Fire Exit

I have a friend whose name I would not mention. She's with me the other day and admitted that she's recently into something: SMOKING.

"Isang stick lang naman araw-araw. Pero 'di ko 'to ginagawa sa loob ng campus."
I was really shocked by her confession. And what made me more appalled was when she said, "Madami akong crush sa (her University's name), mga magaganda." Then she smiles.

Knowing her since high school, I'm facing the complete opposite of my friend. Back then she was the feminine, smarty and disciplined type of girl. But now, she just collapsed, I guess.
I'm aware of her situation. She comes from a broken family. Her jobless father splitted up with her OFW mother. When she was in high school, she stayed with her father along with her sister she's not really close with.

And now, she transferred here in Manila. She gained her total freedom and independence. No father, no mother. Just her clueless grandmother as her guardian.

As I've analyzed it, my friend is experiencing psychological problems. She turned her burden and faced it with seemingly unusual things.

She smokes. Cigarette is her stress reliever. When she smokes, she gets satisfaction from it. As the way she sees it, a person becomes stronger, powerful, and more or less "in control" when they puff.

She's fond of girls. She likes girls because she's looking for that mother figure that lacks in her family and finds it on other girls. (Her mother's beautiful, that's why she crushes on beautiful girls.)

Another thing is, this friend of mine has a boyfriend. But she doesn't really love this guy.

"Boyfriend with benefits", as she says. She just experienced a bad relationship from her first and recent boyfriend which made her think that "there's no such thing as love...it's only a game." And she plays it very well just to win.

Some of the people in my age range might be experiencing the same thing as hers. They find ways to ease the pain of their problems but actually, they're building up another one..and another one... until it doesn't solve anything at all. Or yet, it worsen it.

As they say, "Huwag mong ayusin ang problema mo sa pamamagitan ng isa pang problema."
It's like when your house's on fire, you resort to the fire exit instead of finding a way to stop the fire from burning the whole house and turning it into ashes.

Maybe, just maybe, their parents must've not oriented them well and pointed where the fire extinguisher is.