Today, I decided to clean up. In my world, where I'm the boss, doing something on a rainy Sunday afternoon is illegal. But then rules are made to be broken, aren't they?
This year, I decided to invest on a property. It's a house beside my parents'. Yes, it's so ill-located, I know. Not that I intend to really live here. As far as my future self is concerned, I still plan to live in a small apartment with huge glass-stained windows that give an amazing view of city lights. But since I haven't found that dream space yet, I'm going to have to settle in here for a couple of years, hoping to death my mother's right for brainwashing me into buying this property because its value increases over time.
A family friend even joked that having my own house would be an advantage once I get married because since I own it, I'd have every right to throw my husband out in the midst of a fight. They all laughed at the thought, until I reminded them that it would remain to be just that--a thought. And of course right after that they all switched to their "it's-not-really-good-to-grow-old-alone" nonsense.
That was my cue to go upstairs, lock myself up and blog.
Anyway, when I woke up this morning, I realized my grandmother (and housemate) has already left for the province and did not even bother to wake me up. She's been out and about these past weeks and I would always be left alone at home. I seriously don't know who's in her mid-twenties and mid-seventies anymore. She's always on vacation.
Since I have the house all to myself, I decided to clean up. I got rid of things that I no longer needed. I remember that Chinese people do that to get rid of bad vibes and give space for good energy or chi to flow. As I was cleaning up, I came across some bouquets and stuff that my exes have so generously given me. I thought of disposing because I don't believe in having an Ex-box to put them all into. Also, the dried flowers have started attracting insects that I could not even name. I decided not to be too sentimental. Objects can only carry as much meaning as we allow them to have. Once you change the way you see them, they cease to mean as much. Sad, but true.
You let go of the person, you let go of the things they gave. Well, at least those that are not very useful anymore. Like flowers. I still kept some, though. Like books, clothes, shoes... I just couldn't bear to lose them, especially when they complete a kick-ass outfit or contain a really fascinating story. Funny how sometimes you can't bear to lose objects, but you can easily let go of the people who gave them. I must be very insensitive, you may think, but I'm just really being practical. No offense.
I'm not even going to defend myself. It would be unnecessary. As Coelho puts it, "A woman who can conquer her heart can conquer the world."
Good night.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Promises, Promises
After watching John Carter on Star Movies, I now desperately want to be in another planet, preferrably somewhere without politics or kingdoms fighting for full reign. But this is really because tomorrow's Monday and two days of rest and leisure will never be enough to provide a satisfying escape from stress.
Today, I tried to overcome myself and won. I woke up early to go to church, something I haven't done in months. In one of my previous posts, I made mention of a covenant that I broke some four years ago. I made that covenant in that church. And you know what people say about getting lost, you always have to go back where it all started.
I made a promise to God, you see. I prayed about this man I had been in love with since my geeky high school days. I told God that if only He could make this man love me back, I would love him for the rest of my life. You have to understand that at that moment, I have never been so sure about anything in my entire life. I frequented this place countless times, always praying for the same thing. After a year, God answered. It was a yes. What I thought was an impossibility, happened for real. Just like in the movies. And just as I had promised, I did my best to love this man in the best way I know how. He, in turn, learned to love me as much I loved him. I would like to write that we lived happily ever after.
However, he left. And when he did, I realized that I had allowed my life to revolve around him and us too much that I didn't know what to do with myself after he was gone. I felt as if something inside me died. I was mourning for someone who was still alive, but some five continents too far. I struggled to get used to his absence. I thought it was going to work. I wanted it to.
I guess subconsciously I was lonely. And I failed to recognize that. Or even dared admit. He was doing his best to keep in touch, but for me, it just wasn't enough. That had been my mistake. Nothing was ever enough for me. I was always looking for something I couldn't quite figure out, as if the world was always depriving me of something. So I broke my promise. And after that, nothing in my life was ever the same again. Even I wasn't quite the person I used to be.
I guess some people just grow apart, either by choice, circumstances or force. I don't know which one of these hit me. Perhaps all three. The bottomline is that I hurt him. Since then, I have never loved anybody else with all of me. Not with the same passion, intensity or naivety. He was my first love, after all. I guess that's the thing with first love, everybody else falls to being second best, even if you actually end up with them.
