NASCENCE WRITTEN BY MARIA YSABELLA Y. GONZALES
All beginnings begin with an end, and all endings end with a beginning; each one bearing a promise and unwavering trust in what’s coming. In a future from that day forth, in forests filled with pine trees in the north: There lies serotinous cones ever waiting to bloom, fearing the risk of death when born too soon. Emerging at the first sign of warmth and light, searching for survivors at the end of the fight. They preserve and nourish life in patience, and mightily flourish in its unsettling absence. Covered by the shadows of their ancestors no more – their wings have grown; they are ready to soar.
Everyone sees their future differently. When I was seven years old, I was keen on becoming a scientist. I believed that I could create and discover inventions from the palms of my hands. Now, at fifteen years old, that imaginative will has turned into naivety. Everyone sees their future differently. When I was seven years old, I saw the future as it is: a reality I knew I had to face. At fifteen years old, I know that the future is just as how I thought it would be. I just underestimated how hard it would be to accept. There are stages to growing up that are exposed to us ever since we were young, and our lives, to an extent, are planned out for us by these common grounds. We leap rapidly from high school, to university, then towards the pursuit of careers. Gone are
For as the forests had once burned with raging fires, sentenced by nature like witches on a pyre, their seeds have fallen, they are stagnant no longer, as they rise from their ashes, a million times stronger.
the baby steps and milk teeth, and here come the terrifying changes that will shape us as people. Terrifying enough to instill in us that mistakes cannot afford to be made. There is a culture that comes with studying for CETs, the endless cycle of procrastination and cramming, and dealing with the “real world,”. aim isn’t to mitigate these experiences, but to make us deal with them. Power through it. Smile and grit our teeth through the pain. That approach to reality ties in well with growing up in and of itself. There is no flowery metaphor that can encompass the highs and lows of growing up. There is no way to sugarcoat reality in all of its cracks and imperfections. Just as nature will not wait for anyone, it will not stop for anyone as well. A harsh reality it is, but a harsh reality it has always been. It is just a matter of whether or not we will ourselves to take the step that will make us stride across the moon.
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LITERARY
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