Of provincial roads, unwelcome dreams, and the irritating habit of remembering someone best forgotten.

There is something deeply suspicious about a beautiful afternoon arriving on a day when your emotions have decided to behave like an overdramatic teleserye. The sky is perfectly agreeable, the trees are minding their own business, and the mountains appear to have arranged themselves for a landscape painting. Meanwhile, inside your head, an entire cast of unresolved feelings is auditioning for a tragedy nobody has asked to watch. I find this rather inconsiderate of nature. If I must suffer through an emotionally complicated day, surely the weather could at least have the decency to look miserable. But no. The sun continues shining, birds continue singing, and the world carries on with its usual business, completely indifferent to the fact that somebody’s daughter is having a personal crisis.

Today, I was on my way home to our province, watching the scenery unfold beyond the road. There were stretches of green, distant hills, and those familiar landscapes that make travelling through Cebu such a pleasure. Every now and then, the view was so lovely that I wanted to interrupt whatever thoughts were occupying my mind and simply admire it. The countryside has a wonderful talent for making even an ordinary journey feel like an invitation to reconsider one’s priorities.

And goodness, was it beautiful!

I have travelled this way before, yet there are moments when familiar places seem determined to introduce themselves all over again. Perhaps it is the light falling differently on the mountains, or the way the trees appear to stretch towards the afternoon sky. Perhaps I am simply becoming more observant. Whatever the reason, I found myself quietly thanking God for the scenery, for the privilege of seeing something beautiful without having to purchase a ticket, and for the existence of a world considerably larger than the problems currently occupying my imagination.

I took photographs, naturally. A beautiful view deserves to be remembered, particularly when the photographer happens to be a sentimental young woman with a camera and an occasionally excessive appreciation for dramatic landscapes.

For a little while, the countryside succeeded in distracting me. I watched the changing view, admired the greenery, and entertained the pleasant possibility that perhaps the rest of my day would proceed without further emotional complications.

Unfortunately, my memory had other plans.

You see, I had woken up feeling rather strange because of a dream. Not a particularly pleasant dream, either. It involved somebody from my past whom I had been trying, with varying degrees of success, to stop thinking about.

And before anybody begins making assumptions, no, I am not talking about my crush.

Goodness. Must everything involve a crush?

This was somebody from an earlier chapter of my life, someone whose memory apparently possessed a remarkable ability to reappear without permission. I had thought that enough time had passed for the past to remain where it belonged. After all, I had other concerns, other plans, and an entire future requiring my attention. Surely my mind had more productive things to do than resurrect old feelings while I was peacefully sleeping.

Apparently not.

The dream had felt convincing enough to disturb me, and waking up did very little to improve the situation. Instead of disappearing with the morning, it followed me into the day like an unwelcome visitor who had mistaken a brief appearance for an invitation to stay.

How irritating.

I had not planned to spend the afternoon thinking about that person. In fact, I had made the rather sensible decision to avoid discussing the matter altogether. But there is something particularly frustrating about attempting to forget somebody. The more determined you become to remove a thought from your mind, the more frequently it seems to return, almost as though your brain considers the instruction a personal challenge.

Do not think about this person.

Very well, says the brain. Here is a dream featuring exactly that person.

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.

I would like to believe that I am a reasonably sensible individual. I understand that people come and go, that circumstances change, and that some relationships belong more comfortably to memory than to the present. I know that yesterday cannot be revisited in the hope of rearranging events into a more favourable ending.

Yet knowing something intellectually does not always prevent the heart from making a complete nuisance of itself.

Perhaps that is why I remembered a line from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in which Alice explains that she cannot return to yesterday because she was a different person then.

I rather like that thought.

There is a curious comfort in recognising that the person we used to be is not necessarily the person we remain. Yesterday’s decisions belonged to someone who understood the world through yesterday’s knowledge. Yesterday’s feelings were experienced by someone who had not yet encountered everything that would follow. And yesterday’s disappointments, however significant they appeared at the time, do not automatically deserve permanent authority over tomorrow.

Still, I wonder whether becoming a different person means we must stop remembering who we once were.

