Alexi Murdoch, you move me.

So today I wrote a song for you
Cause a day can get so long
And I know its hard to make it through
When you say there’s something wrong

So I’m trying to put it right
Cause I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made me tight
And I don’t know even where to start

Maybe that’s a start

Cause you know its a simple game
That you play filling up your head with rain
And you know you are hiding from your pain
In the way, in the way you say your name

And I see you
Hiding your face in your hands
Flying so you won’t land
You think no one understands
No one understands

So you hunch your shoulders and you shake your head
And your throat is aching but you swear
No one hurts you, nothing could be sad
Anyway you’re not here enough to care

And you’re so tired you don’t sleep at night
As your heart is trying to mend
You keep it quiet but you think you might
Disappear before the end

And it’s strange that you cannot find
Any strength to even try
To find a voice to speak your mind
When you do, all you wanna do is cry

Well maybe you should cry

And I see you hiding your face in your hands
Talking bout far-away lands
You think no one understands
Listen to my hands

And all of this life
Moves around you
For all that you claim
You’re standing still
You are moving too
You are moving too
You are moving too
I will move you

Sorry mister, my rants are on fire.

These things have always had bad timing. I attract relationships precisely when I don’t feel like I need one, when I’m feeling good, and independent, and ambitious, and all that.

Then again, it makes sense. You’re more likely to attract people when you’re sending out such good energy, and when you’re so confident about yourself. I’ve been depressed before and nobody looked at me then (well, except for this one guy, and he’s a weirdo). The moment I started being happy, I started getting asked out like once a week (WTF was that all about?). Like there was something in the water…

And every single time I’m (happily) single, I jinx it by proclaiming to the entire universe that I don’t want a boyfriend- which is a sure sign that someone absolutely irresistible is about to step into the picture, and make a fool of me. It’s happened to me 1…2…3… no, 5  times. Life has played the same joke on me 5 times.

Anyway, I digress.

When you move to a new country, your old identity has to die completely before it can be reborn. You have to completely demolish old, inner structures in order to build a new one. It’s not very easy though. It’s not very easy to just completely destroy something you’ve been building for years. It’s not easy to demolish something that’s always been there. You have to change the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you look at people, sometimes overnight.

I think I’m still struggling with the last of those structures, and I’m going through yet another identity crisis.

That’s why it’s hard for me to feel settled about anything. I’m still going through so many changes. I’m like planet earth before life began, when it was having earthquakes, and volcanic erruptions every day. (Oh my god, was that not the geekiest metaphor ever?). Or a half-finished building, whose architect isn’t quite sure what the finished structure is going to look like, and is making it up as he goes along.

Anyway, I’m faced with another one of these decisions that have no wrong or right answer- the hardest kind.

And I feel like such a fuckin idiot. WAAAAAHHHHH!!

***

ANYWAY. Went to afraidtoask.com to calculate what my correct bra size should be. Maybe I have been wearing the wrong size all these years and maybe I could look better.

Anyway, my results:

Your bra size is 34. But no bra is needed if these measurements are correct.

Good god… it’s that bad. I don’t even need one! I don’t even have a cupsize!!

So, shoot me.

I feel like I have no roots anywhere. If tomorrow someone told me I had to leave for another far-off place, I’d be sad, but it wouldn’t be too hard for me. I’d be annoyed and inconvenienced but I wouldn’t cry like I was going to die. And I’d adapt quickly.

I am constantly in a state of mind where I feel like nothing is permanent, and everything is subject to change to at any moment. Everything is in a state of flux. Though I am happy, I don’t feel “settled”. I have no real attachment to anything.

I live happily in the moment, I don’t look beyond it. Permanence is not something I possess right now.

***

I know it so wrong of me to feel this way, and I know there must be some point I’m missing. Who am I to say what I am about to say? Maybe I am an overly-ambitious person, but… I get so annoyed when I hear about other people my age, who have also just immigrated to a new country, and who go give up and go home for good after a few months for some sappy reason.

I can’t help it. I see myself in them. People who go through a similar experience at the same time tend to identify strongly with each other. I keep in touch with people who, like me, left the Philippines within the last half of the decade. It doesn’t matter who and where we are, we are bonded because we completely understand each other. Hence, my victories are their victories and vice versa. The same goes with our failures.

So come on, dude, we all get lonely. We all get depressed, and feel out of place. At one point, we all feel like moving was a horrible mistake. We all miss people we left behind.

Okay, if you’ve given it all you’ve got and you feel like you’re meant to be in the Philippines, then by all means go home.

