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.