A mentor

This one is for a mentor. I met him during my early formative years as a development worker. He believed in me. It mattered a lot to me then. I needed not just a boss but I needed a figure whom I could rely on. Someone who would listen to me. Someone who would help me grow. We became close for some time. And our closeness even extended beyond office hours. He considered me as a 'golden bud' and in due time, he hoped I would turn out to be a beautiful flower. He wrote heartwarming words of encouragement in his own book that I keep. I simply looked up to him and It became personal. I got to know his long term aspirations and deepest secrets. He told me about his raw life's insecurities in the form of just about anything under the sun. He used to tell me if we had the chance and I became his eager listener.

Even when he was already leaving the office, his last day, I could not help but cry in front of the computer during that day. It was not like the last day that I would see him (I would see him more often as it turned out). But I worried what would happen to me. I felt orphaned. It was a case of  teacher leaving his student. I remember during his last working days in the office, he said to me, 'the teacher disappears when the student is ready.' The memory when he was saying that to me has remained clear. And I, always reacting a funny disposition. I was at my age when he left the office. He worked for some time also. And I happened to follow him also but in a different office.

I simply miss him. And probably because he now works in luxury cruise, I will have the hardest time to see him at an onset and to think we were just an hour distant away. Admittedly, it has been years already. He even bade goodbye through Facebook. Time lapsed.

He was never the usual mentor. He is a bitch. He is practical. He is a persistent dreamer and action man. He is world destroyer. haha. And I have learned in the process. There were some qualities that I hope I could emulate like his discipline and diction and there were some I hope to never have like his pessimism and temperament and the seemingly consistent love of money. Sometimes he feels he is entitled to a lot of things. He always asserts and I somehow link it to his gayness, which i feel somehow, he is wired to do it anyway. We gays need to assert always. We live in this peculiar society anyway and discrimination takes many forms.

I simply miss him. And I know he misses the good old days. And he usually tells me to Not Stop. Never Stop. Learn how to dance (talk about office politics). Achieve More But never lose your center. It is your principle that will keep me you in the center, It is the center that will keep you grounded. No matter how you can be far or near from the center, you are safely anchored. And you will bloom. As I am to embark another chapter, I cannot even have this clear picture. I hope not to lose faith. I need these words now. Thank God I keep them.