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June 23 Three-threeGosh how I hate it so when I’m sungit like this! And, to all you small-minded sexists out there, no it’s not That time of the month. Yes I’m sure, it’s not that time when there is an abundance of empty aggression that’s just waiting to lock in on a target. Although, let me admit, a part of me somehow wishes it was just That. Lest this more aptly be called That time of one’s life…
You know, that time when every little thing that you do (or not) will almost certainly echo in the years you have left? There now is hardly any throwing of caution to the wind, if at all. The days of Carefree and Easygoing are gone. Almost. Like, there is little to nil luxury for putting things off for tomorrow, something like that. Career opportunities are harder to come by, unlike when we were younger, and what you pick now more or less lays out the groundwork for what you’re gonna face the next several years or so. So is picking out new relationships. You have to be a little more careful or you just might marry it! Nyahaha.
Things have changed, almost overnight, it seems. It could be that when you were younger, you seek out the hottest band in town or the happening-est club that’s just opened. But now, you’re in McDonald’s and you ask for the piped-in music to be turned down because you can’t hear your friend’s work-related kwento. Or, you find yourself flirting with the neighborhood cutie (oh but naturally!) in the same way you’d always done it, but all of a sudden your friends are telling you you’re not acting your age anymore. Just because I turned 33, my flirting styles are suddenly that manifest?? Is flirting (and, ya, getting away with it) a privilege of youth?
When I was in my twenties, I used to dream of having a child. I wanted one, and I was convinced to the tips of my split ends that I can raise it all on my own. But as I grew older, and more especially this year, a questionable ultrasound comes with paramount implications as the current global recession.
One morning this year, I woke up to realize I no longer feel “Sexy, without a doubt” anymore. I have to look really closely, really psych myself up, or worse, reeeaally work hard for it first. Hassle, ha.
You know you’re knocking on geriatrics’ door when your internet usage jumps off the charts. Well, it’s one thing that you’ve cut down on actual social contact with physical, hot-blooded beings… but cutting it down for intimate, hot dates with your PC (sorry, loyal) is quite another. I, for one, have noticed how smitten I’ve become with Facebook, for it, among many other wonderful (and wonderfully deceptive) qualities, provides the playground for my exhibitionistic tendencies. We all indulge our respective need for self-promotion while channeling the inner chismosos and chismosas in us all. Also, it seems that I secretly believe I can Twitter my way to “normalcy” – you know, the midpoint between ‘manic’ and ‘depressive’? It’s the cheapest therapy there is, eh. Imagine, you get to mouth off as much as you want without needing to fear if you are being vulgar or offensive? The internet is the free space for all thoughts, no matter how deluded, not to mention it is too vast and too fast-paced to even think anybody is paying that much attention, really. So I can be the worst whorish exhibitionist I can manage, and yet stay anonymous in a sense.
Now, I have to watch what I say, where I say it, and when. “Dressing the part” has become a consideration, too, when not so long ago I’d just put on what feels good against my skin. All conceit aside, anything hugged me near-perfectly. But now, I catch myself resenting ‘dem love handles that seemed to have appeared from nowhere; I am self-conscious on occasions I’d normally feel right at home. Lately, I’ve been enjoying the company of guys who did not grow up with the same liking for Electric Company nor with at least the same familiarity with L.A. Law. I used to think it cool to find these young-ish guys swooning at my feet, bragging to their friends about getting together with a hot “lady”, and falling all over themselves just to be the lucky one who gets picked for the evening. But gasp! Now I find myself having to endure a silent insecurity that, nope there’s no stopping it, my eye bags are giving me away.
(From always being referred to as just “hot” once upon a time, there now is the predictable “mama” trailing not so far behind. Thing is, I’m nowhere even 1000 miles near motherhood. Go ahead, I dare ya!)
Now, the morning right after my 33rd birthday party, at Easter Sunday mass (I have not slept a wink and, yes, was still a bit drunk), my married mommy friend (who is, take note, younger than I am) told me a story of a girl she knew who went into menopause at age 38. Gago ‘to ah.
