When do you say goodbye?

I've been reflecting on the dark areas of my life recently, but from the perspective of someone who's exiting the dark tunnel.

A lot of people don't like me. I don't mind that part. I know I'm not exactly miss sunshine, it works for me to put my guards up. It's what insects say when they wear bright colors: I'm poison. Stay away. Instead of bright colors, I wore the mark they stamp on toxic liquids: a skull. 

I was the goth girl screaming "I'm no poser!" directing all thoughts towards death with the sincerity that only children following their parents have. With the intensity that good students are praised for. (funny that when my thoughts finally go to death one day, I have no space in my despair to think about how romantic the situation is. No detachment whatsoever this time, just a jackhammer of self abuse. The self imposed censorship that was nothing but fear-based.

What are you afraid of? Being rejected?

What I do mind is when the person who doesn't like me is the person I let my guards down for.

Wow, I must be really sensitive?

But what's wrong with sensitivity? Why are we expected to be sensitive only with art and beauty, hard when it comes to the harsh? Nobody is THAT inconsistent.

Why is it a shameful thing to wear your heart on your sleeve? When is innocence synonymous to stupidity?

I guess it is. They're just a singko pesos nga gibalibali (two sides of the same coin ba).

Some of the things they tell the innocent is that you should "forgive your enemies"; "be the bigger person."; "don't go to sleep angry"... why is angry not allowed?

Angry is proud. Walls are proud. Dicks are proud.

Proud is an ironic word. Why is there so much shame in pride?

Why can't I stay mad? Why am I not allowed to judge that I am not at peace with something? Because I might act on it? Is there no trust in me to regulate my emotions in my own time?

Instead, we invalidate people's emotions by dehumanizing the other. I guess this is where tv is damaging, the most experience we have dealing with problems are from memories. If all memories you have are manufactured (in this case, by television), you start reacting to things the same way your favorite cartoon characters/heroes do.

But people are more complex than the standees we put in front of the camera. Not everyone acts deliberately ever single moment of their lives, unlike the heroes, who in your memorybank, never had downtime. Sometimes we say things because we're tired. Sometimes we scratch our noses because while you were talking to your teacher, she let out a fart and you wished you could quell the chuckle bubbling from your lips. Sometimes we say one thing because you don't want the drama that would likely follow if you say the truth. It's unfair that when a slight change in climate occurs, you can't be honest about it and trust the person to ride the wave with you. Then again, maybe not all relationships are meant to be like that. Maybe we ride a wave with someone, and then the next wave is a different sort - one you haven't learned to weather or have no interest in navigating together.

If I met every single human being on earth, I bet a quarter would be made up of people I don't like and don't like me back. Touch and go. Some people just don't mesh. 

And some people have come and affected you, and then left. Their contribution to your life is over. You've satisfied your exchange's purpose. That's why some of the people who hate me now were people I liked a lot when I first met them. That's why It hurt so much. Because the rejection was meant to change me profoundly.

Even if there's no such thing as previous lives it's still a beautiful shape of a story you can't tell by dumbing it down.

You have to experience it.

I had a friend I really cared for and still do, but not with the same intensity that I used to. The space helped.

I want to maintain this space. It's better than second guessing, with tears blinding your vision. With drama blocking your better judgment. As Chris put it, maybe I can't let go because I was the one who got rejected. My fears were satisfied.

Maybe I'm expecting the satisfier to make things right? I notice this is what baby does when he's angry with me - he clings to me like I'm going to leave him. How can you expect someone to both be angry and in love with someone and not go mad? That's an explosive combination.

I'm letting their power over me go. I'm the only person who can make things right. And not everything has to be right. They can be left too. Hehe.

Whatever Happened to the 25 List?

I turn 25 this year. Some years ago, my bestfriend Sam pointed out this thing her friend did to commemorate her turning twenty - a bucket list ala "A Walk to Remember", and proposed we make our own, which naturally should include a backpacking trip all over Eurasia. Of course.

And then twenty came around and we were swamped with stuff and nowhere near realizing the Eurasian trip, or even completing the list whatsoever, that I turned it into a 25 things to do before 25 list.

Let's take a list at the list and see what happened:

1. Learn how to drive a car - I did. I learned how to drive a stick shift owner-type jeep that rattled and clanked all around town. But it's one thing to spend a summer taking turns with cousins on a dinosaur, and another to drive everyday, and practice driving for more than a few hours on a weekend.

2. Earn $1000 - Yes. Turns out, 40,000 pesos isn't much when you're paying bills and stuff. It's 3 months' pay for starters. I suppose that it is a lot if you don't pay bills. But I didn't know anything about striving for financial sustainability back then.

3. Cook a full course meal - I'm actually competent in the kitchen now! People actually gulp my food down within seconds! The full course meal hasn't happened yet, but I still have time.

4. Sew an outfit myself - No. The farthest I got to this was T-Shirt surgery and pattern-making classes. I have a sewing machine in a box somewhere in the Pacific. If it arrives before my birthday, I might still be able to accomplish this.

5. Write a book - No. My prose has taken a beating ever since I started writing scripts. It's so much easier to say "the girl looks at the guy" than "she fluttered frosty eyelashes towards him and wondered if he saw her or was staring right through her".

6. Climb a mountain - No. :(

I still want to. Maybe when Malaya's old enough.

