032308

Jesus lives today. I ought to and will start doing just that, too.

Happy Easter, loves. =)

**

The challenge is this: staying strong for two people, even if it doesn't quite matter to one. Sometimes, you feel that there's nothing more you'd want or need than to just let things fall into place, and let your heart have its unbridled dictates.

A friend of mine once asked me, "Have you ever felt that you wanted someone or something so badly that you couldn't breathe just thinking about the extent of your longing?" That question was posed to me almost six months ago, and obviously before you. And so all I could say at that time was some pathetic pun meant to turn his attention from the sudden and unwanted emotion that invaded our conversation.

Now I can safely say, my dear friend, that I think I know and feel exactly what you meant.

Though it feels that nothing can go wrong if I just gave it all up, I know for a fact that letting it happen will assure that nothing will turn out right for either one of us.

We'll get over this. People always do.

One day I'll wake up and it won't hurt (missing you) anymore. Because just for the record....

I do miss you.

I cared about you. I still do, and I somehow always will.

Don't ever get me wrong.

031808

Now, I am updating for today and the last couple of days as well. Today was officially the last day of classes, but quoting from Hannah Tan’s jargon, the concept is completely ‘ler-ki’, given that we are required to go back to school after Holy Week for more unholy days of studying and what university administrators would mildly put as ‘finals’. That’s life in the University of Abundant Papers (among others, I suppose) for you.

First of all, I moved back to http://schizoavoidant.multiply.com/. Once schizoavoidant, always schizoavoidant – even if my personality disorders are no longer ‘schizotypal’ and ‘avoidant’ (yes, that’s basically the history of my username. Google search the personality disorder test if you’re just bubbling with curiosity about your own). You can find a few pictures in the account I had for a while, but nothing recent and interesting.

Currently, I am wondering why in the world my Y!M won’t open, listening to Kelly Clarkson’s Because Of You (“my heart can’t possibly break when it wasn’t even whole to start with” – such bitterness, yes. And here I was thinking that the song was supposed to be inspirational) and reading http://thecartesianjournal.blogspot.com/, a sub-blog of and a compilation of student essays by my Biology professor, Dr. Jay Lazaro, and feeling quite proud to see my work, among others, posted. The sense of pride is currently running quite high, and so I will deviate from talking about it in case I get too excited.

Right now, I am home alone. Dad is still at work, and my mother and siblings are still in Lipa. Since Sunday, it’s just been my dad and I here. For the first time in my life, we actually had a personal conversation on the way home. I never thought we would ever talk the way we did last Sunday, but I’m terribly glad we did. To say that I picked up quite a bit from the two-hour conversation would probably be the understatement of the millennium, but I’d rather not discuss these bits during normal conversation or expression. I have a feeling, anyhow, that these bits will gradually come out generally in little ways. I won’t say too much about it in case the jinxed intention will drown out the possible actual occurrence.

This summer is probably the most important summer for me, on the grounds that I never needed a break as much as I do now. The last months have just been INSANE. I need a temporary reprieve from the every day scenery, the same tasks, the regular routine, the spirit of memories, the need to keep my control and myself in check. Everything has just been SCREAMING to be carefree, wild and positively crazy, and I need this summer to unburden myself of the need to do the craziest things in the world without having to worry about the repercussions it may have on people, obligations and responsibilities.

This summer, I will scream, laugh, cry, run amok, move, read, write, play the guitar, sing, watch movies and just BE like a maniac when I want to be. I will put myself in occasional self-quarantines and condition myself to be a real and good friend to those I’ve come to realize have been wonderful friends to me, despite my countless misgivings – my practically uncontrollable usage of profanity, my terrible mood swings and bouts of meanness, among many others (you guys know who you are). I promise, come second year, you guys will more or less have the better Pam I was at the start of the year.:)

I’m crush-less, by the way, and loving it. The world is too interesting to be limited to wanting to get to know and be close to just one person at this point in my life.