So do I regret what I did in the past? Yes and no. I wish I didn't have to hurt him. But I also wouldn't want to change a thing. I believe all those choices I made, even those that I'm not proud of, led me to this. All of them happened necessarily because I needed to be here, and he needed to be there. I needed to be who I now am and he needed to be who he is now. Just as Eve had to bite that fruit. It may be her fault, but nothing else could have put the universe in motion. It had to be done.
I still take responsibility for what I did. My guilt is deeply rooted. It's like a heavy chain that I carry around my feet as I try to move forward. This is why I refuse to get married. I know it's never going to work out with anybody else.
Today, I started to make ammends. I told God that in exchange for the promise that I dared break, I am choosing the path of least resistance. I wouldn't make a move. I would let him guide me. He could take me anywhere he wants me to be. If I am meant to be alone forever, so be it. I suck at making my own decisions, I know that now. This time, His will be done.
Today, I tried to overcome myself and won. I woke up early to go to church, something I haven't done in months. In one of my previous posts, I made mention of a covenant that I broke some four years ago. I made that covenant in that church. And you know what people say about getting lost, you always have to go back where it all started.
I made a promise to God, you see. I prayed about this man I had been in love with since my geeky high school days. I told God that if only He could make this man love me back, I would love him for the rest of my life. You have to understand that at that moment, I have never been so sure about anything in my entire life. I frequented this place countless times, always praying for the same thing. After a year, God answered. It was a yes. What I thought was an impossibility, happened for real. Just like in the movies. And just as I had promised, I did my best to love this man in the best way I know how. He, in turn, learned to love me as much I loved him. I would like to write that we lived happily ever after.
However, he left. And when he did, I realized that I had allowed my life to revolve around him and us too much that I didn't know what to do with myself after he was gone. I felt as if something inside me died. I was mourning for someone who was still alive, but some five continents too far. I struggled to get used to his absence. I thought it was going to work. I wanted it to.
I guess subconsciously I was lonely. And I failed to recognize that. Or even dared admit. He was doing his best to keep in touch, but for me, it just wasn't enough. That had been my mistake. Nothing was ever enough for me. I was always looking for something I couldn't quite figure out, as if the world was always depriving me of something. So I broke my promise. And after that, nothing in my life was ever the same again. Even I wasn't quite the person I used to be.
I guess some people just grow apart, either by choice, circumstances or force. I don't know which one of these hit me. Perhaps all three. The bottomline is that I hurt him. Since then, I have never loved anybody else with all of me. Not with the same passion, intensity or naivety. He was my first love, after all. I guess that's the thing with first love, everybody else falls to being second best, even if you actually end up with them.
So do I regret what I did in the past? Yes and no. I wish I didn't have to hurt him. But I also wouldn't want to change a thing. I believe all those choices I made, even those that I'm not proud of, led me to this. All of them happened necessarily because I needed to be here, and he needed to be there. I needed to be who I now am and he needed to be who he is now. Just as Eve had to bite that fruit. It may be her fault, but nothing else could have put the universe in motion. It had to be done.
I still take responsibility for what I did. My guilt is deeply rooted. It's like a heavy chain that I carry around my feet as I try to move forward. This is why I refuse to get married. I know it's never going to work out with anybody else.
Today, I started to make ammends. I told God that in exchange for the promise that I dared break, I am choosing the path of least resistance. I wouldn't make a move. I would let him guide me. He could take me anywhere he wants me to be. If I am meant to be alone forever, so be it. I suck at making my own decisions, I know that now. This time, His will be done.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Dear Phantom, How Dare You Show Yourself To Me
A few weeks back, I wrote about this classmate of mine who I have codenamed Phantom because of his annoying habit of randomly getting in and out of my grad school life. I let him occupy this tiny space in my conscious mind because I thought he was gone. Forever. Today, I feel cheated.
You moron.
After class, I rushed out of the room to make an important call. I was walking towards the canteen area, with my phone pressed on my right ear, pissed that no one was answering. And then there you were. You were clutching a hamburger then you looked up. You know how someone looks at you and his eyes twinkle in recognition? That was it. That was how you looked at me. I didn't stop walking or dropped my phone upon realizing that it was indeed you. That movie-inspired bullshit doesn't really happen for real. I continued walking, but I was wide-eyed. It felt as if something just opened up inside me; just as you open a bottle of Coke and all the bubbles race to the surface and fizz. I suddenly felt so happy. My soul surely liked your presence. It must have recognized you from a previous lifetime.
