Fire & Rach

I felt like I cheated by not finishing my blog entry for the evening for lack of material time. To make up for this laziness, I will post a poem I have written years back. I havent written any new one lately, I dont know why.  But anyways, it is about an internet love, when you felt you connect on different levels. It felt like it was real. Trouble is we were separated by a 12 hour difference, but for a few minutes outside of real time we were together in cyberspace.

Wafflings

Why do I even try?

Hoping you might change your mind

I cant even say goodbye

I know I gotta get over you.

What can I say?

Hanging on to your every word

I wont sleep again tonight

I know I gotta get over you.

Who holds your heart?

Shadows fill your color-blind art

To next day’s shag, you set your sight

I know I gotta get over you.

Why cant it be us?

Elephants have big ears

Distance vast, emotions dry up fast

(False pretenses, yahoo crashes)

I know I gotta get over you.

September 2002

Most of the time, I dont understand why things happen the way they do.  But sometimes, life comes full circle and the reasons become obvious like patterns in a kaleidoscope. Broken and yet things get connected, the cracks cease to be random when you see the whole picture. Its when I finally come into acceptance of things that are meant and not meant to be.

another circle in my life just came to a close recently.  one of the loves of my life got married to his current girlfriend.  i obsessed about him for ten years of my life. he was the measure by which guys i meet were measured, and they all paled in comparison.  altho i had overgrown him a long time ago, it was disturbing that he was settling down when my life was, for lack of a better word, unsettling.  it sounded like he had finally found his happy-ever-after-ending wrapped in white and pretty things, pure and sacred, with everyone in agreement that he made a wise decision.

there was another guy i was obsessed with. i learned that he got married to a friend of mine. i remembered the three of us sitting in class. i was seated behind him, the girl sat to my right. we werent close then, i dont even think he knew her back then. he was the campus crush, she wore big, thick glasses and in ponytails. who would hav known, right? Last I heard they have two boys and living out their own happy ending. In all my four years in college, i never lunched with him, not knowing that one day in the future i would be sitting and talking to him and his wife in a quaint cafe having lunch.

my obsessions reminded me how i finally stopped obsessing over them. i got my own man. unfortunately, our relationship also became history. you could say it had served its purpose, i guess. i got my life back on track, i got my game on again, and i learned to live without. self-deprivation is good for the soul and it builds character. platitudes arent necessary, i’m not selling myself anymore to anyone, myself included.

i thought my man was The One, thus letting go of my obsession was made possible.  The parallelisms were there, both from la salle, well-to-do family, driven, employed, attentive, dedicated to their respective partner.  it seemed like things fell into place. i ended 10-years of not speaking to the other guy when the three of us chanced upon at a badminton court. at that time i felt, i became equal to my obsession. he was no longer bigger than what i called my life. i was not inferior because someone as good walked into my life and actually chose me.

on the plus side, he was aquarian, i was libran. we got together in november, just like my mom and dad. Again another set of parallelisms.

But the similarities ended there. in the end, it turned out that what we had was a big mistake. We ended up apologising for things we did and wasting each other’s time. I went on to rediscover who i had always been. I went to movies, games, gimiks, restos, parties by myself. i drove my own car, drove myself home. Slept in my own bed, hugging my own pillow. Turned down propositions which dont match my expectations and what I wanted in life and in love.

After the breakup, I went to confession and the priest told me that I had to find Christ in the cracks of my broken heart. Its easier to reshape broken things. You start anew, you dont mend, you dont adjust things to fit in. I was the Beloved, which made me think why I was looking for things outside of myself.  I had to learn how to love myself again even if the world never loved me back.

The point was that i learned to stop obsessing. I learned to accept and move on in the same way that i easily accepted that 2 comes after 1 and my abcs. The circles came to a close and they are placed in their proper places.  i would like to think that i had come to know my place in the grand scheme of things.  I didnt see things thru rose-colored glasses anymore.  I didnt look for signs, I didnt pray for anyone anymore to come into my life. I thought I already have all that I needed. I had set my standards based on what i believed true love is and I would not settle for the next guy to come my way hoping that he turns out to be my savior.

I didnt need saving. I had become my own person. I could live by myself from now on.

I also realized that there were other bigger circles in my life: my family and friends who had always been more important to me. With them, I would like to find myself forever. No circles, no ups and downs, no beginnings and endings, no overly blissful times and exaggerately depressing moments. this time, they would be real and permanent. no more obsessions and saviors, but real people whom I love and who love me back.

You asked that we meet

for the first time

at your house,

sending my head swirling

in permutations of possibilities

of what could happen.

I froze

and the moment passed me by.

Samhain (SOW-en) is a powerfully symbolic holiday. Its more than just a time to remember the dead, it infers that even if everything dies, rebirth follows after.  Its a time for new beginnings, too.

