I started reading when I was five. My auntie, who lived right next door, bought a copy of Bisaya magazine every week, and I treated those issues like buried treasure. She kept them stacked neatly on a wooden rack in her living room. I’d sneak in, pull one out, then another, until the whole pile came tumbling down around me.
I’d panic a little, scrambling to stack them back in order so she wouldn’t notice, but the evidence was always there: pages creased, covers softened from too many eager hands, some stories reread so often the words felt like old friends.
There was a small plaza more than 600 meters away, where other kids stayed after school, running wild until the sky turned orange and the streetlights came on.
My sibling and I weren’t allowed that freedom. Stay out even a minute past sunset, and you’d come home to the sharp sting of a silhig lukay: the broom made from dried coconut leaves that every Filipino kid grew up dreading. My mother’s anger was swift and unmistakable, so we stayed close to home.
Home became my entire world. While other kids played in the streets, I disappeared into books and pages. I read anything I could find: borrowed books, the backs of canned goods when nothing else was around, even the old newspapers used to wrap dried fish. You know, the ones that smelled faintly of salt and smoke. I’d smooth them out and read every word. It didn’t matter if the pages were greasy or torn; if there were letters on it, I was reading it.
Drawing was my also constant companion. I was especially good at faces, working with charcoal until the paper was covered in smudged shadows and sharp expressions.
Full figures were always anime characters: Son Goku with his wild hair and determined eyes, Vegeta, Piccolo, the whole Dragon Ball cast coming to life under my hands.
A classmate who owned a guitar taught me my first chords. I’d linger after class or during breaks, watching his fingers, trying to copy the way he strummed simple songs.
Chess came from a kind neighbor who would visit our house, bringing his worn chessboard and patiently teaching me the moves: how the knight jumps, how the queen commands the board and all.
On some visits, he’d let me borrow his guitar too. I’d sit on the floor or the porch steps, fumbling with the strings, teaching myself chords by ear and strumming simple melodies until my fingers hurt.
And maybe that’s why I grew up happy being alone. Solitude never felt like punishment to me. It felt familiar, safe, full of things to explore.
While the world outside was loud and unpredictable, the world inside was mine. Books, drawings, music, imagination: those were my companions long before adulthood taught me to value silence. I didn’t grow up lonely. I grew up with myself.
And in the end, being with myself turned out to be more than enough.
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