If you asked me who I was at the start of the year when we were living life like it was meant to be lived, I couldn’t tell you.

That person in the chilly evenings of January is nothing now but a shell of myself.  It was laughable— the way I let the world bully me into submission.  The earth treated me like I was some sort of victim that it could just toy around with.

And I didn’t just let it happen, I allowed it.

It was March when the news trickled in about the big hairy enemy we’re still facing to this day: coronavirus.

I remember reading about lockdowns and cases spiking and just being in awe of the whole thing. It never occurred to me, the gravity of it all. The pandemic was nothing but a novelty that would go away after two months at most.

I didn’t realize how much it would shake up the world.

So much that even the pavement I used to walk on Marcos Highway feels so foreign to me now. How something as mundane as picking vegetables in the grocery has become deplorable. But the biggest surprise was how much it would shake me up.

Early in the year, I let the world bully me into submission.

It was April and I felt my mind going to dark places.

I mean, it was nothing new but there was nothing to look forward to when I woke up in the morning. Who are we to turn to when the people who are supposed to help are the ones tightening the rope around our neck?

I had already carved a path in my head on how I was gonna be standing in the sun at the end of it all. But the days have been anything but sunny and breezy. Every day, it seems like there’s a new reason to be furious at Him. I was never a religious person but I always made it a point to be thankful and pray before going to sleep.

How was I going to do that when people around me were dying?

People who were nicer, people who had mouths to feed, and people who were never given a fair chance at life?

I wish I’d wake up one day to my privilege being stolen from me, by a thief in the night who had no choice to do it if he wanted his baby to live. Like some sort of Robin Hood who steals privilege but has good intentions.

It was May, and the world was still burning.

Everything in its path caught on fire, and the firemen have given up trying to put it out. Instead, they kept asking for money from other grander and richer fire stations. Not to get more fire trucks or fire hoses mind you, but to dine in Michelin-star restaurants.

When you’ve boxed yourself in as a victim for so long in your life, it’s hard to get out. At some point though, by hook or by crook, you are going to break. There wasn’t really anything that triggered me, but rather a series of small events.

Early in the year, I let the world bully me into submission. But I’ve had enough.  

Locked in the house for days, I was seated with people who didn’t care. It’s hard to have the mind of a young dreamer when you’re surrounded by those who only got furious about how undercooked or overcooked the food on the table was. They didn’t even give a damn that the unlucky ones didn’t have food… or a table.

My dignity? I never had it.

Their respect? I don’t want it.

Peace? Not with rich people who only cared about rich problems.

It was June, and I only found myself getting angrier.

The world wasn’t the one pushing me around anymore, but a bunch of armed old men who got off on inciting fear. And somewhere along the way, I started the discovery process of my identity as a brown man.

Even when George Floyd and Breonna Taylor lived a million miles away, the pain was felt strongly in my heart.

But I knew that anger alone wasn’t healthy for me. It was so unlike me.

That’s when I rediscovered my passion for writing.

And through the things I wrote, I was able to convey my thoughts as articulately as I could. I was and am not a writer by any means because that sounds too pretentious a term for someone who just needs an emotional outlet.

It was July and I felt the anger inside me start to go to my brain, and not my heart like it used to.

When I said something, it was because I knew I had a point. I was becoming more confident and sure, and I knew that I didn’t need to apologize for anything I said because I meant it.

They saw shades of the angry brown boy who spoke too much about politics on Twitter. I wasn’t gonna give them an out by keeping quiet on their problematic rhetoric like I used to.

If there’s anything I learned throughout this hellish year, it’s that being outspoken takes you places, takes you there quicker. I did catch myself wondering “what the hell did I just say” too many times than I can count.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve become too fearless for my own good.

And sometimes, I feel like I’ve become too mean. But I tell myself that the anger I feel is justified.

In any case, if God forbid I regret the person I’ve grown up to be, I can always blame it on the pandemic.

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