Earlier this day, Jess, Khelle and I got to hang out with our new FO (Finance Officer, and not ‘friendship over’, ‘f*** off’, or ‘friendship overnight’) for next school year, Mr. Mike Pamintuan (doesn’t that just sound so professional?). Apart from being amused at being each other’s almost-namesake (which he pointed out: PAM FRANCI-a, Michael FRANCI-s PAM-intuan… get it?) and having close birthdays (June junkies, we are), he proved to be a pretty witty and entertaining conversationalist. Good times are always fun, and I’ve got to thank him for giving us one! Pam-Pam (calling him that always seems so narcissistic), if you’re reading this, yeah! No to corruption, FO! :D

I don’t really have a whole lot to say anymore. Or that could just be because I’m quite hungry. I need to restart my laptop to try to make Y!M work. I feel so lost and loser-ish without it. :

031508

Yes, yes. I haven't updated in awhile, but it isn't for the lack of trying - I'm first going to put up my entry originally for Saturday, but given the presence of quite a lot of constraints... Well, here we are.

**

On an objective and detached point of view, choices are good. More so, the action and intention of making a choice is good. We can’t have it all. It’s always going to be, somehow and at one point, one or the other. You can’t bare both your mind and heart to two people at the same time – it’s always going to be fragmented when you attempt to do so, and the point of completely giving yourself up as a promise, more than a mere present, is no longer apparent in this complicated turn of events.

This lack of security will inevitably lead to losing yourself easily. The loss of one’s self is perhaps one of the most difficult kinds, for if you can’t find yourself, then probably no one can, no matter how hard they may try. What, then, will happen to you? You have to build a replacement for that lost part or self in you, virtually transforming yourself into someone barely recognizable, if not completely alien to the people who knew you once upon a time.

Okay, I’m rambling and I’m sorry. I’m getting to my point, though. I was supposed to write an entry for you, but I obviously decided against it and have instead opted for just one thing that will hopefully explain most, if not all, of the things I can’t exactly word properly in the means of communication you seem to prefer.

In terms of ‘nothing is impossible’, this can happen, never minding this factor and that. But right now, I just want to let it go and make the most out of my time. Having fun, not quite worrying about these sorts of matters, being there for each and every one of my friends, you included – these are things I so desperately want to do. And I want you to let yourself go, too. You’ve got too many good things ahead of you to be staying with me – we both do.

I’m shutting up now. That should be enough for the meantime.

**

I finished one paper – the reflection paper for English. Without further ado, here it is, to be submitted on Monday – unless of course Mrs. Falgui deems it inappropriate and asks me to make another one. Just look for the lyrics of the song if you want to see its relevance to what I wrote.

Viva Forever

My initial intention was to reflect on the anthem of my freshman year. But so much has happened in the last year that I have decided to narrow it down to just that one person, one event, one indispensable alteration to my life of the past year, so as for me to not write a novel instead of a brief reflection paper.

His trademark laugh would probably resound across the high heavens he’s in now upon realizing that I was writing about him with the help of a Spice Girls song. Like the titles ‘soul mate’ and ‘better half’, however, there simply isn’t a better song to sing about what he truly was to and for me and, perhaps, what I could have been or even was to him, at some point. He and I had more than just lunches together – we had time, meaning and understanding with each other.

Despite the surface differences, we were essentially similar – both passionate, though he infinitely more profoundly so than I, ambitious and quirky daydreamers, idiosyncratic thinkers and feelers, saviors to each other, though he more than I ever was or even ever hope to be, at least at this point of my life. Some said that we made a pretty good match on account that we were both sharp thinkers, but little did these people know that I would sometimes end up thinking how hopelessly inept and dull I was when I was with him. He could give any lucky soul so much spirit and still have more than enough left in him, and no soul could possibly and properly reciprocate with just as much, and sometimes, I just couldn’t help but feel the pressure of it.

But the best thing about that fact was that he didn’t mind. He and I liked me learning from him, and I take pride, even up until now, in the fact that I managed to add to the lessons he had to learn before he died. More than hopefully boosting his modest morale in the knowledge that he was a good teacher, though, I don’t think he minded that I attempted to keep up with him so I could, in one way or another, always be his.

And in turn, that he would somehow always be mine.

I cannot be so selfish enough to claim that he was ever exclusively mine, of course, because I wasn’t. What I have of his, however, is more than just enough and much more than I could ever ask for – he was and remains to be too good, too wonderful, to be possessed and owned. My mind holds his anecdotes, crazy jokes and theories, and his interesting life’s stories, his sparkling eyes behind thick glasses and the equally bright laugh, the crooked teeth that produced the most beautiful and gentle smile of which, among many others, I have countless memories of. There was his sharp and powerful fragrance I inhaled every time he would draw me in for a parting embrace and the occasional pecks on the cheek, wherein the roughness of his slightly unshaven face would linger for some minutes after we separated.

