Random Access Memory

I’ve lots of random memories. Many of these only make sense to me.

Like that one weekend in late 1995. 

Here’s what I see in my head: it’s afternoon, and I’m walking with an uncle who is a priest along the street of my childhood home. We’re on our way to Megamall to watch Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas’s movie Assassins. Both of us were wearing a t-shirt, khaki shorts, white socks, and white sneakers.

Now, for a little context.

In elementary, I pestered my parents to allow me to study in my father’s hometown, Borongan, Eastern Samar. I spent many summers there and in my mother’s hometown in nearby Sulat, and fell in love with life in the province because most of my cousins lived there, the pace of life was slower, and being away from my parents gave me the kind of freedom I didn’t have at home.

They eventually gave in on the condition that I study at the Seminario de Jesus Nazareno, a seminary for high schoolers. In 1995, my uncle was in his last school year there as the rector.

Back to the random memory.

As we walked that afternoon, he asked me why I wanted to enter the seminary. I want to become a priest, I told him.

Looking back, I probably said that just so I could finally leave home. But at the time, it felt like an earnest reply.

Either way, there began my four-year adventure living, praying, playing, and growing up with erstwhile strangers in a building at the edge of a sleepy town that faced the Pacific.

This post is part of a weekly series about my life at the Seminario de Jesus Nazareno called “Seminary Days 1996-2000”. Until next time!