But please do NOT give up just because …

… you’re “sentimental” about the Philippines because it’s your hometown, your mother land, it’s where your heart is, etc. It will always be there!! It will wait for you while you do what you have to do. Okay, so you “love” the place – it will always be there! It will wait for you while you do what you have to do. Okay, so you “love” the place, but remember, a place can’t love you back! If you “loved” a place, you’d live there without expecting anything in return from it. Don’t use “love” as an excuse to quit or for being too scared to give things a real try. Because if you do, chances are your “love” is really just sentimentality.

… you miss you boyfriend/ girlfriend. They’re still there, too. You have a personal mission to accomplish, and that is why you have to be away from them for now. Don’t do yourself a disservice by not fulfilling that mission. They know you love them. You don’t have to live in a valley of tears, and act depressed, heartbroken all the time just to prove that you love them! Go out and live!

… you miss your friends. Don’t we all? So, go home and pay them a visit every now and then, but don’t give up on your mission altogether just because you miss them; especially if you’ve never even tried making new friends in your new country. Your real friends will wait for you! Distance will teach you to value each other all the more. You will see them again.

… you’re miserable, lonely, and depressed. If all you’ve done is stay in your room and chat online with your friends back home, if all you do is watch TV, and you never want to go out and meet new people, well… no wonder you’re depressed! Get out and live the new life that has been eagerly awaiting you! Take risks! Do the things you’re afraid of! Be bigger!

… you don’t want to change. That’s a tragedy.

Don’t. Go. Home.

You’ve come so far. It took so much out of you to move. Don’t squander this chance just because you’re a sappy, pansy, sentimental fool.

Don’t give up until you can leave smiling, until you can look back fondly at this time in your life. Otherwise, you’ll always think of this as the time you failed.

Stay.

Some people want to stay in their hometown forever, and have the same set of people around them for their entire lives, and never want things to change, and never want to leave. If this is what you want, then your choice will be all the more meaningful if you leave your friends and hometown behind first, then return to it again.

There’s a very important difference between love and sentimentality. Sentimentality can hold you back from growth if you misconstrue it as love. Learn to decipher the difference.

No return, no exchange.

Post nursing school, I knew I have set the ball of destiny rolling. I knew my life would never be the same again.

I told the universe I wanted to get into this career path I have been avoiding since birth (or so it seems), and I did. But it’s always scary when your life’s plans actually start to come true. It’s always nice to dream about what you plan to do with your life; but the moment those dreams start coming true, you know you’ve just hopped on a one-way train to the unknown, and there’s no turning back.

This chosen career path means several things to me. It means I really am committed to staying here for at least the next three or so years of my life. The foundations have been laid. This will be my home base for the next few years. And it was my decision.

It also means that I have defined what I’m going to do for the next decade or so of my life. Unlike my old advertising career which sort of just fell into my lap, this is something I actually chose. I thought about it long and hard. Everyone told me to keep writing, to not “sell out”, but in the end, I followed my gut.

It was no ordinary decision. I’ve just dived into a current, and I don’t know where it’s going to take me.

I can’t help but feel that I’m living real life now. I used to just cruise through life, not caring where it took me. Now I want to know what I’m here for. I want to know what I’m capable of doing, of becoming. Is this what our mid-twenties are all about?

Four years ago, when we were in uni, me and my friends talked only about parties, boys, alcohol, illegal substances, and rock n’ roll. Real life was something that only happened to other people.

Now we talk about three things: career, relationships, and the eternal dilemma of stretching ourselves as far as we can go versus early marriage. I’ve heard it echo from the mouths of so many of my closest female friends: “I want to see the world/ live my youth to the fullest/ see what I’m all about, but I love him and I’m afraid to leave him”. What happened to our reckless teenage years? We used to think we’d never let anything hold us back from conquering the world, and we certainly wouldn’t have let love stand in our way.

That’s another odd thought- I’m actually old enough to get married! I could do it if I wanted to, and my parents would actually take my decision seriously. When you’re young, you can be reckless with love. But at this age, the decisions you make will actually matter in the long run.

When did real life begin?

One thing I’ve learned is that the moment you come close to attaining your dream, another door opens offering you an attractive escape route, a final temptation to remain in the security of your comfort zone forever. What could be more tempting than living the life you’ve always planned, growing old safe and secure in the company of your life-long friends? But this is to test your desire and the strength of your will.

I can almost predict what my life would have turned out to be like had I stayed. I would have continued making a good but unfulfilling living with advertising because the perks are just too good to give up. During my free time, I’d dabble in a bunch of projects, or in whatever I felt like, never mind that none of them will ever really amount to anything. I’d probably never grow up. I’d marry earlier than I planned because it would seem like the sensible thing to do. After all, I had found the love of my life, hadn’t I? (Bahaha) What could be more perfect? Then somewhere along the road, I’ll start asking myself “What if?”. What if I had gone to the States? What if I had bothered to actually see what I can make of myself? But by that time, it will already have been too late to find out.