Since his death, I have found that the tighter I held on to these recollections, truly did they all the more slip away – like sand procured tightly in my fist, they have been trickling painfully, and the effort to simultaneously pick each grain up and holding on to what little I have left has been colossal. After some months of mindless torture and grief, I have come to realize and accept that it’s a proper grip I need to have on myself, to separate the past from my present and a possible future, to hold true to the memories, the unspoken promises and the lessons learned, but at the same time, not live for these things of that part of my past he belonged in. He left for his own search of the world, and his departure, I now know, is not the kind of world that ought to be sought, as I have been desperately trying to do so until the light of reason was recently knocked into my head. This world is still mine, and this world still has its claim on me, and so I finally know and accept that fact that I ought to live within its limitless bounds of life, being and existence. This, my new and more reasonable self is aware of, is what must be done.

Even – especially – without him around anymore.

I believe I truly am back where I belong now – I’m back living my life properly, really, and truly. I’m back with the hopes to help others live their lives just as well as I hope to live from now on. Mindless matters are behind me. Feelings of desperation, hopelessness and desolation no longer have their grips on me, for I have clutched each of them just as tightly and felt them trickling agonizingly slowly through my scarred hands and soul. Safely I say that my torture is over, but remembering will never end. He, to me, never truly died. All he had to do was to simply go ahead to where we would all go anyway. The fact of the matter is that he left so much with me – so much of these being his secrets with me, his secrets entwined with mine.These secrets will be safe with me. He’ll be safe with me. And some place out there I know he’s waiting for what’s rightly his. Perhaps, even for me.

031008(02)

Am I not so fond of double posts? Really, though, I just have to let my glee out for today. Then I think I can then be out for the night.

I am soooooooo neutralized, man. It's wonderful to not feel an upsurge of crazy and inexplicable emotions for just one person - why, it's much more fun actually dispersing whatever feelings have to be locked up in you for five reasons, though not in any particular order.

One, you laught a lot.

Two, you meet new people.

Three, you aren't so ill-at-ease anymore.

Four, you get that nice change of scenery and occurrences you so need in your life.

Five, you aren't worrying people anymore. :)

For the first time after quite a while, I'm happy. Life is GOOD. I've got great friends, crazy but wonderful parents and siblings, I'm not doing so badly with my tasks and responsibilities, and I wake up each day recently hoping that it isn't going to be my last. There's so much to look forward to, and I'm starting to sound more and more like Little Miss Sunshine. XD

I love you.

I love you guys, I love the world. <3

031008(01)

This sadly isn’t the first time you kept me up this late. It’s not like I was forced to stay awake on your account – goodness, by now I’m sure you’re asleep. Heck, you never finished our conversation, so I assume you quietly went away like you always did.

I’m half-asleep and completely drunk with my bitterness. It’s the sort of intoxication that doesn’t even affect my physical state of being when you leave me hanging and clinging to dead air and silence for an answer you would promise to give but never did and probably never will. Forgive me, my dear, but this is my haven for everything I cannot understand, everything irrational, everything I can never in a million years hope to comprehend, no matter how much and how badly I try to reason them out.

So yes, you can say that this is my haven for things like you. I can never tell you up front why at this point, going back is a terrifying prospect for me. I spoke of bitch-slaps and the like in one such entry of mine, and in reality it was actually with you that I was most acquainted with these. I cared for you and I still do, but in all honesty, if pushing me away is all you can and will do while we’re together, I don’t think I can take that.

Look, I never even got mad at you. I still can’t bring myself to do that, even though that one thing beating in my chest is telling me that I’m frustrated. You’re too much of a complexity for me to get through. And I don’t know what I honestly want – not that I ever anticipated your question. I actually believed and thought that you just didn’t care anymore, that you were getting on fine without me. Perhaps you do – maybe you just thought to yourself once in a while that it’d be nicer to have me around.

You’re a strong person, after all. You don’t need me or anyone else to survive. So don’t leave me hanging – once and for all, tell me why you’re here and what you want to come out from your presence. I’m not a mind reader – I can barely even fix my own state of mind, so please don’t expect to fix up yours.

**

Whew. Sometimes, letting it all out pays.

Sometimes.

