Sticky Tales

Back when I was younger, I used to frequent this school and office supply store called M.Y. Enterprises in our hometown Cotabato City. I would walk along its aisles admiring stuff I couldn't afford to buy.

See, every start of the school year, my grandmother would prepare my annual hoard of school supplies: a pencil, an eraser, x number of notebooks for x number of subjects, plastic cover, scotch tape, one whole intermediate pad. What I receive on June is expected to last until March of next year. This explains why after the third month is up, I can be seen roaming around the classroom before a quiz, asking my classmates for a sheet of paper or an extra pen. 

I was provided the most basic thing a pupil should have. No pastel crayons, no fancy pattern-making scissors, no coloring books. I remember throwing a mini-party inside my head that time my grandma bought me a 12-colors crayola set. Turns out, she mistook it for the 8-colors one and she cannot return it to the store because I've already opened the box.

All of these I did not mind.; except for one thing which I have always longed for: a sticker notebook.

I first learned about its existence when I was seven and I longed for it until I was fourteen. Of course, I could not ask my grandmother to buy me those. As young as I was, I knew that it is a want and not a need. Hence, I made do with visiting M.Y. every other day looking at the shelves for the newest stickers in town. I'd run my tiny fingers over the spines of piled up sticker notebooks and dream of the day when I would be able to get myself one.

There was this one sticker notebook I particularly liked. It was thick and had a really pretty cover design. Seventy pesos may not seem much; but for a child with a daily allowance of ten pesos, it meant a fortune and a hundred reminders of "It's okay. You don't need that, anyway".

I would repeat this reminder like a mantra over the course of my life.

"It's okay. You don't need that, anyway."

I would repeat this again and again until I accept it. The words would run like a marquee around my head, its echo bouncing against the corners of my mind. Each bounce pushing that childhood want further and further unto the back of my mind until I will no longer remember what it is that I yearned for.

Earlier this evening, Tet, Carla, and I passed by a store selling unnecessary supplies for upper-middle income gradeschoolers. I felt giddy for a moment. But the giddiness died too soon. A faint echo of "you don't need that anyway" grows louder by the minute.

Still, I willed my feet to walk into the store. I walked along the aisles and ran my fingers over the pretty display. At some point, I scrunched my nose over an overly cute design but at the end of it, I took three sticker pads and one pretty sticker notebook.

Tet poked fun at my hostility against anything "cute" and yet there I was, handing the cashier my money in exchange of these.

It's okay. I may not need this in any way. But then again, I'm not buying these for myself. I'm buying these for a seven year old child who used to frequent the aisles of M.Y. looking at the things she never thought she could have.