hope is that thing with feathers...

For as far as I can remember, the impulse has been to leave, to leave, to save what's left of my soul. Now, a small flicker of dull hope has appeared, and the impulse has become a little dampened. There's a tiny voice that keeps whispering, stay, don't you want to know what could be, what you can help wrought?  But I've had this small hope before, and it got thrown to the ground, shattered to pieces, trampled upon, and turned to dust under the feet of the more grasping, the more ambitious.

Self-preservation taught me to divert attention to myself by drawing attention to my flaws, by being just reticent enough, stubborn enough, and uncooperative enough that their eyes passed over me when considering people to work with. And for the past three or four years, it had gone well. While a small part of me resented not being recognized for what I could do, what I could be, and what I could give, the larger part of me was glad not to be seen, not to be unwillingly, unwittingly used to serve their schemes.

These days, the impulse mostly, is still to leave. But these days, the small flickering hope seems like ribbon, tethering me in place, because as much as I am embarrassed to admit, I'm curious where the story will go, and I want to know what role I will play.

Sometimes I wonder if I unconsciously keep myself isolated from others, and then wonder why the same shared experience seems to have a different hue and tone for them.

For the past day or so, I have been reconnecting with my block mates from my first year in law school, and in sharing stories and reminiscing, I have come to the realization that I have a tendency to isolate myself, and in doing so have missed so so much of how it was to be young and relatively worry free.

What I'm realizing is that perhaps I am an introvert and prefer to escape into my own world instead of engaging with the rest of the world. I'm happy reading, be it books, my favorite sites, or watching the various television series I find myself interested, and generally being alone.

of separating the wheat from the chaff

I will never get used to the feeling of realizing that the friendship I have been cultivating was not all that mutual. It's always disconcerting when you finally wake up to the fact that the person you have been calling friend has been nice because they need you for something. Disconcerting and hurtful. I feel betrayed, not only because I had invested genuine emotion into the so-called friendship, but also because I realized I had been wasting my time.
I read a line somewhere that states that the person is too old to bother with the trivialities and drama attendant of getting to know someone. Which is also why I am so happy when I realize that I click with a person.

reconnecting with what I know

Writing has always been a source of comfort and pride for me. I was confident in the fact that I could wield words and somehow form them into something coherent, something that made sense. A few months back, I planned to get back to blogging, at least to use it to process my confused thoughts and feelings. Then I felt like that would be opening my soul too much to the world, and that what somehow, writing about something like that was too shallow, too childish for someone my age, and so I let it fall through.

I always attempt to write when inspiration strikes, and in the past few years, inspiration has been a dull, dim spark, that while there, was almost unnoticeable, and so I never put pen to paper, or fingers to a keyboard, to try hash out my feelings and thoughts. Maybe, between going back to school and writing for work, the small spark of inspiration got obscured. I do want to get back to writing, to blog again, to think of my thoughts consciously (does that even make sense?), to examine my feelings and motivations, and lay them out to the world, even though I have retained my reticence at sharing these scribblings with the people who know.

to be me

You tried to change didn’t you?

closed your mouth more
tried to be softer

prettier

less volatile, less awake

but even when sleeping you could feel

him travelling away from you in his dreams

so what did you want to do, love

split his head open?

you can’t make homes out of human beings

someone should have already told you that

and if he wants to leave

then let him leave

you are terrifying

and strange and beautiful

something not everyone knows how to love.

Warsan Shire, "For Women Who Are Difficult to Love"

I can't be who I am not. I have never tried to be otherwise. Perhaps I should learn to compromise, but I think I'm too old and set in my ways to start now.

of finding comfort in the little things

Now I understand what people when they say they draw comfort from the company of their pets. These days I find something oddly peaceful in sitting quietly, reading or writing, with my little dog curled up beside me. I find myself less anxious, less stressed, although I still harbor the same fears and insecurities. I don't know if it has something to do with growing more mature or maybe it's just that I have learned to accept my circumstances. I don't feel so restless anymore.

fumbling for words

So. Three years after my last post in my other blog, I feel the urge to write again. Write for the sake of writing. Write for the sake of letting my feelings and thoughts out and not merely to meet another deadline.

For the past several years, even when I was more active here in fact, I was already writing to make a living. I was ghostwriting essays and editing journal articles here and there. In the intervening years,  I took on a fuller load and began to neglect writing for the pure pleasure of seeing the words in your head out on a page, to clear my thoughts and to hash out whatever it was that was clashing in my head at a certain time.

At the beginning of the peak season this year, I began to feel the jadedness set in. I felt as though my writing skills, such as they were, have began to be become blunted. I remember that I used to deliberately use banned words and write run-on sentences whenever I wrote my blog entries just so I could get out of the imposed constrictions of my writing and editing job. But then I became distracted with other things and before I knew it, writing was no longer a pleasure for me. It became tedious, something that I needed to do so that I could pay my bills, put food on the table, and survive. Writing took on the same hue as my other job, one that I had grown out of for a very long time but still cling to because I am indecisive that way.

