"You haven't answered my question yet!" Steph said.

"About what?" I answered, as I tried to find the way out of an unfamiliar basement parking garage.

"Since we're talking about TOTGA, ano 'yung pinakamalaki mong 'what if'?"

I wasn't meaning to dodge her question, but that is a pretty difficult one. I mean, I've been here for so many years. Where exactly do you start? How far back do you exactly start?

And if you're like me, who tends to hold grudges (to varying degrees, just so I can hedge it) and remember many things provided the right circumstances, there are so many places I can start. I can talk about the informal radio job offer I didn't take. I can talk about the informal Singapore job offer I didn't take. I can talk about that other thing... actually, I can't talk about that other thing. But I had a different answer instead.

"Ako, siguro, 'yung... what would've happened if hindi ako na-kick-out nung high school."

I realize I haven't told everyone about it, but then, that happened a quarter of a century ago that it arguably ceases to be relevant. It doesn't matter because my official records shouldn't reflect the three months I spent in a school where seemingly the entire population bullied me. (Right, I did just write about all this last year, too.) And is it a bad thing that I did study high school in what is essentially a SPED school? If I was to go job hunting now, my CV would not show where I studied in high school, because it is so far back it ceases to be relevant, at least when you put it up against what I had actually done in my professional life.

But to me, that's where I could trace everything. Not in a "if this didn't happen I'd have a better life" kind of way, no - I would still have ADHD whether all that happened or not, and it would show up differently in other situations. More of, that's the point where I realized things would not go as smoothly as I once imagined, where I got exposed to the kind of people who think little of you, and where I found reasons to think even littler of myself. I haven't forgotten the college classmate who dismissed my graduation honors to my face because I didn't take the "difficult" professors. I did it because, well, that's not atypical of college students, right? To avoid the "difficult" professors? And yet maybe they're right. Maybe there's something wrong with me, precisely because I avoided the "difficult" professors. Risk-averse, taking the easy way out, plug in whatever.

And that's just one example.

I've been thinking about whether I've been acting like a kid lately. Again, I've been here for so long. I shouldn't be. But my bowl of miso soup slipped from my hands just a few hours earlier, and thank heavens I didn't make a bigger mess, especially considering I was attempting to look smart, look sharp, whatever that means. You can't really remove those voices in your head, especially when you slip up after trying so hard not to. And I am still hard on myself, even if you don't see it. Especially since you don't see it. And since you're not likely to be there, well...

"Parang mabigat 'yan, ah," Steph said. "Next question?"

"Hindi naman," I answered. "Actually, naisip ko lang if mas magiging typical Alabang boy ako kung hindi ako na-kick-out."

I meant that. There is that, too. There are so many questions, and they go so far back to the point that I'm not even sure if I can recognize the Niko on the other side of all those different choices, of all those different answers. I mean, it'll be me, but it won't be the me that I am intimate with, not the me I can recognize and talk about. If that happens, are these questions even worth asking?

I find the exit, but don't recognize the street I got out of. It's a one-way street, but to where, exactly?