You can cue the retarded smile at this point. I couldn't help it. I was reprimanding myself for being so junior high.But what the hell. I thought I was never going to see you. I was thinking that this was enough. But as I was about to leave the campus, I saw you again. No, I sensed you. I was texting then somebody brushed past me. I knew it was you, but I had to look back to be sure. I was right. See? I can sense you now. You have managed to penetrate the walls I have built to ward off people like you. Today, we crossed paths three times. When I met up with a friend, she told me to ask for your name, should there be a fourth time. I said I'd rather not.
It was really good to see you. And to me that was enough. I don't even want to entertain the thought, the possibility. Like I said, enjoy the questions, bask in the uncertainty of it all. Attempting to go beyond this is like trying to capture the sunset in crescendo through your smartphone. You simply cannot. All its glory can't possibly be enclosed within the four corners of a photograph.
Just as you don't need to own everything you love.
Thank you dear Phantom for being the rescue from a day that almost seems like all the other days. Thank you for breaking the humdrum of my otherwise boring life. See you in the next Saturdays.
You moron.
After class, I rushed out of the room to make an important call. I was walking towards the canteen area, with my phone pressed on my right ear, pissed that no one was answering. And then there you were. You were clutching a hamburger then you looked up. You know how someone looks at you and his eyes twinkle in recognition? That was it. That was how you looked at me. I didn't stop walking or dropped my phone upon realizing that it was indeed you. That movie-inspired bullshit doesn't really happen for real. I continued walking, but I was wide-eyed. It felt as if something just opened up inside me; just as you open a bottle of Coke and all the bubbles race to the surface and fizz. I suddenly felt so happy. My soul surely liked your presence. It must have recognized you from a previous lifetime.
You can cue the retarded smile at this point. I couldn't help it. I was reprimanding myself for being so junior high.But what the hell. I thought I was never going to see you. I was thinking that this was enough. But as I was about to leave the campus, I saw you again. No, I sensed you. I was texting then somebody brushed past me. I knew it was you, but I had to look back to be sure. I was right. See? I can sense you now. You have managed to penetrate the walls I have built to ward off people like you. Today, we crossed paths three times. When I met up with a friend, she told me to ask for your name, should there be a fourth time. I said I'd rather not.
It was really good to see you. And to me that was enough. I don't even want to entertain the thought, the possibility. Like I said, enjoy the questions, bask in the uncertainty of it all. Attempting to go beyond this is like trying to capture the sunset in crescendo through your smartphone. You simply cannot. All its glory can't possibly be enclosed within the four corners of a photograph.
Just as you don't need to own everything you love.
Thank you dear Phantom for being the rescue from a day that almost seems like all the other days. Thank you for breaking the humdrum of my otherwise boring life. See you in the next Saturdays.
Vertigo
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Writes Neruda, no less. I just feel like reciting this poem tonight, although I'm not exactly sad. As I try to figure out how I really feel tonight, I am reminded of a part in Kundera's novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, wherein he tries to define vertigo. The dictionary defines it as a condition in which one feels dizzy or disoriented, especially when looking down from a great height. Or simply, the fear of falling. However, Kundera insisted that vertigo is somewhat more complex than that. He said it's actually the fear of wanting to fall.
To quote the Hedonist, "Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”
This is best thing I could come up with in my desire to express how I feel tonight, although I wish to personalize. I do not have this longing to fall; intead, I feel this hunger to be lonely, to be sad, to bask in my solitude which I find delicious. I know it sounds un-poetic but the word must really be delicious. I do not like to betray my Muse.
I am, in a way, suffering from vertigo. I would love to take that fall. I am not afraid of tumbling down, breaking some bones or even dying. But I do fear this desire. It somehow tells me that maybe, I have gotten really crazy.
