condomisms: tales of a protected and numbed life

I wonder where you are
I wonder if you think about me
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams

- In your Wildest Dreams, Moody Blues

I’m not sure how or why, but this morning, I woke up with “Wild World” by Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam) stuck in my head. As I searched my iPod for the tune, I chanced upon the quoted song above from the Moody Blues, and it brought back long-forgotten memories. I recalled how I absolutely adored this song back when I was an awkward junior at an all-boys Catholic high school in the capital city of the Philippines.

As I reminisced about those days of yore, the feeling of repression resurfaced as I recalled how I had to spend the majority of my days exclusively in the company of other boys. It felt like I was in a torturous incubation area for guilt-ridden, post-pubescent males. Especially at the age when boys’ hormones were at the peak of their volatility, such surroundings did not align with my ideal of an enclave conducive to pursuits of young love and other misadventures. I’m certain most of my fellow students felt the same way. As a reprieve from our homogeneous environment, and to keep us all relatively sane, we held parties, or “soirees” as we preferred to call them — feigning French to bring an amorous flair to the event, I guess — so we can meet and mingle with the delightful creatures of the opposite sex.

Typically, our class would pair up with an equivalent class at an all-girls Catholic school, who we wished to the high heavens — possibly the only time we prayed without being told to do so — felt as repressed as we did. It was in one of these soirees where I met Rachel.

The first time I saw her, she looked wonderfully angelic (Thank you, high heavens!): Long, black hair; sweet, innocent smile; coy, alluring eyes; quiet and introverted demeanor. I sensed a sleeping volcano in my midst, much like myself, waiting to be awoken from an uneventful existence. Luckily, my partner in crime — I believe this was just before Top Gun, so “wingman” probably wasn’t used in the sidekick sense yet — was equally enamored with Rachel’s cohort, so it was a winning pairing for us both.

I don’t remember much else that happened at that soiree–no recollection whatsoever of fumbling introductions, small talk, nor awkward silences, though I’m sure all of that occurred. I did end up with Rachel’s phone number somehow. Days after the soiree, I vaguely remember calling her once, but again, details of our exchange escape my fickle memory. We never ended up going on a date or anything like that. In fact, I don’t think we ever spoke after that phone call. For one reason or another, she just turned into one of the countless could-have-beens that were all too common for the timid, adolescent version of myself.

It was around this time that the Moody Blues song became popular, and every time it played on 99.5RT, my favorite radio station growing up, I would think about Rachel and couldn’t help but wonder if she did “think about me in her wildest dreams.”

I eventually crossed paths with Rachel again a few months after our phone call. It was during one of those school fairs wherein the school grounds turned into an amusement park with rides and booths and such. Such fairs were common at the private schools in Manila, and each school typically had one every year. For this particular occasion, I was at Rachel’s campus. She did not see me, at least I didn’t think so. I did see her face, and specifically noted her eyes; they looked different from the demure ones etched in my memory. I watched her walking away from me, hand-in-hand with another girl, as they got lost in a sea of other uniformed boys and girls reveling in the fleeting gloriousness of youth.

If I did muster the courage that day to approach her and ask if she ever thought about me, I take it Rachel would have replied, “In your wildest dreams.” Some questions are better left unasked.