And then the other day, I was cleaning my desk drawer and came upon a piece of paper where I had began to write something about my conversation with my mom  on my birthday. On the first line, I had written, I need to write for the sake of writing again. I feel like I am losing touch with who I am and instead have become buried in needless things. And I thought, I need to find me,  I need to be able to write just so I can get in touch with the M who was more attuned to herself and not the M who allows the days to breeze past her. Hopefully, this is the start.

to new beginnings of a sort

In a few short weeks, if I can get all my papers in order, I will be flying to Seoul to participate in a six-month fellowship program.

to never allowing the world to box you into labels

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don't swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can
never
categorize you.
reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.
be self-taught.
and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.
~Charles Bukowski, from The Pleasures of the Damned

the broken heart within.

I wrote this tiny essay in my other blog three years ago  as a form of tribute to my dad . I can't believe he's been gone for three years. I still miss him badly.

Mar. 16th, 2008
1:08 AM

My daddy died yesterday, he was 62. He and I got along pretty well, I was always daddy's girl and as a child, would throw the biggest tantrums when he couldn't come home for my birthday even when I knew that his work required that he stay in Southern Philippines. I have always gotten my way as a child, pampered and doted on as the eldest daughter. He was never one to get mad at us, neither did he shout and he rarely punished us for whatever childhood prank we got ourselves into. I can't remember him ever saying no to any of my requests. I remember being a freshman university student and not knowing how to get home after dark. My dad would pick me up from school every time I had to stay late at the university. I also remember one time when he was hospitalized , he was more worried that no one would pick me up more than anything else. As I had posted in one of my infrequent entries, they found a mass in his liver which turned out to be cancer. Things went downhill pretty fast and last night he succumbed to his illness. He passed away peacefully in his sleep surrounded by his daughters. And although in the course of the past week we knew that this day would be coming soon, I didn't think it would be this soon. I feel as though I've been crippled, as though a huge part of me has been lost forever. I have been living with him for the past 15 years, since my sophomore year in college and I dread coming home to an empty apartment, no dad waiting for me to fix him dinner and listen to my various stories. In that 15 years, we have had our share of misunderstandings and spats mostly stemming from what he considers to be my inability to focus. But through everything, he has been my cheerleader, my advisor, I already miss him sorely.

Daddy, thank you for always listening, for always keeping me grounded, and for being an all around wonderful father. I love you. I miss you so much.

a small ray of light

a while back, I realized that I have been working in one way or another for the past fifteen years. and things seem to be looking up at work these days, but I'm remaining cautious. Only, now I know I should learn to be more grateful.

these days...

these days I am learning to appreciate what I have, to love my work and be grateful for the fact that I have them. Although there are still days when getting out of bed to go to work is just too much damn work, most days, my good side wins.

W tells me she's envious of the fact that I seem to have so many options, as I told her of my potential training opportunities and the fact that work at NL for the first time, seems to be going well. Me, I'm a little paranoid about how well life is going. I fear that the other shoe might drop any day and I might find myself with nothing. I'm also scared of the fact that I seem to accept these things as proper, due to me, owed even. Like the universe finally gets it. That I am being given these opportunities because I deserve them, because I am good. But believing in your own press? that could be bad, could allow you to relax, to be lazy. I need to gain perspective, and the people who help me gain perspective are miles away, or in the case of my dad, up in heaven. Then my friend J sent me an email, outlining how she has given up on her dreams and following up on a new one, despite the lack of support from her family, and the more I feel that I should be grateful for what I have. Because despite the fact that I have continually disappointed her for not sitting for THAT exams, my mother has not turned on me, nor has she turned her back on me.

But as I said, I still feel paranoid, some days I still feel, the other shoe, its hovering, and when it does, I'm never going to know what hit me. But on most days, I feel cautiously optimistic about it all. I hope it lasts, I really, really do.

baby you're on your way

Today my baby sister is leaving for medical school and for the first time in forever, I will not be sharing an apartment with one of my sisters. I still can't quite believe time has flown by so fast that my little sister, that cute toddler I would take with me to school on weekends when I had to work on a project with my friends in high school, that little girl I used to take to school and attend parents meetings for, is now a young woman going off to study medicine. I can't be more proud of her. But I'll certainly miss her. Take care and Godspeed Pots, see ya on the flipside!

this cold, damp weather inspires dark thoughts...