So there. I’ve rambled on and on just trying to explain (justify?) my kasungitan. Here’s hitting the big three-three with a sickening thud. This early, I am already dreading how doubly hard things will be when I wake up one morning and find the big six-six at the foot of my bed. You’re probably thinking, well, I should’ve had accomplished SOME things by then. You would think. That’s what I thought, too, when I turned 26 and said, okay I have a good nine years before I start to seriously think about settling down and going after the career I actually want. But it was like I just went to sleep, woke up, and boom it’s 7 years later na. Six-six is double my age now, so mathematically speaking, I should have double my achievements when that time comes. But remember, too, that mathematically any number multiplied by 0 equals you-know-what.
I’m sitting here all alone in the office and I’ve just deliberately gouged a hole through my brand new silk pashmina with a fingernail.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 11:09:45 PM June 10 first of all, what is a dosha?***Your Dosha is Pitta***
You have a quick mind, a gift for persuasion, and a sharp sense of humor. You have both the drive and people skills to be a very successful leader. Argumentative and a bit stubborn, you have been known to be a little too set in your ways. But while you may be biased toward your own point of view, you are always honest, fair, and ethical. With friends: You are outgoing and open to anyone who might want to talk to you
In love: You are picky but passionate
To achieve more balance: Be less judgmental of those around you, and take cool walks in the moonlight.
@@@@@@@@@@ not one to let an alien word go by, i find out: "in Ayurvedic medicine, one of the three biological humors or energies (kapha, pitta, vata) which combine in various proportions to determine individual constitution and mental and physical disorders". so, correct me if i'm wrong, a dosha is a fault... an element of disease? but then i look "pitta" up too and find that it is "any bird of the genus Pitta; brilliantly colored chiefly terrestrial birds with short wings and tail and stout bills." brilliantly colored? hmm.. that's promising. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ November 22 In Bed with PabloNovember 19, 2005 Saturday
Talk about sleeping with somebody you hardly know. I only know his name. I don't know where he came from. I don't even know where he is now, actually. All I know is his name.
And all this man has for me are words. Just words. Yet, sometimes, words are more than enough, no?
Who is Pablo Neruda? All I know is that he wrote the words to Tonight I Can Write… only the most painfully real, most hopelessly true poem I have ever read. All I know is that he, in a few words, captured the heaviest, most powerful sorrow this heart of mine would ever, ever bear: Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Words that jumped right off the page and cast themselves hard and fast upon the bruised patches of my heart. The bruised patches that I wish time would heal, but words like this only resurrect the pain. The drowsy bitterness, awaken. Words that I cannot help but send out to Him. He who hurt me last. He who hurt me most. It’s a little strange, to be quoting from a book my greatest love had left me and consecrating it to my greatest pain, isn’t it? To be gleaning words from a treasure given by Anton and offering them to somebody else, to me, feels somewhat of an infidelity. But then, that’s how he’s always been, you know? He gives me things to use with and for my own freedom. Generous. Thoughtful. Loving. Without insecurities. That’s just who he is.
It felt amazing, getting lost in Pablo’s words like The day of the luckless, the pale day appears with a cold heart-breaking smell, with its forces in grey, with no bells on, dripping dawn from everywhere: it is a shipwreck in a void, surrounded by weeping. For I, too, am Weak with the Dawn. It has become not so much which direction to follow, which way to go as it is “which way to fall?” Always been, it seems. For as long as I can remember. And especially during the dawn.
I felt lost, in his words like Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed. And somewhere along the way, I find myself stopping to ask, “am I even doing this right?” I recall, back in high school lit, how we’d spend days on a single Edgar Allan Poe or a Robert Frost. We’d break the poem down according to line, sometimes even per two, three words. For in between the lines, amid the verses, lies a big piece of the writer’s life. We’d dissect the stanzas with such vigor, as if we were forensic experts digging deep into crevices to uncover some cause of death. How dare I traipse through Neruda now, lying on my back, without regard for when, where, why he wrote I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees ? I wonder now if I could, one day, also earn a Poe, a Frost, a Neruda’s elegance with my demise. Would high school students a century and a half from now, too, dig through the gaps between my words to discover, or even begin to comprehend, the causes of my deaths?