030908(02)

PREMISE: A Y!M conversation with my best friend Beatrice is always an intellectual treat, if not an amusing one, as proven -

Pam Francia: Is there still?
Pam Francia: Hope for the Philippines, I mean?
bea ach: Yes, of course.
bea ach: Do you think any of our former SCT prexies are capable of running this country?
Pam Francia: Do you?
bea ach: Kat Usita can, in my opinion.
bea ach: if there's still one person you look up to enough that way then there's still hope.
bea ach: we get the government we deserve.
bea ach: if we change as individuals, we can get a better government.
bea ach: i did a speech on that last Friday.
Pam Francia: Do you believe that changing as individuals is all we need?
bea ach: that's not all, of course.
bea ach: we have to demand for better governance.
bea ach: for accountability.
bea ach: citizens are getting wiser in picking their leaders. pacquiao didn't win and other celebrities, too.
Pam Francia: Mmm.
Pam Francia: I thought about what you said about people having to change individually first.
Pam Francia: It isn't actually as easy as it seems.
bea ach: of course it's not.
Pam Francia: Because we have to consider the change we need to make in ourselves.
Pam Francia: As in, kumbaga..
Pam Francia: Dapat babagay tayong lahat sa isa't isa.
bea ach: well, yeah.
bea ach: but when it comes to betterment of the country, kahit little things muna.
bea ach: like, paying proper taxes, following simple traffic rules, keeping your trash first if there's no trash can around
bea ach: not practicing corruption at home when you ask for more allowance than you actually need.
bea ach: things like that.
Pam Francia: Wouldn't that mean this country adhering to just one set of values?
bea ach: not necessarily.
bea ach: if by one set of values you mean the law then yes, i guess that is the case.
bea ach: but this isn't a christian practice, nor a muslim, or buddhist.
bea ach: that is a "as a nation" thing. as filipinos.
bea ach: i mean, it's common knowledge that throwing trash in its proper place is the right thing to do.
bea ach: so is crossing at the pedestrian lane or stopping at the red light.
bea ach: it's not a matter of values. it's not something debatable. it's fact.
Pam Francia: How would you implement that?
Pam Francia: How would you impose that on people?
bea ach: by reminding them that those are the proper things to do.
Pam Francia: And if they won't listen?
bea ach: we need that more than we need government advertisments telling us that so and so agencies exist.
bea ach: that's why education is so important.
bea ach: people need critical thinking. these people should be made wary of the concept of case and effect.
bea ach: *cause
bea ach: 30% of filipinos didn't know that pregnancy is an effect of sex.
Pam Francia: So it boils down to education, doesn't it?
Pam Francia: I do agree that education is needed.
Pam Francia: But we need a proper system.
bea ach: Exactly!
Pam Francia: Where will we get that proper system?
bea ach: my dad told me that there will be no need for a private sector if only the gov't did its job properly.
bea ach: we have good systems in private schools.
bea ach: we could apply the same to public schools with enough budget.
bea ach: and we do have enough budget, only being redirected to pockets and cars and houses of officials instead of textbooks and aclssrooms
bea ach: *classrooms
Pam Francia: So that issue in education is a question of values?
Pam Francia: We are mismanaged.
Pam Francia: We are corrupt.
Pam Francia: Mismanagement and corruption stem from the individual.
Pam Francia: Wouldn't it take like a general homicide to wipe the Philippines clean off the corrupt scum?
bea ach: kill all of them old ones to make room for the new ones with a better vision?
Pam Francia: Not the old ones.
Pam Francia: The uneducated.
Pam Francia: I'm just being hypothetical here.
Pam Francia: How will you instill a revulsion to corruption to all the people of the country?
bea ach: As i said, cause and effect. People don't know that these problems we face are effects of corruption.
bea ach: People grew up thinking it was ok, that corruption is a part of life.
bea ach: I mean in a way it is but it shouldn't be.bea ach: They grow up and their parents tell them "hayaan mo nalang" instead of telling them "anak, mali yan. labanan mo!"