The days slowly bled into months, months growing into years, years that should have at least softened the emotions, but instead worked to sharpen the feelings of dissatisfaction and sadness. The bitter pang of regret remained. A sharp underlying prickle which never quite left her. She had hoped it would go away at some point, and in some sense it did. Days filled with purposeful toil and mindless concerns blunted the edges somehow, quieting the voice inside her head. But sometimes, on cold, dreary days, when even the soul shivered as the body huddled, wrapped tightly in blankets, when her defenses succumbed to the torpor of the season, that sharp prickle would emerge, as though to say, remember me? I am every dream you ever gave up, I am every opportunity you did not seize, I am every potential you wasted, I am the life you should have been living. Was it worth it? Throwing your dreams and every one’s expectations away to live a life half-lived; marked by the flickering shadows of a computer screen; of endlessly stringing and sharpening words for others chasing the same dream or a semblance thereof, that you harbored all those years? Was it worth it? Worth breaking your promise to your mother and father, worth breaking both their hearts, worth desperately trying to make everyone understand that the dream had died far too soon and far too quickly for you to even begin contemplating to attempt to continue? And she thinks, it has to be, it has to be, otherwise the life she’s been living, the fragile house of cards she’s built, could topple down. Then the things she’s told herself, to convince herself everything was fine, would be exposed as a lie. This is the way she’s lived her life. And on cold, dark days, when she is confronted by her regrets, she prays for the sun to chase away the clouds, to shine on the dark corners of her mind and force these sharp honest thoughts back to where she thinks they belong, stuffed into forgotten corners and drowned once more in purposeful toil and mindless concerns.

writing as therapy

there's something I've noticed with myself in all the years that I have tried to maintain a journal. I have never been the type of person to write in my journals everyday, or chronicle every single event of my life. Instead, I have noticed that I process most of what I feel and through by writing. This blog has served the same purpose. I started maintaining this blog in 2008, while going through a major loss in my life. Looking at my older entries, I have noticed that as the months went on, my entries became less frequent, because I did not have much to process anymore. The only thing that is the same is that I am still very, very reticent about sharing this blog with anyone who knows me personally. So I guess some things never change. I have always been very reluctant to share my writing and thoughts with others, preferring to keep things to myself.

if I knew then what I know now...

I saw this topic at twitter a few weeks ago, asking people what they would tell themselves if they were given the chance to talk to their teenage self. There were plenty tweets, some light, some serious. I did post my own tweet, but I felt that it was too short, that I had a lot to tell my younger self, of the things I have learned and not learned over the course of 18 years (the original tweet assumed that the age of the recipient would be around 15). Then I broached the topic to W and we got to talking about it. It was funny and poignant what we wanted to tell our young selves. A few days later, I attended a seminar (which as with most seminars, was boring in places so you tend to try and find a distraction so that you don't fall asleep) and decided to kill time by writing 15-year-old M a letter. This was the result.

Dear 15-year-old me,

If I could tell you one thing, that would be to never give up on your dreams. Oh, make that two things: never give up on your dreams, and whatever you aim for, follow through with it always. ALWAYS. We tend to procrastinate too much, you are aware of that I'm sure, and 18 years on, we still haven't changed on that aspect much.

And since I'm giving you advice, here's another one. Try not to be too insecure. Sure we're fat (and we still are, but so what? I know that right now, that's just another thing you don't like about yourself, but trust me, only until you learn to be comfortable in your own skin will you be confident. Ignore the sundry relatives who thrive on making snide comments about our weight and focus instead on nanay's lovely compliments). Always remember, you are pretty, and you have a good head on your shoulders, and our brains are nothing to sneeze at if I do say so myself. Remember that in the real world, smart trumps pretty and skinny most of the time (unless you are competing for the attention of vapid men of course, but that's another story).

Also, smile more often. Trust me on this. Scowling is not good, not only because of the frown lines (and yes, mommy was right about those) but because we actually have a beautiful smile.

In matters of the heart and infatuations, try not to be too enamored of H, you remember that time after the last summer vacation when you saw him and you thought he looked iffy? hold on to that thought, because if you don't, you will realize too late that as W says, he really is not THAT good-looking and he has the voice of a strangled cockroach. And you would have wasted too many years mooning over him (yes, I said years).

Try not to unconsciously ape our aunts and give daddy more slack, be nicer to him and take care of him better. We are going to lose quite a few people we love far too soon. It will break our heart, and I think our heart will remain a little broken always. So be nice, and hug them more often.

You are going to get into the school of your dreams, but it will not be without some hitches. You'll weather through them though, you are far stronger than you believe you are. When you get to your second year at the Uni, opt to stay at the dorm no matter how much you dislike the idea of having roommates. You'll enjoy college and being young better that way. Join organizations, stop being such a hermit.

Stop being such a prude, go out and enjoy life, you'll be a better person for it.