I do not think so.

There are memories that return unexpectedly through a familiar song, a particular place, or a dream that seems determined to spoil an otherwise perfectly pleasant morning. Their appearance does not necessarily mean we want the past restored. Sometimes a memory is simply a memory, arriving because the mind has never been especially interested in asking permission.

Perhaps I should stop treating every unexpected recollection as evidence that I have failed to move forward.

After all, I can remember an old examination without wishing to sit for it again. I can think fondly of childhood without wanting to return to a world where my mother controls my bedtime. And I can remember somebody from my past without wanting that person to occupy the same place in my present.

That sounds perfectly reasonable when written down.

Whether my emotions intend to cooperate is another matter entirely.

As I continued travelling, I found myself looking at the scenery with renewed interest. The road curved through the landscape, sometimes revealing a wide view of the countryside and sometimes disappearing behind the next bend. It occurred to me that I had travelled along roads like this countless times without demanding to know everything waiting ahead.

I simply trusted that the road would continue.

Human relationships, unfortunately, are not quite as cooperative. We want explanations, assurances, and some indication of how things will eventually turn out. We want to know why someone entered our life, why circumstances changed, and why certain memories continue to occupy space long after the people associated with them have gone elsewhere.

And when those explanations are unavailable, we sometimes invent our own.

I have probably done that more often than I care to admit.

There were moments when I wanted to understand everything, to reconstruct old conversations and discover whether a different word or decision might have produced another outcome. But I am beginning to suspect that some questions survive precisely because they have no satisfactory answer.

Perhaps a little uncertainty is simply part of being human.

I cannot control what appears in my dreams. I cannot instruct my memory to erase everything inconvenient. And I certainly cannot revisit yesterday to negotiate a better arrangement with somebody who belongs there.

What I can do is recognise when a thought has occupied enough of my day.

Besides, the mountains outside deserve considerably more attention than a person who is not even present to appreciate them.

There. I said it.

I feel slightly better already.

Of course, this entire reflection is becoming rather ridiculous considering that I began writing with the firm intention of avoiding drama. I distinctly remember deciding that I would not discuss what had upset me, only to spend several paragraphs doing precisely that.

Congratulations, Anj. An extraordinary demonstration of self-discipline.

Perhaps this is what happens when you give a sentimental person access to a blog. She announces that certain matters are private, proceeds to discuss them at considerable length, and then congratulates herself for exercising restraint because she has deliberately omitted the most interesting details.

But I suppose writing has always been one of my favourite ways of making sense of things.

Sometimes I write because I have something important to say. Other times, I write because my thoughts have become sufficiently noisy that transferring them onto a page seems preferable to allowing them to continue arguing inside my head.

Today appears to be the second kind.

I do not know whether tomorrow will be any different. Perhaps I will wake up feeling wonderfully indifferent to the entire matter. Perhaps the dream will become another strange little incident I eventually forget. Or perhaps I will remember it again and roll my eyes at the astonishing persistence of my subconscious mind.

Whatever happens, I have decided that I am not going to spend the remainder of this beautiful day entertaining somebody who exists here only as a memory.

There are better things to do.

I have a province to come home to, photographs to admire, and a teleserye waiting for my attention. Unlike the drama currently occupying my personal life, the drama on television at least has the courtesy to provide a commercial break.

And perhaps that is quite enough philosophy for one afternoon.

As I look once more at the photographs I took along the journey, I notice how the road disappears into the distance. Somewhere beyond the part captured by my camera, it continues towards places the photograph cannot show.

I rather like that.

Yesterday may have followed me into my dreams, but it has not accompanied me all the way home.

The road, at least, knows the difference between passing through a place and remaining there.

Now, excuse me. My teleserye is about to begin, and I have already devoted far too much time to a drama that does not even have a decent soundtrack.

Hala, shunga ka talaga, Anj. Hahaha!

From an afternoon of provincial scenery, unexpected memories, and a very unsuccessful attempt to avoid discussing my feelings.

— Just Anj, who would now very much appreciate a dreamless night’s sleep.