7. Film an indie flick - Yes, and it's been one hell of a ride.

8. Sell a print on DA - No. I stopped caring about DA and online communities shortly after coming up with this list. I think this was more of me wanting to be on top of the game in a community I was active with at the time rather than wanting to make a living making prints.

9. Go to Bohol - I received my first kiss on that trip. We did the adventure trip thing and went spelunking. Easily one of the best summers of my life. Probably why it was so hard to recover from that boy. I wonder what happened to him.

10. Pose nude - Yes, and this is now one of my sources of income. Young Ara, so cute and green for thinking this was a big deal.

11. Organize a surprise party - YES! My cousin Deanne's debut. My cousins and I were plotting, our parents got wind and took over at some point, leaving some of the details to us. She walked into the dark ballroom womdering why there was a pile of glow sticks on the floor. She cried when they turned the lights on. Best prank ever.

12. Contribute to Reader's Digest - No. I stopped reading them. I did work for a newspaper for a while, realized the "glory" of getting your byline published wasn't all it was cracked up to be. "Glory" has lost its glimmer over the years.

13. Make the Dean's List - I don't know? Teacher said my total was 1.25 one sem, But I didn't see my name on the list. It doesn't matter much to me now. I didn't take college very seriously. I thought my majors were fun, but I didn't really see school as a place to build skills to earn a living. I just chased stories and muses. I still do I guess, but I'd like to believe I've become more pragmatic with what school is and what it's not.

14. LARP - Yes. But it all seems silly now. Young Ara, such an exhibitionist. I miss my guts. I don't miss whatever I used to be gutsy over.

15. Learn how to speak another language - Yes. Mon petit garçon est jolie et mon francais uhmm... sucks?

16. Visit another country - No. Not since Hong Kong.

17. See someone die - A cat. I saw a cat cross the street, get hit by a bike, shiver, and then breathe its last on the pavement. Death is not a joke.

18. Watch a birthing - My own! But before that, a buttload of waterbirth videos for research. Giving birth to my baby beats everything I'd seen on video though.

19. Perform for theater - Yes. Once. I miss the craft, but not the stage.

20. Get a Dama de Noche album launched - No. Very bad breakup, with irrepairable friendships as a consequence. It's all good though, you simply learn that some people are not meant to be in your life, and some people are just really big assholes.

21. Find out about my dad - He died November 7, 2008. The half brother who told us and I email sporadically. We've agreed to meet someday, but never got around to it (he lives in Singapore).

22. Name a baby - Uhmm, duh?

23. Talk to one of my fave musicians/authors - In 2009, The director for a short film I'd auditioned for met up with me to talk about the project. The meeting ended in the wee hours of the morning, with him giving me a copy of his now defunct band's music. I gave it a listen and was blown away. I'd just found my favorite Cebu band and they didn't even play live anymore. What a bummer.

Did I mention director/musician is now my partner, artistic collaborator and baby-daddy? (I swear, the baby isn't an art project)

24. Paint a mural - Yes. Don't ask me if they were legal.

25. Get a moondance - I do every now and then from the partner. It's pleasant. It's even better that we both can't dance for shit. So it's like we're just hugging and moving around, trying not to step on each other's toes.

That's 16 out of 25, with 2 things I could still do, 1 unsure thing, and a buttload of undoables.

Hello hiatus, goodbye hiatus

Hi.  it's been a while. I haven't written anything here since the time of primordial goop. Actually, so much shit got down that there simply was no time for vanity posts. I had a baby, got "married" (more on that later) and settled down kuno. That's right, I'm mutating into what I used to call a "doormat". I've done nothing this past year except raise a human being. If I sound like I'm downplaying the amazingness of motherhood (and my baby), let me reiterate: everyday for the last year, I've been killing the urge to go out into the world chasing muses. The because is important, but killing the urge has taken its toll.

An article another new mother-friend posted sometime ago on fb stated that the first year of a child's life is the most hostile in a couple's couplehood. No wonder they say three's a crowd. And even if you prepare to have a kid, your relationship changes forever. My partner and I've been secretly involved ever since we got involved, because we didn't want to stop becoming individuals to other people. And then baby arrived and now we call each other "mommy" and "daddy", and everyone refers to us as the parents.

My kid is awesome. I blog about him. Not as frequently as I want to, but I won't here. Because this is my space. And I need alone time too. Which is why I write this while he's asleep.

The great big positive is that I want to better myself because of them. If we're going to be stuck with each other for a long time, I want them to be stuck with the best version of me. The version that is healthy, that makes great food, that knows how to make things better when they're not, that knows how to get shit done and does so without breaking the bank.

And then. i think about who I already am, and who I already was and wonder why I can't continue being good at the things I already was. What happened to my neverending quest to be a better writer/blogger/journalist/filmmaker/artist? What happened to my scripts? My storylines? My imaginary worlds? How's the grass over in Inverness? How are Marie and the Thousand? Has it stopped raining red yet? When did I stop keeping a dream journal?

Nobody tells you you're going to stop dreaming for a while when you're pregnant. It's an automatic shift the moment you announce a pregnancy. You disappear for a while. And while you revel in gratitude at the overwhelming love for your child, you wish friends were willing to hold the baby for a while while you gather your lost dreams. Because those were your first children and you can't afford to neglect them either, and yet you are.

So this is what I've been doing when I can't take it anymore : I write in secret, while he sleeps. The essays have been piling up in the ipad notes section, so I'll just slowly transfer them to this blog.