A Meeting of Souls « jenjuansamplearticles

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A Meeting of Souls

April 2, 2008

You know that famous song SUNSCREEN ( well it used to be famous, considering what kinds of music kids are into these days) where the singer mentioned that the most interesting 40 year old folks he knows still don’t know what to do with their life? Well, here are two interesting 30 year old yuppies who may seem happy and successful as if the whole world is at their feet, but in actuality, they’re just like everybody else, struggling to find out who they really are and enjoying (sometimes depressing) themselves in the process.

It was a rather cold and wet early morning. The sun was about to rise and everything outside the glass enclosure was misty and beautiful. Julie was craving for her usual dose of nicotine paired with a cup of strong coffee. It doesn’t really help her wake up since caffeine has the opposite effect on her. At least it would help her put everything back into proper perspective. However, considering that she just quit her high-powered career in the world of law and politics and left everything she thought was her entire universe, she couldn’t really get much clearer than this.

Julie has always been the artistic type. She used to paint, play her music, create beautiful things, even sing and dance in her earlier adolescent years. She even looked the part, with her flowing dark curly hair, perfect honey complexion, hazel almond eyes, long eyelashes, aquiline nose and small heart-shaped red lips, you can mistake her to be Megan Fox’s twin sister. But all that Bohemian look and lifestyle were laid to rest the moment she followed her father’s wishes and became a lawyer. It’s not that she didn’t love the challenge and it’s not like she doesn’t have the drive. But after studying a total of 25 years and participating in the roller coaster ride of red tape and politics for a while now, she has had enough. Her soul was crying for freedom. Her spirit couldn’t be bound no more. And so she quit. Just like that, she filed for early retirement. The little separation pay she got from her big time stint as a corporate lawyer in one of the more well-known branches of our government institutions, she gave to her dad and brother to set up some small-time internet café business and the rest was set aside for some adventure that was yet to unfold. One of which was this spontaneous desire to leave the city, without any specific plan whatsoever, but to just be. For once, she just wants to live in the moment and soak everything in. No more worrying about what the future would hold. No more regrets of how she handled things in the past. Just be.

Julie has always been the obedient and good daughter. She has always been aware of their dire financial situation and therefore maintained a simple lifestyle. When she was a student, she aced all her classes and led numerous school organizations. Her life was school and home. When she started to work, paperwork buried her deep on her desk and oftentimes bring home her work. She has few friends and no leisure. It was all work and home for her, helping out her blind dad with the household chores when she can and motivating her brother (who recently became a single parent after impregnating his wild girlfriend who left him for a foreign guy) to finish his studies even in his late twenties.

She was jolted from her reverie when this Arab/Indian/Malaysian-looking guy suddenly asked for some light. She was after all, in a smoking lounge at the airport, trying to get her nicotine fix before they make their last call for boarding.

This guy is by no means ugly. It’s just that at first look, you’d really get confused with his nationality. He is cute though, in a boy toy kind of way. He was just a little overweight, sporting a semi-bald head, dark-skinned, with the most intense eyes you could ever see. You wouldn’t think that this guy is actually very gentle and funny. From afar, one could mistake him for a mugger or even a terrorist. It’s a good thing that he knows his way around eccentric looking women and given the fact that he has a gift for gab , after a few minutes in conversation with this guy, you’d actually begin to see him in a new light. Like an angel, perhaps? A handsome angel? Okay, that’s a bit too much. How about a charming angel? There you go.

Let’s call him John. He is a very bright guy who seems to have a good grasp about life in general and seems to know almost anything and everything under the sun. His classmates back in college didn’t call him a walking encyclopedia for nothing. From aliens, to the secrets of Christianity, to stocks, finances and the latest US elections and state of politics all over the world, to useless trivia such as the lost cities of Atlantis and Amazon. He is like a walking encyclopedia, or more appropriately, a walking Wikipedia since we’re already living in the 21^st century. Anyway, back to John, who would’ve thought that once in his life, he had a psychological breakdown and had to take Prozac to keep himself sane? He had chances of finishing his bachelors as mag na cum laude but actually gave in to his schizophrenia months before graduating, went into hiding and tried to kill himself several times? And now, despite everything that has happened in the past, John is the more solid of these two interesting characters here, with a clear career path right before him, while Julie is the one in limbo and is actually thinking of death every once in a while. And of all places, by the hand of fate, these two striking personalities somehow crossed their path in this smok-filled bar unknowingly commencing their extraordinary journey together… a journey into the heart and into the soul.