An emotional week

I really think my hormones are shot! Either that or im an undiagnosed bipolar or something ( a bipolar polar bear... Who would have thunk?) but seriously, i really think there's something wrong with me this week, since i have been feeling rather emotional lately, more than the usual level of drama i have accustomed myself to be as normal. PMSing aside, my week hasnt been anything more than the usual. Same amount of work. Same amount of frustration. Same amount of stress. I really should be used to it by now, and for a greater part, i think i am. I can say i have already consoled myself with the fact that this is my job, i chose it and im really performing to the best that i can. If things still go wrong, then its beyond my control already and it should not always be my fault (since i have this bad habit of thinking that its always my fault) i do my job. I do the best as what im good at and try hard on the things that im not. That should be enough.... Any more and i wouldnt be fair to myself anymore. Wow... Talk about talking off topic. Nag-blog title pa ako, di ko naman sinunod. So, being emotional his week... I cried at church, without even thinking i would. I choked up while talking about something that would normally not affect me. Had a client meeting that afternoon, found my mood rather chipper, only to fall to a negative after the meeting ended. Food didnt even help to lift up my spirits. The fatigue of the following days was helpful since it distrcated me from feeling anything. My body just wanted to sleep, and then today happened. Wow. Some news at work that was, and now i find myself confronting the crossroads of either ignoring what im feeling and just work, or empower the bitch in me and, well, be a nasty prick. Patting myself on the back tho since its not often i find myself in such crossroads. My default mechanism usually means i morph into the bitch instantly, but now im aware of a choice. Its quite wonderful really, having a choice. Its empowering also that im not a puppet of my emotions anymore, well, not as much as i was used to.

The bitch is back, with duller talons hopefully

If this blog was a girl, we wouldnt be friends anymore. She would have left me and ran off with the next guy she spots since i have been neglecting her. Thank goodness that im gay, hence my blog must be too. Not that im saying a gay person would leave me if i neglected them this long as well. So THANK GOODNESS my blog isnt a person! Who cares if ive neglected writing this long. Heck, i have a perfect reason why, i have been living :) thats why. Hehehe. That and im trying my best not to complain too much anymore, since my love has been saying that a lot of my entries tend to lean more on the negative. Such is having someone else to share you life with, someone now can see your life from another vantage point, and he can make so much sense that you'll find yourself saying to the mopping cry-baby you have nurtured inside all these years and say.... HEY. THATS NOT THAT BAD OF AN IDEA! Il try that.... Then TADA! You realized you REALLY are this melodramatic asshole who just love the attention of being melodramatic, and doing so has prevented you from seeing all the beauty and marvels life really has to offer. Of course im not saying my views are always all that wrong. Of course i have my moments when i think im objective enuf to leave the drama at the door and see things for what they are. It in those time, however, that my love is the one being the melodramatic queen, and the roles get reverese. I then become the guy who slaps senses into him, or throw him a bucket of ice water, whichever is more fun :) Sigh, the bliss of having a partner. It drives you crazy sometimes, to the brinks of utter exhaustion, i must say, but when you finally find yourself running low on fuel and steam and are about to throw in the towel, love grips you and it grips you tight. Then only do you realize you cant let go. Love has taken its hold and BY GOLLY! That thing can cling!!! So my life, sans blogging, has been pretty much like this: the rollercoaster ride of existence, but now im riding in a car for two :) much more fun and much more screaming! Ask my love about our ride when we were in Singapore, priceless! Hahahaha

small things

hello blog.

it's has indeed been a while since I was last here. Many things have happened since my last visit. So many, I really have no idea where to start. There's just so much to tell, some I have actually forgotten already, but some, the major ones. the significant ones, of course, I will never forget.

for starters, I just passed my first year of being in a relationship. yes, my beloved and I just celebrated our first anniversary. I never really thought I would get this far, just because I never really looked that far ahead. But just because we did get this far, it fills me with hope, and maybe, to allow myself to see that I just might not grow old alone after all.

I took him to lunch at La Cocina de Tita Moning, just for a change from our usual mall-dining experience. I also thought he might like the taste of home cooked food for a date (not my cooking, obviously). he however loved the place more, I believe. it reminded him, he said, of the place they lost to the lahar when he was young. i could see that, as he was sitting on the receiving sala sofa, that his mind had drifted off already to simpler, happier, more peaceful days. I was happy nonetheless. its details like this that make lasting memories after all.

We had our first major fight a few days after that. On his birthday, of all days. My fault really. I was an idiot. A good one at that.

