No Regrets For Our Youth*

It's halfway through January and still, I can't think of anything to write about. Not for the lack topic but for the lack of organization. My thoughts wander... the more I try to concretize the chaos of vague emotions I think I feel right now, the more my mind seems to stray to the distant past - - when life was easy and breathing was natural.

As much as I like the changes and the decisions I've made over the last 5 years and as much as I have learned lessons that would stick to me to grave, I would do anything to go back to who I was -- not to change anything, but to be able to feel the way I felt before. I would like to think that I am older and wiser now -- and maybe I am. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to go back and do the carefree things I did before, to be with the people I was with before, to look at people without doubt and with genuine interest.

I was young and did stupid things, but I was never stupid. Yes, I was cynical but I did not shut people out. I was seldom sober, but I was alive. I slacked off but I was never irresponsible. I have made mistakes but I would do them over and over again. I've made indiscretions, but I was happy - truly, genuinely happy. I have crossed some people, but I never stepped on their toes. I won some, lost some but I knew I was willing to gamble. I seldom went to class, but I learned a lot. I was hasty but I never let my haste lead to waste. I was open and malleable but I had ideals. I was dubious but I listened nonetheless. I was different and I was not ashamed. I was shameless but I never lacked self-respect. I was penniless but I was drunk everyday. I lacked sleep but my mind was wide awake. Yes, those were the best years of my life.

I have promised myself then that there things I would never do -- but I did them nonetheless. A friend told me a few weeks ago that if our "college selves" saw us now, they would spit on us in contempt. Maybe they would, but I give my college self the benefit of the doubt. And even if my college self did spit on me now, I would understand. In fact, I would envy her, for the freedom that she had, for the boldness she possessed and for the heart that she had.

*Inspired by Akira Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth (which Mimi got inked on her torso)

Do I Really Hate Pink?

Ok. I admit. I have been secretly following a good friend's blog. See, I have known her for years and we've become really good friends, friends who need not talk but somehow try to understand. She doesn't know I read her blogs, she doesn't know that as I read, I laugh with her and sometimes even cry with her. She doesn't know I am baffled and sometimes a little envious at how she stays positive about everything. I have 20/20 vision, she has to wear glasses to see clearly -- yet, its her who always sees the silver lining, she always sees the brighter side.

See, I don't want to see myself as a sad, pessimistic person. No. I'm bright and cheery, pink and bubbly. Or at least I want to be. Reading my previous blogs in numerous sites, one would think I have a dark, scarred, cynical and jaded personality. Well, maybe I do. But maybe I don't. I don't really know. But this idea has kept me from blogging for the past year (well, aside from the fact that I am in law school now and I barely have time to sleep). This past year, in the middle of writing, i stop myself, read what I have written and I realize how loaded and anger-stricken my post was - how every word seems to be written by hand, the pencil tip breaking at the end of every sentence. Was I angry? Was I bitter? Or was I just an emotional writer? I usually went for the last answer and I usually end up deleting my half-finished post.

Why? Have I suddenly grown a conscience? No. Not really. I just realized I have to be very very careful with my words. Somehow, the sharp tongue I have in real life translates in every medium of communication I use. In my songs, in my posts, sometimes even in my essay exams. Its just me. And I'm doing this not because I don't want to hurt other people, or make them feel worse than they already do. I'm doing this for myself... i think. I really haven't resolved in my heart why I want "censor" what I say. Maybe, I just dont want to look back when I'm old and see that I was angry. Sure my name doesn't rhyme with pink and bubbly, nor is it synonymous with bright and cheery -- but I just wanna look back and see that somehow, I was happy.

Or maybe, I'm just hormonal.

WANDERLUST

To convince our friend to jump into the water from a 10-foot high cliff, a friend of mine shouted probably one of the most loaded statements I've heard in my 22 years of existence:

"Dude, the hardest part is letting go!!!"

After she said that, everyone burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Taunted, my friend jumped - which only made the laughter worse.

See, most of the time, people think that once they face their "fear", they start letting go - that they start moving forward. I think there are more roadblocks, detours, broken traffic lights and stinky public toilets on their way to "getting there" than they actually are aware of -- than they want to be aware of.

We all want to "get there", wherever "there" is. But often we neglect that we are, after all, just people with comfort zones - with shackles that leave us grounded to our security blankets. Don't get me wrong. Having a comfort zone and a security blanket is a good thing, but it stops being one when it remains just that: a zone and a blanket.

Sometimes we are unaware that the things we believe as the things that keep us sane are the things that creep slowly into reason like an ugly Sunday storm. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that we are confronting our pain when in truth, we are merely reliving the pain. We run away, go back, face the ugly truth, cry a little (or a lot, depending on the mood), then run away again, go back again, face it again and cry again, without really ever cutting the chains that keep us from crossing the line to moving on. Its a vicious cycle, really. And what's more sick is that sometimes, we find comfort in that numbing pain (to the point of even thinking that feeling that pain makes you human because you can actually feel something).