Thus I would stop after every title and sleep with the two pages, hoping his true meaning, his real story, will come to me in a dream. The book stays beside me on my other pillow, just in case I awake and need him to talk to me more. To talk to me again.
I had just finished Max Lucado’s Traveling Light (also borrowed from Anton). It’s been so long since I last had the time to read an entire book. Devouring a whole book from cover to cover with the intent to become, somehow, a better person upon the last dot on the last page. With Max, though, it was a little different. The pages seemed glued to my hands and I wanted, needed to finish it. Not to feel victorious for completing another book, no, but more so because, with every turn of a page, I realized how deeply hungry I have truly been for a better acquaintance with the true God of my life. Some of Lucado’s chapters found me crying, crying, crying, feeling overwhelmingly grateful for Him. He who loves me most. He who loves me best. God, not Anton. (Okay, maybe Anton, too.)
He lent me Lucado and Neruda, with the gentle reminder to return them so as to be able to get more books again from his abundant shelf. But now, there’s no rush. Anton’s gone again. I do not know when, or if at all, he’s ever coming back to me. Again. I’ve been looking forward to the day that I give him his books back, showing my happiness, telling him about how his books have fattened my heart with love. A love that somebody else had seen long before me, and I am, only now, seeing for myself. I wish to God to see Anton again. Love is so short.
If I should sleep, let it not be in loneliness. Let me fall into slumber with an understanding of the love you have seen forever. So when I awake I will not remember this smell of heart-break that comes with each void of the dawn. Tomorrow, I may not remember you and you still would not know who I am. But let me not sleep alone, Pablo. I can walk, eat alone, easy. But I would choose not to sleep alone. I’d want, in my sleep, to be gripped, crushed in my dreams of Yesterday. Forgetting is so long.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido. I imagine when a word is spoken in another language and then translated into the language I can understand… when the meaning is not lost, when there is music each time I speak it, only then is it truly beautiful. Love is so short, forgetting is so long. (At last, I am not lost in translation.)
I hope to love again, yes I do. Love, sweet love, at a time when love will no longer be short. A time when love is so very long forever. And forgetting should come, never.
November 18 My First Time. (Confessions of a Rave Virgin)(How soon is now?)
I don’t know about you, but for me, all experiences of the First kind are terrifying, especially in the last few minutes leading to it. Final countdown, yes. For me, First Times signify much, much more than just trying something new for size. A part of me, perhaps the Bebe Gel I have forever been treated as, construes such as the loss of an innocence, somewhat. There seems to be this cynic in me that is always questioning of the wonders of added knowledge. “Knowing more equals doing more,” it always seems to caution me. The scared little girl seems to believe it is far better to remain timid but innocent, than knowledgeable and accountable.
Or, perhaps, I’ve come to create (and sustain) an internal whistleblower out of fear of my own self. Because I know me as tending to be more careless than most, that baptisms of the sort only signal the earning of licenses to do crazy things again and again. (As Pink once said, "I'm a hazard to myself."). Maybe.
“Tonight’s a night of infinite possibilities,” he told me excitedly as I boarded his Civic. He was enumerating all the options that we had: drinks in Greenbelt, hanging out with Arvin, Cream the rave party (“saw the billboard in Edsa, on my way here”), coffee in Rockwell, this hot and happening club-slash-druggie den in Jupiter (uh, next please), or the original plan. I had my heart set on the original plan, of course (define anal), but it was clear-as-day evident that he was bent on the rave. The giving gal that I am (please don’t roll your eyes at me), I thus began to redo my resolve for the night. It was a mini-struggle, but I just decided to keep mum about my hesitation. I was worried for him, thinking a rave is the last place a recovering addict needs to be in. I imagined a place where the demand for the Ecstasies and/or ketamines was highest. I have always pictured raves to be something similar to a raw Bacchanalian fiesta where writhing, sweaty, intoxicated bodies smashed against each other in perfect lust, synthetic love, hazy harmony… all to the rhythm of non-stop furious electronica. I had my reservations, and yet I was also curious. Always have been.