Our anniversary celebration continued to his first trip abroad. We flew to Vietnam to Saigon. Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck more than half of the trip since I sincerely dislike things when things go wrong, and considering we were both going to a country we have both never been to, and that i was with a first-time flyer, things did go wrong. the trip however was an eye opener for me. indeed there are many things that i thought that i had already dealt with with myself that still were there, and indeed, it took very little to unearth all the nasties inside me again. it was saddening yet enlightening, in a way. taking the optimistic way, my beloved and i chose to move on passed our differences and trudge ahead to possible commonalities that would strengthen our bond... this transition of course was made faster with a visit to the war museum. nothing makes your problems feel insignificant once you see pictures of dead bodies and deformed people, all after effects of man's hunger for supremacy.

my beloved learned how to haggle, and not to bring heavy books in his luggage. i learned to be more relaxed and be more patient... and not sweat the small stuff. letting go gave me more room to love, and love i did.

i also, in the midst of all this self discovery, am now a licensed interior designer. yes, i passed. thank the Lord. now, to get projects. Good ones hopefully and not the errand-esque projects thrown to me by relatives who think that what I do is easy.

I brought him to Singapore this year. We both ran the Singapore Marathon, tho we ran different distances. All that time, I felt my role change from lover to mother as I was scared for him most of the time. A part of me wanted to show him the world, yet a part of me wanted to keep that innocence about him. Then theres that part of me that just wants to keep him safe and not loose him since Singapore can be rather overwhelming sometimes...needless to say my worrying had its climax when he had to take the train alone to his race starting point. there were moments where i felt i was nagging already but i guess i justified it in my head that what i was doing was for the best. im happy to say that the race was incident free and that we BOTH survived :)

so many small things to say from the many small things that i have seen. the many small things that make the patches in this quilt of memories i am now making of me and him, him an me. my heart skips a beat when i see the quilt slowly grow in my head. every stitch, every square is another crystal eternalized in my heart.

i hope to grow this quilt to be big enough to be lost in. big enough for both of us to be lost in. to lie in. to cuddle in. to love in.

Rage

i was walking to gym early this morning when i chanced upon a gridlock of jeepneys at my neighborhood intersection (yes, traffic jams do occur as early as 530am where i live, poor me). one of the jeepneys decided to park at the narrow, one lane street to wait for passengers, never minding the swelling growth of irate vehicles piling up behind him, blowing their horns like crazy, urging him to budge. since all the drivers in this country are opportunistic (including me, when the opportunity arises, of course), none of the irate motorists bothered to keep the intersection open, hence the gridlock. now, if this oblivious jeepney, who is the thrombus in this traffic blockade, just mindfully moved his vehicle a foot or two, then he would have opened up enough space for the motorists behind him to pass without him really loosing sight of potential passegenrs who, at 530am, would actually decide to ride, but no... he stood his ground. i didnt linger long enough to see how the situation resolved, but as i distanced myself from the inflaming scenario, i could hear rough shouting ensuing, my neighborhood has it limits for inconsiderate behavior too apparently.

as i walked further away, i heard a voice play in my head, and it sounded just like me, only angrier. i saw myself inside my car, immediately behind the said oblivious jeepney driver. i then found myself getting down and walking to the jeepney, grabbing the driver by the head and forcing him to turn his sight to the mess he has done. i then resulted to driving my car against the jeepneys bumper and pushing it forward. in the unfortunate but unavoidable event of violence erupting, i found myself ready for it, polar bears are the world's largest carnivores and we are highly protective in keeping that title. 

i felt my heart racing as my imagination went bezerk with the images in my head. it was so vivid and so real that my muscles were tensing and sweat began to form on my brow. i shook the images off, hoping it would not escalate anymore and began to pray. the triumvirate were nowhere to be found, all three were silent for some reason. i wondered, do i now have a fourth in my head, the one to represent rage? i suddenly felt a tinge of sorrow in me, i always knew i had a temper but have been well enough to control it, but sadly so, lately, my irritability easily flares into full displays of rage, some that i even feel is so unlike me. i have never acted any of them out yet, but if my mind can now conceive it, then outward manifestations certainly cannot be far behind. i prayed again. 

rage does not come out of nowhere, even though it may seem that way. it is a slow boil inside a pressure cooker, always starting out as a manageable simmer. i know because i have seen it before, and the prospects of behaving so uncontrollably, so violently frightened me to my core. i prayed again. 

i often confess for my temper. i have confessed for anger, but not for rage, not for contempt, which fuels rage even more. to have a temper is normal, to get angry is too, but to allow both to root itself, unresolved and eventually influence my reality, thereby breeding contempt, that however is not, and i have to confess, i have allowed myself that, hence my rage.

i pray the Lord be kind, this is one serious matter i no longer can ignore.

introspections

that sometimes, living is escaping.
even if sometimes, you can't seem to escape enough.

that sometimes, escaping is to retreat back into the hole
even if sometimes, it was the hole you first ran away from.

that sometimes the hole is a death-trap,
even if sometimes the hole is as good as home.

that sometimes, dying can be escaping too
just so you that you can be reborn again.

what happened...