Pam Francia: Maybe there IS hope, Bea.
Pam Francia: I just don't think..
Pam Francia: .. we would live to see it.
bea ach: We won't. But I want to be able to hasten that time.
Pam Francia: Why would you work for something you won't live to see?
Pam Francia: I'm sorry, I'm just playing the devil's advocate here.
bea ach: Isn't that the whole point of our existence?
bea ach: I know, don't worry
bea ach: I mean, our whole point of being here is to propagate our genes.
Pam Francia: Our whole point of existence as defined by who or what?
bea ach: whatever point you look at it, we're here to propagate our genes.
bea ach: i mean, that's not the meaning of life but that's the meaning of existence.
Pam Francia: Isn't the whole point of existing, dying?
bea ach: well, if it is, then i guess that's second to propagating our genes.
bea ach: i mean.
bea ach: we get good education to get good jobs.
bea ach: we get good jobs to ensure that our children can have a good life.
bea ach: so in a way we're thinking about our children.
Pam Francia: So would the childless have not fulfilled their lives?
bea ach: maybe they thought of other people's children.
bea ach: like the nuns who take care of other people's kids
bea ach: and my ninang who will never have kids but is like a ninang to all of us.
Pam Francia: But that would go against your point of propagating genes.
Pam Francia: We're talking genes here.
Pam Francia: Biological pieces of you.
Pam Francia: Now you can give your emotional and spiritual pieces to people, yes.
Pam Francia: You can touch lives.
Pam Francia: But will you ever be as alive as the propagation of genes?
bea ach: i guess biologically they were meaningless.
bea ach: well, they balanced the ecosystem in a way but they didn't propagate their genes.
Pam Francia: Wait.
Pam Francia: I forgot the main thing we were arguing about.
Pam Francia: "arguing"
bea ach: umm..
bea ach: Why would you work for something you won't live to see?
Pam Francia: Ahh.
Pam Francia: Well ayun.
Pam Francia: Those childless people..
Pam Francia: If we follow that the main point of existing is to see someone else genetically exist for us..
Pam Francia: .. then would you exempt them from working for a 'better future' we won't live to see, anyway?
bea ach: because maybe they helped other people propagate genes.
bea ach: indirectly they worked
Pam Francia: Mmm.
Pam Francia: Let's not talk about the broader sense, because we can't argue the abstract.
Pam Francia: Why would YOU want to work for a future you won't live to see?
bea ach: because of the sense of fulfillment it would bring.
Pam Francia: How will you feel that when nothing happened and you died?
bea ach: suicidal
bea ach: ok, stupid answer.
bea ach: i won't allow nothing to happen.
Pam Francia: But what if something did happen, but that something would wind up being negligible?
bea ach: aw damn.
bea ach: haha, that would be shitty.
bea ach: and the happy little optimistic bea says "at least i tried"
bea ach: negligible is relative, anyway.
Pam Francia: Everything is.
Pam Francia: Point taken.

**

It's just a pity that Bea kindly asked me to edit out some of the more amusing parts of this conversation - they were totally blackmail-worthy, in my opinion. XD And now, we're back to our normal sabaw-ness. Yes, indeed.

030908(01)

I was supposed to post this yesterday, but given that I obviously didn’t, here it is: I had a long and intricate dream comprising of many different situations and people, but the one part I clearly remember and would not be too uncomfortable in posting would be that voting scenario. Part of my reality’s background as of late, actually, would be the elections in school, just so you know.

Anyhow, around fifteen different people gave me a small sheet of paper, each containing their votes for the different governmental positions. The thing is with these people was that most were old schoolmates from high school, and I don’t remember ever really being close to any single one of them. They asked me to cast their votes for them, and I don’t remember why I agreed, given the long-ass line of voters in the voting area in school. I remember falling in line – there was an unfamiliar man in a suit and had a cane, but he wasn’t old. He was asleep, and the line was moving. However, the people before me made sure to leave a space next to me, but I didn’t find this weird at all. The fact is, I remember even feeling sort of expectant, banking on the fact that this space was for him. After a while, the man wakes up, stands up, walks with ease and grace with the cane, and takes the seat next to me.

I left the voting booth with that man. We hardly talked, I hardly looked at him, but he was there. It was actually a nice feeling despite the fact that this man, probably old enough to be my father, was someone unfamiliar. I don’t recall seeing him anywhere or anytime in the past. But oddly enough, I knew him. Anyhow, going back to the dream, an electoral official approached me and asked if I cast fifteen votes on behalf of other people in addition to my own. I said yes, and he said that they had to nullify the votes unless I could give him the COMELEC (Commission on Elections) cards of all fifteen people. Panic washed over me, and I told him that these people did not give me COMELEC cards of any sort (and now that I’m conscious again, I don’t think there are even actual COMELEC cards in existence… are there?). And I just remember that man watching me panic, amused somehow, and when I was done rambling about the injustice of losing fifteen votes and my effort to actually fall in line for these lazy voters, just led me on to wherever we were going. I’m not sure if I woke up after that, but that’s all I can remember.