Writes Neruda, no less. I just feel like reciting this poem tonight, although I'm not exactly sad. As I try to figure out how I really feel tonight, I am reminded of a part in Kundera's novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, wherein he tries to define vertigo. The dictionary defines it as a condition in which one feels dizzy or disoriented, especially when looking down from a great height. Or simply, the fear of falling. However, Kundera insisted that vertigo is somewhat more complex than that. He said it's actually the fear of wanting to fall.
To quote the Hedonist, "Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”
This is best thing I could come up with in my desire to express how I feel tonight, although I wish to personalize. I do not have this longing to fall; intead, I feel this hunger to be lonely, to be sad, to bask in my solitude which I find delicious. I know it sounds un-poetic but the word must really be delicious. I do not like to betray my Muse.
I am, in a way, suffering from vertigo. I would love to take that fall. I am not afraid of tumbling down, breaking some bones or even dying. But I do fear this desire. It somehow tells me that maybe, I have gotten really crazy.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Beer Dreams
I'm craving for a bottle of ice-cold beer.
I better put this on my bucket list. Blog as the bitter aftertaste of premium beer slowly spreads across your palate. That would be a very satisfying moment. I can even visualize how I would shiver a little and shake my head both in disgust and sheer pleasure of it.
The truth is that I should be sleeping right now. I'm getting more and more sleep deprived each day and that could really turn me into an overstressed mental wreck. And please add to that how I manage to look like shit every single day. I haven't brushed my hair since summer and this has successfully given birth to a new breed of dandruff. I got two huge, drying zits on my left cheek and some whiteheads here and there. My body's been seriously reduced into a skeletal model. Worse, I don't care. Or better yet, I do not have the time and energy to give a rat's arse about how I look right now. I do not intend to attract men, anyway. That is one factor, although it's absolutely stupid. You just don't doll up for men who would eventually come out of their closets and admit they're gay. That is absurd.
I want to feel and be beautiful for myself. I want to stop thinking about other people for once and just do whatever the hell I want. I worry too much. Perhaps I really need to take a break...And not feel guilty about being unproductive. I have turned myself into a working machine; I am thisclose to drafting a syllabus or, hell, a whole curriculum on how I should be living my life right now. I am too occupied. I don't even have enough space for me, if you know what I'm talking about.
The people I work with often assume that this was brought about by the break-up I had two months ago (yes, the longest time I've been single in seven years!), but break-ups don't have that kind of depressing effect on me. And I do not mean to brag, because that's not something to be proud about. It's a curse. My curse after I dared break a covenant I made with God. But that's another story.
Again, I should be sleeping right now. Tomorrow may be Friday, but in my line of work, any day is just as good as Monday. Happy dreaming.
I better put this on my bucket list. Blog as the bitter aftertaste of premium beer slowly spreads across your palate. That would be a very satisfying moment. I can even visualize how I would shiver a little and shake my head both in disgust and sheer pleasure of it.
The truth is that I should be sleeping right now. I'm getting more and more sleep deprived each day and that could really turn me into an overstressed mental wreck. And please add to that how I manage to look like shit every single day. I haven't brushed my hair since summer and this has successfully given birth to a new breed of dandruff. I got two huge, drying zits on my left cheek and some whiteheads here and there. My body's been seriously reduced into a skeletal model. Worse, I don't care. Or better yet, I do not have the time and energy to give a rat's arse about how I look right now. I do not intend to attract men, anyway. That is one factor, although it's absolutely stupid. You just don't doll up for men who would eventually come out of their closets and admit they're gay. That is absurd.
I want to feel and be beautiful for myself. I want to stop thinking about other people for once and just do whatever the hell I want. I worry too much. Perhaps I really need to take a break...And not feel guilty about being unproductive. I have turned myself into a working machine; I am thisclose to drafting a syllabus or, hell, a whole curriculum on how I should be living my life right now. I am too occupied. I don't even have enough space for me, if you know what I'm talking about.
The people I work with often assume that this was brought about by the break-up I had two months ago (yes, the longest time I've been single in seven years!), but break-ups don't have that kind of depressing effect on me. And I do not mean to brag, because that's not something to be proud about. It's a curse. My curse after I dared break a covenant I made with God. But that's another story.
Again, I should be sleeping right now. Tomorrow may be Friday, but in my line of work, any day is just as good as Monday. Happy dreaming.
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