Well, fuck that. That excuse is like a stinky public toilet everyone knows exists, that everyone knows is unhealthy, yet everyone still uses because there is no other choice. Well, that excuse is like the stinky toilet - its full of shit. Its a truckload of gut-wrenching, barf-inducing shitload of crap. And just so I don't sound hypocritical, I am guilty of using the stinky toilet, in fact, I have used it hundreds of times. I have gone through the vicious cycle a thousand times than I would like to. And up to this paragraph, I still don't know if I am still that person who willingly enters the stinky toilet all wrapped up in my security blanket, shackled to my comfort zone.

I wont go all pessimistic and say no one ever cuts those chains, sometimes people do manage to break those chains. Some people manage to take the first step out of their comfort zones. Some people manage to actually let go of their security blankets. And I'm proud of them. But letting go and getting there are of totally different species. See, getting there is a lot harder than letting go because we tend to wander. We tend to --what do they call it? yeah-- explore.

"Getting there" involves having to be aware that there are inevitable, unforeseeable and sometimes, unavoidable circumstances that totally change the equation of:

"letting go to getting there using method X for a period of Y months via road Z."

What I'm trying to say is, no one will ever be able to get there according to schedule and according to plan. Why? Detours. Roadblocks. Broken traffic lights. Photo ops with the amazing view and gorgeous landmarks. In one way or another, we get distracted.

The farther we stray from the supposed path, the more heightened the need to explore becomes.

The longer one stays in the supposed path, the more the wanderlust is fuelled, after all, there are many ways to actually "get there". But how one actually "gets there" is as important as "getting there."

I have had my share of roadblocks: those inner thoughts that are hardest to hurdle. I often doubted and second guessed myself, eventually forcing me to go back to where a came from and start all over again.

I've encountered numerous broken traffic lights. Those that are stuck with the effin' red light forcing me to stop, to get stuck and to be left out. Those with perpetual green lights egging me to go on which leaves me a total wreck (usually caused by fatal crash and burns). And my favorite, traffic lights with the eternal yellow leaving me confused whether to go slower or to move faster, leading me to take missteps that inevitably leave me with a broken bone (or two).

My vanity has left me with piles of pictures with majestic views and breath-taking sites. And after ogling the scenery and imagining how perfect it would be if "this" was the backdrop of my lifestory... I am left breathless, exhausted and disappointed. After all, they are what they have always been: just scenery. At least once in our life we become victims of pining for what can never be ours - for things that are meant only to be looked at and never owned ( no matter how perfect they may seem to be ours).

At this point I cant say I have gotten there. All I am sure of is that I am still trying to get there. Where "there" is, I am still trying to figure out. I just know that I have to get there. And I am in no hurry. I just have to know that I am okay. That my dignity is still intact even if I break my bones trying to get there. As poet Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "What lies behind us and what lies beyond us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

LUNOK*. INHALE. GRUNT.

A friend told me:

"Greta, it hurts because you're used to getting what you want."

She told me:

"When you want something, you work for it... you work hard for it, and you get it in the end. And this time, it hurts because you 'invested', still, you did not get what you want."

And this was the first time anyone has ever told me that. The first time anyone ever told me that I'm used to getting what I want. Now that I think about it, maybe I am. Now that I think about it more, I am not. I just take what I can. I just take what I am given - I mope and cry for a few hours and then I make do with what I have. Well, most of the time.

And tonight, is not one of those times.

Self-entitlement. Assumptions. Expectations. The triad.

Yes, the fail-proof formula to nights of crying- no, not crying, tearing. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, tears falling with no effort at all. Add Disappointment and voila! your chest starts to feel heavy and now you're paralyzed.

See, I have wanted many things - I still want a lot of things. And I have always found it painful to hear people say "No, you can't have it." So I worked hard, I worked hard until I have achieved something I think might change their minds. Most of the time, it worked. The downside was every time I accomplished something that would change their minds, I set the bar higher. So I work harder. This is precisely why I hate situations where the conditions for accomplishment do not depend on me alone. This is why I am impatient.

This is why I stay, because I know I can still do it.

When it takes the other person too long, I get bored.

When I get bored, I act.

When acts prove to be futile, I get disappointed.

When I get disappointed, I eventually get tired.

When I get tired, everything seems harder.

When it gets too hard, I start to hurt.

When I am hurt, I end up being sad.

And when sadness becomes unbearable, I run away.

When I run away, most of the time, I tend to take detours that lead me back to where I started.

Tonight, I want to believe, that tonight will not be most of the time.

"It's not the despair, I can stand the despair.

It's the hope."

- John Cleese, A Clockwork Orange

* Lunok: Filipino for swallow.

"And I don't feel like singing tonight

All the same songs.."

--City, Sara Barreiles

They all told me: NO.

I understand why they say No, so you have to understand why I say Yes.

STRICTLY PROFESSIONAL

not NON-EXISTENT.

NO WAY OUT

and here i thought Law School was my easy way out of working for a TV Station.


I was dead wrong.