self-taught

the case of my extra sensitive hearing started when a doctor pumped high liters of pressurized water to my ears, damaging my eardrums, back when i was about eight. as if by miracle, the regenerated eardrums from that early experience of medical deluge gave birth to a set of ears that are sensitive even to the faintest sound of whisper inside an evening bus full of people wallowing in the noise of their conversations.

at the evening bus to the valley, i had my left ear preoccupied to the oc soundtrack playlist and the right to the myriad of sounds coming from the people, the bus, and the street, when i heard this conversation from the ladies seated 2 seats away from me.

lady 1: exactly! i guess i don’t know how to love. i think that is my problem right now.

lady 2: well, you have to love yourself first before you can love others.

lady 1: but i don’t know how to love myself. uhm, i used to, but i don’t know now. well, i take a bath, eat stuff that i want, but now i just don’t know how to love.

lady 2: you don’t really learn how to love, it just happens.

(what follows is their conversation about church, family and life)

lady1: you know what, i like you.

after a few minutes, lady2 pulled the stop signal and went down the bus.

lady 1 is a lady probably in her mid fifties, a brunette american. lady 2 is a filipina ,maybe in her early 40s.