Be happy, always. Always remember that although our life will not turn out the way we want it to, or how we planned it, we are still fortunate and we do have a good life.

Finally, always remember, life IS a journey; so you should just relax, hang on, and enjoy the ride.

Love,

Me

hello sunshine...

I have such wonderful memories of sitting beside the mango tree and carefully peeling each green mango to yield its sweet-sour yellow-green flesh, slicing it and dipping each slice in a dip made of fermented anchovies and vinegar. To me, outside of the inevitable heat cooking you instantly as you step out into the sun, nothing evokes summer more than the sight of fruit-laden mango trees begging to be picked. Until I was 21, we lived in a house nestled among various fruit trees. I remember two mango trees, one on the side of the house and another at the back, plus various other trees including a weird guyabano tree that did not bear any fruits the whole time we lived in that house and which the help thought was haunted. Its trunk was directly outside my bedroom window at the first floor, while the bough could be seen from my sisters’ bedroom window upstairs. The low-hanging mango tree at the side of the house was fair game, and we would often pick its fruits and wallow an afternoon away feasting on our bounty.

It is summer once again, and every day as I come in to work I am greeted  by the sight of the office’s three mango trees bursting with fruits. The sight makes me smile, and reminds me of a time when all I had to decide was what to do for the day and whether that would include climbing that friendly mango tree to the inevitable scolding from our grandparents. They’re all gone now, my grandparents, that house, that tree. But I still have the brilliant memories of those lazy summer days, of sneaking out from the afternoon naps my grandfather required us to take to climb trees we were expressly forbidden from climbing, of childhood really.   

i thought i saw your face today

Is it possible to miss someone who isn't really gone from you? At odd times, I find myself talking to you and missing the old you, the one whom I could spend hours upon hours talking to, I miss sitting with you quietly and talking of heartbreaks and new loves. As selfish as it sounds, I miss the you who patently needed me, the you who was insecure and slightly immature, just like me. It is not that I am not happy for you, I am truly, except for that small, childish, immature part of me who misses the you that belonged with me, was just like me. As much as I like the grown-up you, I loved the old you, and maybe just maybe, this is one of the reasons why I am not too enthused with you anymore. That perhaps you have grown away from me, and I have allowed myself to grow away from you. So that I find myself missing us, the wide-eyed innocent dreamers that we were, weaving plans and schemes for when we reached this age with an enthusiasm and belief that we had the world laid out at our feet, that all we had to do was work at it and everything will fall into place. I still wish for those things, stronger now than you because you have found a quiet joy in the life you are living, and in what you have achieved. And rightly so. And so I find myself searching for the old you when we are together, as unfair as that may sound. I still catch glimpses of the old you in the same way I catch glimpses of the old me sometimes.

of friendships and growing apart

today I met with L and her hubby. I also met her little boy, who is my godchild, for the first time. Funnily enough, I wasn't really that excited about it; so much that I was actively contemplating not disturbing my routine sunday nap and was actually typing my message asking for a raincheck when her sms telling me they were already at our meeting place arrived. It was good to see her again, that I would admit, but also, it wasn't something that I really looked forward to anymore. I find that as I grow older, I have began to move away from my friends. My world has began to revolve around work and more work. I wonder if this is what my parents did, was it an active moving away from friends or had they merely lost touch? Maybe as we grow older, our priorities shift, because I find myself no longer adjusting my time to be able to see her. Whereas the old me would have shifted my schedule around to provide me with optimal time with her, the me now would contemplate canceling on her without any reason really, at the drop of a hat. Will I become like my spinster aunt, with no friends and no partner, just her pets, grumpily grumbling her way through old age? I hope not, I want to be able to form relationships, nourish them, the way a mature, well-adjusted person does. I want so much, and I hope for so much, but sometimes I feel as though I have fortified myself against the world, that I tend to lose myself in a world of my own making, content to sit inside the house, in front of the computer, working or reading, or bingeing on books and staying in bed reading the day away. I feel like I am frittering my time away, that this solitude I cultivate and nourish, has allowed me to lose touch with relationships and its demands.

A Kindness

A KINDNESS

Where did we stop? In dead summer, that is
male, yellow. You stripped into that glare
of live gold.
It was like living in gold to try to touch you.
It was as if you were day.

None of this is true, but will you
let me have it, imaginary?

The laugh, the confidence, the symmetrical clean
body capable of itself, so being body
as to be naked even to the hands. Will you give me that?

Because, even if it is not true, I need
something now to look back to, in order to say,
I have been sudden in the sun’s perfection,
I have had blood rise like light,
my hands have answered,
my memory is a bush of grown flame.

It is a kindness you can do me, to have been there
at the center of summer, yourself the attack of summer,
and to have made all that light out of being young.

I need to have loved you. I need to have told you so.

William Dickey