Is anyone into dream analysis? :)

**

I find it, all the same time, refreshing, frustrating, and surprising that my mom, who is just about the most rational and placid person I know, believes that emotions just simply cannot be rationalized. I don’t get it. Aren’t our feelings triggered by an outside factor we call ‘reason’? I can’t imagine my moods being what they are without knowing the proper cause of it. But that would probably just be me being the infuriating number one fan and patron of the flat world of logic, as my mom implied.

For the first time in years, I picked up my copy of Veronika Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho. I never thought I’d be able to relate to Veronika’s world in the way I’m currently connecting to her now. As a matter of fact, my state of being these days have been eerily linked to books, songs, anecdotes… I think that my life has been so cliché the last months that I believe it’s beginning to get boring. I cannot begin to describe the strangeness of catching myself in the middle of an involuntary mannerism that I would realize only in that moment is a mannerism that was never mine. The prospect of living this life for someone else in this sense dawned to me only recently, and it scares me. The way things have been going as of late, I can only aptly deem it as becoming my own doppelganger.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the concept of a doppelganger, or so I’ve heard, is that it is another you walking around on this earth. The catch is that you can never meet your doppelganger, because if you do, one of you has to die to make room for the other living his or her life fully, because your lives will meet at one point that cannot be shared. Think of it as a skewed Harry Potter/Lord Voldemort relationship (pardon the avid fan), minus the apparent antagonism.

Going back to my warped theory, I have come to realize that the way I have been ‘living’ my life for the last three months has been zombie-like and hollow. There has been no trace of real productivity, zest and sincerity in the way I have been walking, talking, eating or simply being. It was as though more than just a certain smile, gleam and brightness died along with whatever had to go. It’s amazing how one instance can sway my entire being so badly. That wasn’t supposed to instill in me the want to push people away – it was supposed to teach me to bring people closer to me and tell them, in all possible ways, that I care for them and I will make do of my time with them while we’re all still here.

How could I have believed that there was no more reason or motivation to get through each waking day? I could practically slap myself for being so selfish and egocentric. Though it was not their obligation, people cared for me and I have been unjustly reciprocating by questioning their motives, their intentions and doubting their sincerity. Add to that would be the fact that I simply couldn’t care that they did. I have been wallowing too much in the muck I have whipped up for my own self, constraining the happiness of other people with my misery.

What I have been the last months – it simply isn’t me. It was a miserable hag that did all sorts of crazy things to cover up what was essentially my own self and what I was essentially thinking and feeling. It was that witch that thought cutting her hair would remove whatever had to be taken out, that thought pushing it all to the back of her mind would help matters, that thought living in her own world would make things better.

But hey, in line with that, I earlier did talk about being my own doppelganger. At least this time, I know exactly which person should die – and it isn’t going to be this sleazy bipolar hitting the grave. ;)

**

It is said that people regenerate every seven years – hence the amazing fact that we become a totally different person every seven years, but essentially maintain what people have come to believe what and who we are. Then again, if we all regenerate, I suppose nothing new really happens. If everyone does it, then where’s the surprise or uniqueness in that? We change with people. We change with the world. And since everything changes, we can logically say that everything stays the same.

Oh, Christ. I’m rambling here, I’m sorry. Currently, Go The Distance is playing in the background. I’ve been pretty much addicted to Disney songs ever since I watched on video my dear Lit classmate Yanyan sing this wonderful song. I totally *heart* Yanyan. The way he sang the song was absolutely wonderful, which is saying something, because I always believed that song was one of those that covers simply tried but failed to do justice to. I am now officially naming myself as the founder-president of The Yanyan Proliferation. Oh, I like that – The Yanyan Proliferation.

And I won’t look back

I will go the distance

I suddenly had the compulsion to watch the videos Jessie gave me – the ones she took from this semester’s music recital. Apart from Yanyan, there was of course Ina dear. Ina is another one of those few goose-bump singers for me. By goose-bump singers, I mean when I hear her voice, I get goose bumps in a good way (because there is an amusing alternative connotation for goose-bump singers – think, the tone-deaf like me on unlucky days). Her rendition of Time To Say Goodbye almost made me cry in the middle of the Filipino classroom. =’( This summer, apart from the ‘fitness’ regime I am going to subject myself to (so an advanced warning to any bouts of crankiness you might come across, should we get to talk over the holidays), I am going to bring back the music in me (oh, HSM 2, hah). I did not invest five years to that field to just throw it away on account of an inability to balance schoolwork and something that used to be a passion of mine. No, no. Christ, I really need this summer. Come on, Summer Love! :s

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That certainly worked well, didn’t it? *sarcasm drips*

On one hand, it was pretty silly of me to wear my heart on my (online) sleeve. On the other hand, at least the person in question is aware of how I perceive things to be as of late. On both hands, however, lies the indelible notion that it was all just a bout of stupidity on my part.