This insight is also timely in my case because I am preparing for a new beginning in my life as well. In two years time, I will hit the big 4-0, time when life should begin, in theory.  Anyway, I have to make plans and a list of things to do to mark this milestone.

I will turn 40. I have lost my rose-colored glasses, among other things. I have a won some, lost some, gained a couple of excess baggage, became a little slower but I can still get jiggy with it, faster on the uptake though. I have changed from the naive, wide-eyed little boy who got lost in the wide, wild world. Now, I map my roads.

Crazy plan 1, bulk up.  Its not healthy to be 5′6.5" tall and weigh only 124 lbs. I remember standing in front of a hallway mirror with my friend, a mom of 2 kids who still has her whistlebait figure, and being thinner than her.  At first, I thught it was just a matter of being more active, so I took up a sport. It turns out sports made my muscles firmer, defined, but not bigger. In fact, I need to bulk up a little more if I want to up my game.  However, while bulking up gives you power, it slows you down. Try carbo-loading, which to me is pigging out, before a game and feel how hard it is to move your legs and arms around. 

Unfortunately, its not just a matter of pigging out. My fitness instructor wants me to eat within an hour after a workout. I tried eating out after a game after which I would turn in for the night. This is the best recipe for developing a gut.

Go to the gym, said my friend. Have you seen the gym-bunnies parading and flexing? It takes discipline to stick to a workout regimen. Gyms get old easily and irritating, sweaty people who dont give equipments a wipe down, machine-hogs and water-rationing in the shower.  Lets not forget how painful sore muscles feel the day after, especially if you dont workout on a regular basis.

Crazy plan 2, invest.  I have been toying with a business plan for some time. I have talked to some people. I am not keen on risktaking, it takes me forever to make a decision. Its not because the money is a problem, its there, its more because I procrastinate. Even just to buy clothes, it takes me 3 visits before I buy something.  I am almost sold on the business idea, but here comes my mother borrowing capital. Who am I to turn her down when I still live in the house and mooch from her?

There is still some money earmarked for investments. I plan to put my money into better yielding investments than time deposits. Banks are highway robbers, I dont like them. It seems they have forgotten that depositors are their creditors, they make it so hard to put money in and harder to get it out. They think its still a seller’s market out there with their low yields.  After they get your money, they dont remember you anymore. I have been with my bank for years and yet I havent recieved a single umbrella.

I have talked to a financial manager who will act as my agent. Thing is its a new investment medium. I am scared shitless of the risks. Who knows this might turn out to be a case of out of the pan and into the fire. I hope this investment doesnt turn out to be a lemon. 

Crazy plan 3, join the labor force again. Money is becoming tight around here, like everywhere else. Although I dont pay the utility bills at the moment (I used to do that for 8 years), my mom still looks to me for financial bailouts. My dad is oblivious about our financial position, he thinks money grow on trees. I also suspect he needs some money for some reason which I have yet to discover. We used to go loggerheads when it comes to money. Its the young buck challenging the leader of the pack. He thinks my ways are untested, I think his ways are dumb.

However after working for some time, I have realized that I dont want to work for the government and somewhere far from home. I dont want to waste my day on the road commuting. At the current state of city traffic, its too much of a struggle just to get to the office in the morning, I havent much energy left to actually do some work.  And I havent even touched on how impossible is my dad’s morning schedule.

Government work is public service, it’s almost a form of slavery. Considering that most of the employees are pencil pushers if they ever show up, or worse ghost employees, you literally have to do everything. Some people are simply useless, they are only there to make life miserable for everybody else. Then, just because they give you salary, you will be made to do as they please– dress code, id, bundy clock, code of ethics– all for the rank and file.  Salary is not commensurate to work or qualification, but more to a list of plantilla which was made when the exchange rate was Php14=USD1.  No wonder there is graft in government. its either that or die in penury, especially when you have a family. I wont go back until after I have established a business of my own. Otherwise, I dont know until when I could resist temptation.

Crazy plan 4, go back to school– learn a new skill, a foreign language, computers. Nothing beats the life of a student. Besides, kids have the funniest grammar. I could race my nephews who just got into college.

Crazy plan 5, write more. I like writing. I had some stories simmering at the back of my mind. I read a lot. A lot gets me fired up. I need an outlet. Its an outlet for me. Sometimes its a way to connect with other people who will hopefully be moved by what I put down on paper. I live inside my head most of the time, writing is just the content of my head written down.

Bottomline is I have to keep moving and busy. Life doesnt stop for anyone. Time waits for no one. I need the change, I need to mark my own milestones and cap them with headstones.  I am not the little lost boy anymore who died with the passing of the years. This is the promise of Samhain, more beginnings as the old things die down and fade away.  There is strength in change as there is in permanence. I dont need to choose, I need to bend and survive.