let me just say, i hate surprises. no wait, i DETEST them. i never enjoyed the feeling of the unknown and just the mere fact that something of the sort could be looming in my immediate future (in cases wherein someone was kind enough to leak me information) just drives me completely insane... as if i could get any worse. hence birthdays are a particular struggle for me. my ex-best friend before would often surprise we with unusual gifts, and despite the fact that it had already become a tradition between us every year, thereby also lessening the surprise-factor, just the mere fact that there was something "unknown" about the whole thing still gets me anxious. my birthday this year was no different, rather, it was since this is the first birthday i am celebrating while being in a relationship, so imagine only the level of anxiousness i had.

consider it grooming. i had been steadily breaking it to ros (my utterly adorable other half) about how i was not particular with special dates, as well as surprises. i had also been rather consistent (or so i believed) that i am better impressed by simple things and small gestures rather than grandiose expressions. thankfully so, he is keen to take note of these things, more so, also appreciates them since he too is not a fan of very overt gestures HOWEVER, for my birthday, he begged things to be different. enter the BAD feeling... i honestly have never seen anyone so excited for another's birthday but here he was, ros, practically bubbly with whatever it was that he was planning, NO, scheming, malevolently concocting in that brain of his... of what he wont tell me. not even give me a hint. threatening him with unimaginable pain would be futile since knowing him, when he says its a secret, it really is a secret and all i really could do was wait for that faithful, o horrible day...

september 9 fell on a friday and the entire day, i was in school taking an exam. ros had scheduled me for dinner and we agreed to meet slightly earlier to "prepare" for things to come. i had finished my exam early and got to makati earlier than expected. i decided to get a birthday haircut from my barber. he commented that i looked particularly dandy today. i told him i was off to a party later, not telling him it was my birthday. i loitered a bit more and eventually parked myself at my favorite coffee shop. ros arrived a few minutes later, practically beaming. i tried to hide my growing anxiety, as well as curiosity and struggled to keep myself calm and distracted. ros and i tend to feed off each other's energies and i was afraid if i got more anxious, he would get more excited, which would fuel my anxiety even more.... its a vicious cycle. ros eventually got things rolling and began to unravel his plot. the first installment was a scrap book he had made himself, which he demanded that i open leaf-by-leaf. as i panned through every page, my heart went soft, my mind wend numb and quite frankly, all my anxiety left me. each page contained a picture of a friend, holding up a letter, all the letters put together spelled HAPPY THIRTY SECOND BIRTHDAY. twenty five pages, twenty five letters, twenty five pictures of friends, some ros hasn't even met. he even had my BARBER and my cousin from Canada pitch in. to say that i was joyful is putting it lightly. i am at a lost of any expression as i feel the emotions for such hasnt even been invented yet. in the few minutes that i was there, flipping thru the pages over and over again, i could not stop thinking how much i love ros and that i could not show him how much it was that i did. all i could do was stare at his scrap book and flip through each page again and again. 

we went out to dinner at Top of the Citi, his second installment to his well-orchestrated surprise. we dined at our own private room overlooking salcedo park, our table strewn with rose petals.... an overly cheesy detail the resto manager thought appropriate, that was until he saw two guys walk into the room. bwahahahaha! i'll let the pictures do the talking here :)

we finally capped the night off with his third installment. he bought me perfume supposedly specially formulated to make people happy. to be quite honest, he need not have had anymore. i think i have enough happy in me to last me a very long time. thank you ros. i love you very very much.

humanda ka sa birthday mo. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

9.9.2011

it is with this glimmer that i lay my little faith, this sliver of light in what has been many years of walking in fog and thick mist, unable to see, feel and touch the world around me, only hear the many voices and noises that surround me, following their direction, hoping that the ones i do heed are leading me the right way. i have walked in fear and in uncertainty all my life, even if i tried my best to hide it, even if i tried to show that i knew what i was doing, even if in truth, i was not... but you knew this, indeed, you knew this all along. nothing is hidden from you and my heart, my arrogant mind, and my falsely capable self was exposed. i was stripped of my strength and you allowed this to happen, only because you purposed it that it should be so, because it had to be. i fought you. i struggled against you but you were stronger. you were also steadfast and strict. you remained with me all this time, unwavering, unchanging, unrelenting, ever patient, ever sure, waiting until i had nothing more to offer and throw, waiting till i could surrender and see myself for what i am, what i have become... nothing. i was nothing. in my intelligence, this i could admit. i amounted to nothing. all that i am was nothing. all that i have been doing, that meant nothing as well. until i could realize this in my head and in my heart, you did not leave me, and now that i have seen this much of this universal truth did you open a way, this glimmer of hope, this light to my path, to lead me to something. you led me to see you for what you really are, not as my oppressor, but as my savior, for you have saved me from my just fate; my redeemer, for you had purchased me with the highest price, your own life; my emancipator, for in your death, you have unshackled me from all those that have bound me; my lord, for i am no longer of my own.

my praises are but a humble sacrifice to you. thank you. thank you. thirty-two years, you have been faithful. thank you for never leaving my side.

i love you, lord.