and thought of my future, again and again. As if it's something great to be prepared of. As if it's the only thing I am about to face tomorrow.