17/10/2026
๐ท๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ | ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ธ๐ ๐ฌ๐ผ๐ ๐๐ฒ๐ณ๐
by Merry Earendil P. Facto
We all begin as pencils. Plain, unsharpened, staring at a blank sheet of paper. We think we are ready to write our story, but the lines come out uncertain and shaky. We need a steady hand to guide us. That hand is our teacher.
At first, the grip is firm. They hold us close, helping us trace our first letters, teaching us how to stay within the lines, how to write with intention. We resist sometimes. We want to scribble, to rush, to write without direction. But that hand remains patient, guiding until our strokes become steady, until the handwriting finally becomes our own.
Then comes the sharpening. It is uncomfortable. It feels like we are being reduced, like we are losing a part of ourselves to quizzes, to corrections, to countless revisions. It hurts to be sharpened. Yet it is in this process that we become clearer. The shavings fall away, but what remains is a pencil that is sharper and more capable of leaving a mark that truly stays.
We will make mistakes. We will write the wrong words, draw crooked lines, and smudge the pages. But we are not thrown away. We are taught about the other end of the pencil โ the eraser. We learn that a mistake does not mean the end of the paper, that we can gently erase, breathe, and begin again. No one erases our errors, but we are shown how to correct them and continue.
And perhaps that is the most beautiful truth. The hand that guides never writes the story for us. It only teaches us how to hold on, how to endure the sharpening, how to correct with precision.
To every hand that taught us how to write, how to be sharpened without breaking, and how to start over without hesitation โ you did not just help us fill a page. You taught us how to author a life worth reading.
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| Art by Jellian Charise Alinsasaguin
