I came back.

For many years I dreamed of how the homecoming shall unfold, familiar faces, familiar places, the same chair, the same table would greet me.  Of course I had hoped a familiar handshake of brothers would be there.  Pero the familiar faces was a bit too unrealistic to ask for, after all Dekada na ang nakalipas since I last stepped into the university grounds.

It was different.

A song by Keane was playing on my car stereo, “Everybody’s changing and I don’t feel the same” as if to underscore the reality that the USTe I came to know has changed a lot, and drastically.

They must think I am crazy.

Who would think this man normal, who stood in the middle of the grounds between the main building and the main library, right smack in the middle of an afternoon rain?  But there I was, an umbrella on hand, just standing at the exact spot where the had been.  My eyes were closed as if in closing them, memories could come back and rebuild the structure, bring back the sound of a Triskelion call (you remember our whistle don’t you?), and the familiar greetings of “Hey, hey, hey, what have we got here?” (it was Dennis Concejero and Mark Rillo whom I first heard the greeting from, and it kinda grew on the regular crowd at the Coop). 

I was lost.

This is not the place I knew.  Where are the trees?  Where is Colayco?  Where are the statues of the saints that stood in a circle?  Where are the pavilions?

The years have a way of creeping up on us while we are busy in the business of living our lives.  It really felt like a few months ago when I stood dumbfounded and awestruck at a beautiful sis who worked for Playboy club in Manila.  It felt it was only a few weeks ago when we used to host the meeting of Triskelion officers from all over Metro Manila, and the Coop would be jampacked with brods and sis from different universities.  I can still remember with clarity, the twins, yammy and her short hair, Mark, Mike, Jon, Patrick, Lod, Dennis, Bono, John, John G, Manny, Java, Faye, Gilda, Peachy, Pia, Waray and the others whose names I forgot, but whose faces are clear in my mind.

I was different, but still the same.

It has been a long journey, one which took years.  I remember not having enough money for a stick of cigarette, or buying only two sticks and sharing one with the first brod who asks.  There is a pack of Phillip Morris on my breast pocket, and a lighter instead of a box of matches.but no brod to share the moment with. 

Have we really changed that much?  Don’t we crave for the Tocilog at Barangay Eatery along P. Noval, after we have tasted so much of the steak at Chili’s?  Don’t we still want to wear the ragged tretorn sneakers instead of the Florsheim (still bought in an 80% discount sale)?  Maybe the neck tie has grown comfortable after decades in the corporate world, but don’t we still feel more comfortable with a white collared t-shirt, or a polo barong over jazzed up, blade cutted, faded jeans?  Students bring along their laptops now, but I still feel more comfortable with my cattleya folded notes placed on my back pocket, after all its easier to defend oneself that way, just in case.  I had a waistline of 27 then, I am now on a 32, and even if I wanted to pretend I was a student the closest they would think of the man standing in the rain was a crazed professor.  I wish I could again taste the corned beef servings at Coop where there is more potato and sabaw rather than beef, or the occasional turon after 3:00 p.m.  I wish I could still see the brods sitting on the table (yup, tables were for sitting, and chairs were foot stools its astig that way).  It was a time when if you needed someone to talk to, buy a pack of nagaraya peanuts, open it up and place it on the table chances are you’ll be talking to everyone in two minutes flat.  I wished I could feel the same heartbreak, the same pain, if only to remember too how beautiful it was to recover because you had brods and sis who make you feel that life is one heck of a party.

The rainpools reached my shoe and again, I remember the typhoons that we braved in Espana.

The rain is starting to fall heavily.  The colors of the afternoon is starting to give way to a monotone of gray and the occasional breeze brings a cold shiver.  I turn towards the imaginary Coop door, stepped outside and smiled inwardly.  It was enough to be back, to pay homage to USTe and our brotherhood, albeit in a quiet and personal way. 

Perhaps we all realize it by now, having the benefit of hindsight and a life of adulthood to temper our perspective, that the bonds we share goes beyond the paddle, beyond the Coop, beyond the cheers and laughters and pains.  The bond that keeps us all together is the shared ideals of a brotherhood, the shared memories of brothers and sisters.  We are the heart and soul of Triskelion, Live and Let Live! Let the world and everything around it change, let landmarks be taken down, buildings be leveled to the ground, landscapes re-arranged and paved with roads, and the UST we know be unrecognizable, but we shall remain. 

Nothing can take away who we are, or what we are, because we defined an episode in each UST Triskelion’s life, and we are included in the history of USTe we are written in every page for the last 38 years and God willing, shall be written again this year, and the next, and the next until all history is finally closed.

The students saw I was alone, but they were wrong.

A Triskelion is never alone.

You were all with me.