I probably would have been happy, just because I never bothered to venture outwards and see for myself if there was life outside of what I knew. It would be a happiness by default. Would I have been content? I don’t know. I know I wasn’t right before I left.

Now, here I am in the most uncertain of times. I came here not knowing anything. I’ve gotten by here on guts, and resourcefulness. I’ve started friendships that have yet to pass the test of time. After four years, I still don’t know what’s going to happen to me here, and I get a bit scared when I think of how the next years will change me. I know I will be so different from the person I was when I left. Will there be anything left waiting for me in Manila, the home of my heart?

But demmit, when have I ever felt so alive? I am in the hands of the universe. I laugh, cry, get homesick, feel lost, can’t relate to anything… but when have I ever felt so effin alive?? When else have dreams seemed so possible? When have I ever been so in tune with myself? When have I ever known, with such certainty, what I want to become?

We’re always told that we should live our own lives, but I’ve never actually felt like my life was mine til now. I know it’s mine because I chose for it to be this way. Nobody else decided for me. Nobody forced me to be here.

And I can now declare, that I don’t want my old life back anymore. That was a different phase of my life. I can never bring it back. This is a beginning.

***

I WANT (Yeah. I always get into the habit of making a mental note of what I want in a day cause I can never seem to verbalize it – at least not out loud)

… an hour-long neck, shoulder, and back massage. A HARD massage.

… to lie on the beach for an afternoon with absolutely no agenda other than to relax.

… to go on a long train ride or sit in a park all afternoon just people watching.

… to wander the city with nothing but my camera.

…to catch a really, really good live band in some non-dressy, artsy place, far away from the suburbs, where the vibe is good, the crowd is real, and the beer is cheap. I NEED live music. I need to hear live drums. I need to hear bass. I need to hear singing.

… to eat at a vegetarian resto or at least, some really good Greek pizza.

… a cozy evening of good company and alcohol.

… to watch Burlesque in the cinemas. And Harry Potter. And Black Swan.

… to buy a shitload of new books. I have nothing to read.

… to get out of the effin suburbs!!

really, truly, madly, passionately, remarkably, deliciously, juicily.

Love don’t make things nice, it ruins everything, it breaks your heart, it makes things a mess.  We aren’t here to make things perfect.  Snowflakes are perfect.  The stars are perfect.  Not us.  Not us!  We are here to ruin ourselves and, to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die!  I mean, the storybooks are bullshit!  Now I want you to come upstairs with me, and get in my bed!

 

(Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, John Patrick Shanley)

And now to the tune of the mean holiday blues…

I hate how I always feel so goddamn homesick every year at this time of year. Why? What home am I sick for anyway? It’s been four years since I last spent the holidays back in the motherland, and the last time I did in ’06 is hardly what you’d call a good memorable experience. Memorable, yeah. But definitely NOT GOOD. So why? What the fuck am I still yearning for from back home at this time of year, specifically?

The beach? The island life? Sure. But I miss that ALL THE TIME. Not just for the -ber months. So, disqualified.

My friends? Who I haven’t kept in touch with and vis-a-vis for years now save for some minor nonsensical cutesy li’l innuendos via facebook. Ugh facebook. That site is so full of shit now, it sickens me to admit that our world would seriously cease to revolve without it. It’s disgusting how we all get so dependent on it when it’s not even serving it’s main purpose in the first place. Social networking, ey? We have managed to reduce ourselves into facebook profiles we manage to garnish with occasional updates that are, more often than not, more enticing than the actual deal. Like freakin cars in a show room. And personal interactions? Write on my wall, comment on my status, heck! Tag me a photo! It’s worth a thousand words, right? And that’s excluding all subliminal messages meant to somehow elicit a reaction from a potential lover and/or ex-lover. Seriously. What have we reduced ourselves into? Facebook friends. Nothing more, nothing less. So, why would I be homesick for them?

Family? My immediate family is here. Extended families strewn all over the country – coast to coast. There’s barely enough distance to stir up sentimentality… So, no. Definitely not family.

All my dogs have passed away.

The so-called “love of my life” has gotten married and is now an expectant father – fuck that.

What else is there then?

