It’s been a year since I laid down silent prayers to God, wishing I could go back to the national stage and hoping that maybe this time, I could finally aim for the award I had been praying for. And it’s been 165 days since that hope came crashing down. It’s been 530 days since my journey started, and today, I finally find the courage to put all those tears and silent prayers into words.
And I guess it’s also valid to say that it’s really hard to say goodbye to something that feels so much like home — a craft I’ve been doing for a long time now. I started journalism back in junior high school as a side quest and an extracurricular, but I realized that being able to read, make, and deliver stories is something that doesn’t just motivate me anymore — it completes me. Maybe that’s why, even after so many goodbyes, changes in members, endless adjustments, and going back to square one, I still stayed. Because realistically speaking, journalism is not just something I do. It’s me.
A year ago, I watched deserving people win awards while I clapped from the crowd, and I simply smiled and prayed, “Okay Lord, gets ko po. Hindi pa ngayon, pero sana po next year, ako naman.” I trained harder and helped build the team, from recruiting to tireless nights of preparation while carrying behind-the-scenes struggles only our small team of dreamers knew. But even with everything we gave, things still fell short. At first it hurt deeply, and maybe it still does. But I learned that even in failure, my passion did not end — it only became stronger.
And for anyone going through something similar, please know this: it’s okay to pause, to grieve, and to feel the weight of what didn’t work out. Not everything we pray for arrives when we want it, but that doesn’t mean it was never meant for us. Sometimes, what feels like a goodbye is only life gently redirecting us toward a path we’re not ready to understand yet.
For me, that path is a new beginning — a much-awaited one as I step into college, carrying everything journalism taught me. And no matter where life takes me next, I will keep going, with the same heart that once learned how to write stories… and is still learning.