I strive more than anything to be rational, really. I honestly do. In fact, I’ve tried so hard to be rational about coping with the last three months that the irrationality I should have felt or gone through during the initial impact of the blow is only recently taking its toll on me. For crying out loud, I had an anger management problem from childhood that I only learned to keep in check over the recent years. Wouldn’t it be just a crying shame if my grasp, my control over one of my countless faults, will be nullified or dissolved in just that wasted instant?

Thus this blog – the haven of my irrationality, my mindlessness and perhaps sporadic cases of my wretchedness and heartlessness – was created. Perhaps when my rational self would once more dominate the entirety of me, it would just laugh or cringe at the emotional regression my eighteen-year-old self is taking. Because logically speaking, this is something I should have gone through or gotten over ages ago – when I was, what, fourteen to sixteen years old? If I wasn’t feeling so… indescribably perturbed, I would be laughing at myself for sounding like a kid that just hit puberty instead of a girl turning nineteen in just a few short months.

Oh, well. Wing it, I shall.

I pride myself on being an open book. But during times like this, I wish more than almost anything (I say almost here because of the fact that there are a few other things I would wish for more than this) that I did have that “Great Wall” people talk about to pertain to a bastion, an impregnable bulwark to protect their souls. No, I don’t really think my soul is in need of protection. As crazy as I get, as flighty and unpredictable as I may be, I believe I can still take care of myself. I don’t quite know how to put it into words, but the closest thing I can offer would be a line from class yesterday:

“No one appreciates what easily comes to them.”

On the surface, this is all true and I can agree with it. I do agree with it. But can anyone really appreciate anything that never comes to him or her? People don’t want it easy. That would take all the challenge in life, and we live for that insane high of the chase, the addicting pursuit, and the journey to that one milestone we all are faced with in the end. But would people want something that pushes them away? Would people appreciate what rejects them, what spurns them, what gives them the impression that their existence makes little or no difference in the rotation and revolution of the earth?

I’ve encountered several people who refuse to let me in. I didn’t mind, not really. Sure, it was like a bitch slap to the face every time I would try to get him/her to talk to me about whatever’s bothering him/her, but the bitch slap was actually a wake-up call more than anything. It was like a mental shout-out for me to snap out of it, that this was the real world that could choose harshness over tenderness at times, but would put an ice pack over my cheek and give me a hug afterwards, when I have stuck it out through all the drama and the angst.

There was another line from one of my favorite films that’s something along these lines:

“On the way to love, we will encounter everything we hate, everything that keeps us from reaching that one true point of our happiness.”

I can’t remember the exact lines, sadly, and so I will just have to watch that film again. If I would believe this, then, I would have to say that I don’t believe I’m in the pursuit of love of any given form at this point, for just one reason: I have not really encountered anything truly despicable, anything that I have come to actually hate. Hate, I believe, is too much of a strong word for me to use to describe the little nuances I come across in every day life.

The fact of the matter is that I don’t believe I have experienced even half of what people should actually experience in life. Now I don’t know just what these things are, but there goes my way of thinking. My experiences have actually been put on hold, because it’s been dawning to me that over the last three months, I wasn’t trying to live my life – I was unconsciously trying to live someone else’s.

Okay, I’m going to take a rational approach to this now. I believe the reason why I’ve been cracking recently is the conflict of this life I’ve been trying to live for someone dear to me with my life in actuality. No, he never imposed anything on me – he was my best guy friend, after all. He cared for me and I cared for him. I believe this is my own undoing. It was a poor way to cope, an ineffective defense mechanism from the pain of loss. No words can exactly box in my feelings and thoughts, but I think this ought to be good enough: I made my memories of him my motivation to get through the last three months, and now that reality is seeping back into my veins, I have been exposed to the prospect that he doesn’t have to be my only reason to live. Now I think this prospect terrifies me. How can anyone or anything match up to him, how can anyone or anything be better to him?

My irrational side is quiet now, and my rational side is saying in a sing-song but bored tone, as though trying to teach me something as basic as the alphabet: people will be as good as or better than someone else at one point because they can and they are. Otherwise this world would not have a point in being, a point in turning, a point in orbiting that tiny star called the Sun.