Stripped of all these external reasons, I realize I stand alone. That’s it. I miss me. I miss myself, and the way I was back home. I miss how I used to care about something as mundane as a sidewalk Christmas bazaar – one of gazillions that litter the metro at this time of year. Or how I used to marvel at Christmas lanterns. I miss how I used to dream of a white Christmas whereas now, I just dread it. I miss my natural capacity to evoke such random joy in the faces of street children when I share a Jollibee meal with them in Starbucks, or just plain hanging out with them, asking them about school and their families… I miss how I was able to literally smell Christmas in the air back home. Try as I may, I could never smell it here. I have become desensitized somehow. And it sucks.

So, maybe it’s not the place. Neither is it the people. Nor my dogs, nor my heart.

I am homesick for me.

And I don’t know what to do about it but rant. Whoopee-doo.

***

So, WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE?

I don’t live in the City but sometimes I do want it to burn.

Just a li’l feel-good something for all the ill-begotten hopefully temporarily desensitized souls… including my own.

If you live in the city / And you want it to burn / Because you think nobody could learn / The delicate demons and / Loneliest ways of a heart / Thats been broken

Say what you will / Love finds you even when / You’ve given it up

One after another / You’ve seen love affairs turn / From the glorious start / To the crash and burn / But Now that you’ve promised never again / It’s exactly when you’ll fall in

You’ve sworn off clubs and bars / Fridays with the girls / You say homes where you’ll be / But soon your own sweet love / Who needs you’ll be lying in your arms

Say what you will / Love finds you even when / You’ve given it up

Everybody deserves to be adored / Why would you settle for less / When the world gives you more?

The Hurt has you now / But soon it’ll make you strong / And your loveliness goes on and on

Say what you will / Love a heart thats been broken / Love finds you even when / You’ve given up

Say what you will / Say it again and again / Until the whole world knows about it

Love finds you even when / You’ve given up.

Ode to the infinite ageless inkwell

Though I am one of the most transparent persons around, I tend to spew fabrications just to elicit reactions from people. Sometimes, I learn what kind of person they are by the way they respond.

***

I was going through my old clutters inside a balikbayan box and found my old notebooks stashed at the bottom of my art materials and old CD’s and VHS tapes. I am such a keeper of old mementos and souvenirs. (How can you throw them away? Those are better remembrances of fond memories than putting up an album on facebook!) I reread some of my journals. I think I really am getting old. Ha! I coudn’t believe how many hundreds of thousands of thoughts I have passed on to paper, some of them were like from a different person. There were dreams written that I completely forgot that came into reality.

I love all my notebooks. Every each one of them. I knew I was writing for every phase of my life, that on every end page of each, there’s a note written “END OF CHAPTER.” It’s so funny how I would easily decide when to end. I have one notebook where I’ve written only on few pages, and then I started on a new one. That was the time I was on a transition from one relationship to another. My mind was so messed up I couldn’t put it on paper… and I think that was the time I started blogging. That time, my notebooks and livejournal started pulling tug-of-war on my thoughts. Until time came when my hand knows when to use a pen and when to use a keyboard.

My first notebook ever was a blue Cattleya red-&-blue lined notebook. I was in Grade 2 when I started writing stories. My first story was about a boy named Scott and a girl I forgot who. I don’t know why I couldn’t forget the boy’s name. Must be because I still remember how I would write Scott cursively. I have loved the curling of the S.

That was a love story and I don’t know why the very first story I ever wrote was a freakin’ love story!

Too bad I lost that notebook.

The next story I wrote was of a girl with 5 older brothers who went with her to the park, and they had a van, and then they played music, one instrument each.

Normal stories… until I met Gaiman and I began to write mythopoeic stories. I passed some of them to magazines. But they would be returned cause, of course, people wouldn’t wanna read outta-this-world fictions. But I just did it for the heck of it.

Damn, I miss my fictionist self.

***

I am a very sensitive person. But not the “ang sensitib mo naman!” kind. No. I am sensitive in a way that I can sense people’s emotions hundreds of miles from me. Yes I am a super hero. Bahaha

I am not overly touchy, not too fond of besos, and I am not the type who’d miss people to a fault – although, I do have my moments. But I love hugging and kissing and holding hands and I do miss past experiences… I am not really what you’d call clique-ish, neither do I prefer to roll with a posse. People from my Elementary/HS will attest to that. Hell, they even labeled me as “autistic” which I don’t mind. But I do have a select group of friends since childhood that I can never replace with whatever people I have now in my circle. I call them my gems.

My social capacity is limited to that – of my loved ones.

So on a regular basis, I move about without a care in the world. Because that’s just it. I just do not care anymore. I am a ninja of the fleeting kind. Yes, ninja’s are fleeting. But I meant that I am not one sometimes.

