2012 Game Plan

My goal for my 30th birthday is to save Php 200,000++ for a trip to London and maybe part of Europe. I already did the hard math and figured out that I would need to save Php 6,000 per month to reach my goal. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? Rrrrright. Let me just put that aside right after I buy the Rolls Royce and the vacation house in Cebu.

God, what happened? I’m hitting 28 in a few more days and I’m disillusioned to say the least. Ten years ago, I thought 28 was ancient and I would have my own car by now, living a fast-paced jetsetter lifestyle as an international development consultant, and engaged. Age does skew things a bit, doesn’t it? Now, barely a week before the calendar awards me another year, all I have is an ailing laptop, a days-old half-eaten croissant, and lots of bills to pay.

I’m tired of being “on a limited budget”. I have to unlearn creating an adverse correlation between poverty and happiness. Because not doing something I hate does make me relatively happier than my deadline-ridden friends, but it also means cutting some dreams to size because of limited resources.

I could simplify my dreams, true. But somehow Hongkong doesn’t quite cut it for London, a new MRT line passing in front of our village is not quite the Honda I want, and my Parisian slip-ons doesn’t exactly feel like Rockport.

I do recognize my blessings: my own house full to the ceiling with books, a job I like (sometimes), enough household income to keep us afloat and then some, friends who are generous when you can’t quite pay for the extra order of pasta, and cable TV. What else could a girl want? But surely one is allowed to want one impossible dream at a time? Surely, there must be more?

I hope the Fates and Madame Fortune won’t take it against me if I make a stand, right here, right now. Look, Tyche, the last 3 years when the landscape of my life was drastically altered by the demise of important personages, I’ve sacrificed a lot of dreams just to stay afloat. But seeing the world -- swear to Jupiter and his seven hundred harems -- can’t, won’t, shan’t be one of them. Now, c’mon, won’t you give me a chance?