multo

"ghost are not those entities in a shape of person. ghost are those bad memories, missed opportunities, and wrong decisions that hunts us for the rest of our lives."

I am still trying to bury every missed opportunity and every choice i regret, yet they always find a way to resurface. they linger, whispering reminders of what could have been and what was lost.

My multo was that i always wanted to be a nurse, my family members are mostly nurses, and I’ve always adored them. i thought that courage could be inherited, that devotion could be learned. but I’ve come to realize that i don’t have the same blood running through me. I can’t face the silence of the hospital rooms, i can’t look at people lying in coffins without my chest tightening, my mind racing with fear and sorrow.

I’ve been haunted every night by what i could’ve been, the dreams i didn’t chase, the words i swallow instead of speaking. i was a coward. i was afraid. i was weak. i was dead. In the dark, these ghost of myself refuse to leave, they circle me, relentless, reminding me that the life i avoided is still waiting somewhere beyond my fear. i try to convince myself that time will dull their edges, that the weight of regret will eventually fade into something more bearable. even when i tell myself i’ve moved on, they return.

I am the dead person haunting myself. every choice i didn’t make, every fear i let rule me, everything i swallowed, i am that ghost. i drift through my own life, unseen yet impossible to ignore. i haunt my own night, my own mornings, my own reflection.

we regret the chances we didn’t take, and mourn for choices we failed to choose in life.

Every “what-if” becomes a ghost. what if i told him how i really felt, would it have been different between us? what if i didn’t get sick and finished my entrance exam, would i be a teacher in the future? what if i had moved out, taken that leap, chosen a different path entirely? what if i pursued psychology, or medicine, or any of the dreams i buried under fear? each question drifts through my mind like smoke, impossible to hold, impossible to answer.

There’s a version of me i buried long ago, still restless, still searching for a life i never gave myself the courage to live. I am both the creator and the prisoner of my own regrets.

Mas hahabulin ka ng mga pagkakataong pinalampas mo kaysa sa mga kabiguang hinarap mo.

Missed opportunities will haunt you more than failure. Failure at least has an ending, a moment you can point to and say “i tried”. but the chances i let slip through my hands have no closure, no finality. And that’s what makes them unbearable. not the loss itself, but the possibility that it could have been something more, that i could have been someone more.

So, go out there and take risks. not because you’re fearless, but because fear will always be there anyway. if you wait until you’re ready, until you’re certain, until you’re no longer afraid, you’ll be waiting your whole life. It’s okay to be embarrassed, it’s okay to not know things. as long as you showed up, you tried, you let yourself be seen and that takes more courage than staying hidden ever will. people forget, moments pass, but the fact that you dared to step outside of your comfort, it becomes proof that you are capable of more than your fear wants you to believe. and maybe one day, when you look back, you won’t be haunted by the life you didn’t live.

I have so many regrets, so many lives i abandoned, versions of myself that almost existed. i see them in my sleep, i hear them under my bed, i can feel them in my skin, they won’t leave, they follow me everywhere, they wear my face, and no matter how tightly i shut my eyes they are always there, waiting, watching, and reminding me.

They will be buried with me in my coffin, but for now, they will walk beside me, they will sit with me in the silence, press against my ribs when i try to rest, murmuring all the names i never claimed. and maybe i don’t need to silence them, maybe i will stand next to them as a proof that i once stood at the edges of becoming somebody else, that i felt deeply enough to imagine a thousand lives.

When we finally laid to rest, i hope our ghost won’t linger in our home. the “used-to,” the “what-ifs,” the “i should’ve”, i hope they find peace instead of clinging to every corner, i hope they let go of the life we never lived, the chances we never took, and the words we never said. and when the last light fades, when we can no longer feel our heartbeat, i hope we will finally rest in peace, that our ghost will finally be free and will no longer haunt us in another life.

what about you, what is your multo?