If people don’t like me, I can sense it. But thing is, I don’t really care. Cause I wouldn’t want them to, anyway. What, so I can do the same with regards to them? No thanks. Vive et sine vivere. Before, I wouldn’t appreciate it if they talk behind my back. I’d say that they better say it to my face. But now, I don’t care. Really. They can talk all they want behind my back. At least I gave them something to kill time with. They can mess with me in my face or at my back… just as long as they don’t mess with my family. I have lived sufficiently long enough to even care what people think of me. Life is too short. People can do whatever they want! Cause I found out that I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT. Happily.

Like I said, if people cross my family (blood-fam and soul-fam), I can either kick them in the face, or write about them on my blog/notebook. I can do the previous for defense purpose, the latter to practice my writing. So there.

***

SUPER RANDOM THOUGHT: Just realized that I could afford to lose all my important phone contacts than lose my music files. I am one heck of a closet anti-social.

holy snoochie boochies!

My “Silent Bob” got hitched. Yep. Another one bites the dust.

“Silent Bob” as I used to call him (and yes, I was Jay) is my SAfrican buddy. Used to be my good buddy. We used to hang out and get high… much like the fictional characters “Jay & Silent Bob” aka the comic book heroes “Bluntman & Chronic.” The friendship was strangely purely platonic despite the fact that we started out being the apple of each others’ eyes. I dunno. It just didn’t progress to anything beyond the friendship lines. Seriously. We didn’t even get the chance to steal a single kiss or anything more than a friendly hug even though we hung out incessantly in the confines of our rooms. Yes, we used to go to each other’s abodes and invade each other’s personal spaces. Yet, nothing happened. Nothing beyond PG.

I don’t know when or how it happened but we just suddenly lost touch. We were both flirting with the idea of being with other people at that time, but nothing serious. Maybe that’s how we were able to maintain the platonic vibe… Or maybe I missed some signals…? Que sas, que sas, que sas.

So, why the sudden recollection? I had a dream about him last night. Quite an amazing dream actually. And you know how amazing dreams always easily evade the conscious zone upon awakening til something in the waking world reminds you of it, like deja vu – well, that’s what brought on the memory lane. Strange how I just thought of him now, and all due to a dream, when we used to be so close. Real life is certainly excellent in providing severance and causing temporary amnesia. It’s a shame. One moment we’re best friends, and in a blink, we’re back to being strangers. Further than strangers. Cause I wasn’t even made aware that 1) he went on to being serious with this chick; 2) they got engaged; and, 3) they got freakin married! Married with a capital M. Holy shites.

Yet, somehow I feel like I abandoned him. His wife used to be this psycho girl who was making his life hell. Using him for rides, for weed, for freakin child support – yeah, the girl comes with a baggage. He’s that kind of a guy, you see. Genuinely nice, patient, dependable. A total dream boat, if I should say so myself. We were both in the cesspool of frustrating partners before we lost touch. He used to always call me, and I used to be always on the road driving to the City towards dbag and/or potential dbag arms. And perhaps, maybe, after a series of absences from yours truly, he just gave up. And I… well, I was too infatuated with the promise of oncoming train wrecks to even notice.

Now, I just feel… bad. I know I shouldn’t. I should be happy for the dude. But I can’t shake off these annoying what-ifs and guilt trips. Had I been more present in his life, how different would the outcome/s be? Would it be any different?

WHATEVER.

I just can’t believe I’ve lost him to the vows of forever with this woman I haven’t even met. I just can’t believe I’ve lost him, period.

And I seriously would’ve dedicated this kick ass song to him had I been invited to the wedding (we used to have the same kick ass taste in music, among plenty others):

BUT ANYWAY. I miss you, Silent Bob. Be happy.

Can you turn my power off?

Things would be so much easier if I were a robot…

But, I’m not.

***

I have all this undirected anger in me. Bouncing off all the corners of my psyche. I don’t know why I’m angry or at whom or what. Still too bruised to direct some of it to myself when I know I should. I don’t have a reason to be this furious at him. Sure, my pride was wounded, my ego busted big time BUT it’s not like we made promises. It’s not like he made promises. Truth of the matter is, I already knew the outcome before it actualized. Still, I let it go on as if the inevitable won’t come. Taking it moment by moment. Of course, my inability to shut up did not help soften the blow. I had it coming. Still… He could’ve been less brutal.

OH WELL.

He said, I’d only get hurt in the end. Well, guess what? Too late for that. Cause unlike him, I’m no robot. I thought I was. And in a way I’m grateful knowing that I’m not. Tis a shame though. We really could’ve been the best thing…

OH WELL.

I am not built for casual. I know that now. Besides, he’s not the only fish. And it sure ain’t my last bait.