I want to live for at least a year in Manhattan; at least 2 years in London; at least another 2 in Paris; 5 years in Rome; 2 years in Athens; 3 years in Kyoto; 2 in Tokyo; a year in Cairo; another year in Jerusalem; and lastly another 2 years touring the Caribbean and South America.

That amounts to 21 years of my life. Two decades… I’m already 23. I have yet to work and earn my own salary. I still have two more years of schooling, at least a year or two of interning and reviewing for the board exam. By that time I’ll be around 27 years old. If I work my butt off from then on for at least a decade maybe then I’ll be able to save enough to travel and live in the places I mentioned above.

Maybe.

That means I’ll be 37 by the time I get to travel like I dream to do… So technically, if I go ahead with this plan of mine, it would mean that my life would only truly start at around 40.

How cliché… gah…

My other plan is to still save loads of money then buy a huge plot of land somewhere in Tagaytay or Baguio, have a villa built on that land that will double as a library open to the public where I’ll hire a couple of stay-in professors to help me teach street children for free.

That seems like a better goal, isn’t it? A hell of a lot more altruistic than the first one where only I would benefit.

And I’m planning these things without any regard whatsoever about whether I’ll marry and have children sometime during all those years. Well, I probably won’t have a husband and kids. I really can’t see myself going the wifely way. I’m just not wife material, I guess. Been told otherwise by a few guys but I really don’t want to think about their saying so.

Went to the burol of a cousin (on my father’s side) last Friday. He was 39 years old, had a girlfriend of 12 years and they were planning on finally getting married this year. He died of course so that’s that. Imagine… 12 years… then poof, he’s gone, just like that. I never met him while he was alive. Didn’t even know he existed until Mom hauled me to his burol. I’ve a thing about my relatives on my father’s side. My thing is that I couldn’t care less if they’re still alive or not. Long story behind that, some of you know it already. Anyway, my mind got slightly changed about them when I heard about my dead cousin and his gf. Wow. The gf was there, saw her sitting beside the coffin just staring at him. I know, I know… kinda creepy the way she was just sitting there, looking lifeless and all, but the thing is, back when I was watching her I didn’t get weirded out (ngayon lang while I’m typing this, but not that much pa rin). Instead I realized that I don’t think I am capable of loving someone as much as she so obviously loved my cousin. I’m just too… self absorbed. Fine, selfish. I admit that. Hey, I have an excuse: I’m an only child. People like me; we tend to be just a bit self-centered.

Maybe that’s why I have two dreams… one where I want to travel by myself and enjoy life as much as I possibly can considering I’m planning to work my ass off to save money just so I can travel; while the other dream of building the library/villa is my own way of saving myself from my own self-centeredness; sure I’ll still be slaving trying to save every centavo for the next several years but heck, if I spend it all on something that would last longer than me and can help other people change their lives for the better, then who am I to not want to do that?

Errr… am I even making any sense?

I want to be able to do both, but I really think that wouldn’t be possible. Unless some miracle happened – like winning the lottery or meeting a billionaire who suddenly wills everything he owns over to me and dies the very next week after he signs the will… miracles like that.