I can sleep and dream through my nights, but when daybreak comes I have to be up and about, get through the tasks with cheerfulness and normality. And who knows, I may just get enough of a life to have a nightlife later on.

Pfft, excuse my laughable attempts at profundity. :P

And all right, all right. I’m getting there.

**

I hope to post this before we leave for Batangas later. As I type this right now, I’m actually in Phil Soc class and everyone else is in an amusing stupor as we stare up at the lecture on the board. I’m supposed to be typing notes right now, but what the heck, right? Wing it, sleazy.

You could say that my previous notions for the day comprised a pretty damn irrational and random set. I don’t believe I’m so bitter now. For one, Jess and I talked about yesterday’s issue. Yeah, she and I just decided to make news out of our lives, yes? Hah, gotcha. :P Kidding aside, though. There are things I shouldn’t talk about online or anywhere else anymore, but there are some random things that I believe can be imparted without hurting anyone’s feelings. In fact, I hope some of the things will right whatever’s wrong at the moment.

1.) I’m so sorry. You know who you are. I have been complicating lives, most especially yours, these days, so please just allow me to make it right by imposing distance between you and I. It won’t be permanent, but I don’t think I can give a guarantee when we can talk like we used to. I don’t want to think that we can’t talk anymore – I want to be optimistic about the chances of that, because you’re a wonderful friend. And I’ve had too few wonderful friends to lose another one. I am, however, always going to be around in case you’d need a friend. My lines are open to that, I swear. So let me know if you’ve run out of friendly options – that’d probably be the time that I can let this feeling go and go back to our normal, friendly interaction. Hopefully by my birthday? I’d love to have a completely happy birthday. =)
2.) To seal off the temporary ‘back off’ stage in my and Jess’s friendship, we shared a bottle of Vodka Mudshake Cappucino. Far from actually dulling my senses, however, it seemed to have heightened a lot of my sensations and notions as of the moment. I haven’t had alcohol in my veins in awhile.
3.) In line with the second point, it’s the perfect time for self-quarantine in Lipa. Nothing but my laptop, movies, music, schoolwork, my family, a few bottles of red wine and Cerveza Negra and food to keep me company.

**

I’m at home now, and boo, we aren’t going to Lipa for the weekend. :(

On a brief note, I managed to seal my journal the other day. Meaning, the months of December 2007 to February 2008 are now virtually inaccessible to me – until one special day, yes. ;)

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I decided to cross over from Live Journal to this spot, just because I needed a change. The scenario was getting a tad bit too old for me and, besides, this is probably more accessible and convenient for most of my friends who might want to read up on stuff like this. I've long stopped the habit of posting personal sentiments of the heart online, anyhow, so there's probably no harm that can be done with this. Go figure.

Today was a pretty cool day, to say the least. The teams I was part of in both the Biology and English debates actually won. It's not, of course, to say that the prospect is completely unbelievable and ultimately impossible, but it's just that circumstances seemed to have rallied against us, at least in the former subject (OPPOSED: That sex education should be taught in Philippine high schools), where the parameters set by the government were quite constraining. Plus, the government side was really kick-ass GOOD, thus making the feeling of winning quite surreal. : And, and, and! I got 'sticky paper' in English for being one of the two best speakers, yay! Lovingggggg it. :)

Khelle and Jessie made a 'banner' for me! I should post a picture of it soon, but for now let me be reduced to merely describing it: 'GO PAM!' was printed on a piece of short bond paper, and underneath that were five zodiacal symbols: Cancer, Sagittarius, Gemini, Capricorn and Aquarius. What came to my mind immediately upon seeing these signs was that these were the signs of some of my closest friends as of late - Ina (Cancer), Jessie (Sagittarius), JV (Capricorn), Khelle/Jo (Aquarius). Apparently, lovely Khelle and dear Jess had something else in mind. Indeed, I love them but I'd love to just strangle them during revelations like this. XD

Apart from that, Johann also made 'GO PAM' out of this confession pamphlet that was being handed out around school. I'd love to think it was the thought that counted, but I'm beginning to suspect that he just saw Jessie and Khelle next to him hard at work with my banner and thus wanted to be hard at work with something for me, too. :P Johann, if you're reading this, you know I'm kidding. And, and, and! I'm sorry for being so mean before my PRS class. Really. :

All in all, my friends make me feel quite loved. <3