“There’s always a first time for everything,” I reminded myself, dismissing all my reservations as nothing more than instinctual defense mechanism in motion. The doubts are just clear signals of me chickening out, I thought. He’s a big boy, he can handle himself, I decided, as I allowed myself to get into my own It’s My First Time mode (nervous but excited but nervous but… you get the idea). “Wha-at, you’ve never been to a rave??” he asked in total astonishment, as if he was beholding a funny-looking alien of some sort. “Ooh, you’re a virgin!” he added, giddy. October 29, 2005 – a night of infinite possibilities (shudder!).
As all first times go, I realized, I will always be NOT dressed right for it. I can’t help now but think back to Sept. 14, 1996 – A Night of Not-So-Infinite Possibilites a.k.a. the night I did IT for the first time. Infinite Consequences, pwede pa! As my friends and I innocently left for dinner at TGIFriday’s, never in my untamed imaginings did I expect that that Friday night will end with me finally surrendering my V-Word after my 20 years of existence. I mean, had I known, I would’ve been wearing a racy black lacey instead of the girly white cotton pair of knickers that were perfect for the mid-rise baggy (urk!) jeans I had on. Fast forward back to nine years later… On our way to the Trade Center in Roxas Cor. Buendia, I was fussing in his car, “But I’m not dressed for a rave!” There, in the middle of Ayala Ave., amidst the bustling Saturday night traffic, he abruptly stops the car and turns to me, looking me dead straight in the eyes and says “you are dressed perfectly. Stop worrying, please.” And, with that, he puts the car back into Drive.
He always knows how to shut me up, yes he does. Somehow, I am quite grateful for it, actually. But when we got to Cream, the whiner within woke up again. I was devoured by horrible remorse as I surveyed my would-be co-partiers for the night and found most everybody in unique and super thought-out costumes. Oh, it’s a HALLOWEEN RAVE Party, motherf**!!! I walked with cheerleader, pirate, congregation of monks, gypsy, football jock, slutty nurse, college chick in black knee-high socks with a bare torso, and what have I come as? Uptight sales exec about to have coffee with clients? Let us not forget I had his oversized AIM Master in Management 2000 jacket over my so-called costume pa.
As we fell in line for our tickets (that night’s Holy Grail), I became more and more conscious (then self-conscious) of the colorful sea of costumes, chandelier earrings, and glittered makeup swarming around me. There I was in my generic black gartered skirt (which, thank god, at least had slits on the sides, sos!) barely hanging around my hips, my “fool-proof” black pin-stripe halter blouse, my hair pulled back in a lousy bun, my trusty pair of pearl earrings, with only the obligatory layer of face powder, a dash of pink blush, and a few glides of petroleum jelly on my lips. I felt painfully sticking out, sort of like a hangnail. It’s bad enough that I felt too old for a rave first-timer, I could’ve, at least, dressed the part, right? I was overcome with a sordid sense of waste, of loss. If I only knew, I kept repeating in my head. My mind was quickly transported back to my Tandangsora flat, ever-so-yearning for my bright red and gold che-pao, hanging in my clothes closet. I was silently cursing my wire hanger, thinking my hanger is looking a helluva lot prettier than I was. I just know the che-pao would have been excellent… PERFECT… for tonight. “You are dressed perfect,” I hear him say again. I hate him.
I was inwardly frantic, trying hard to decide what my “costume” was. Standing in line, it hit me: if tomorrow somebody asks me what I’ve come as to Cream Halloween Ball Year 6, I could only say “I was out of place.”
Once inside, though, as I felt the chill-out music vibrate upon my chest, I calmed significantly down. I realized, “Jen, you’re here now. Unless your fairy godmother magically appears with your golden red Chinese dress on hand, there’s really nothing you can do about it. Now, suck it in and just be in the party. Just be!” But not one to give up easily, too, I knew there was something I could (and ought to) do to help me along. So as he bought us our first round of MGD’s from the bar, I, pa-simple, rolled up the waistband of my skirt a couple of times (miniskirt, ta-dah!), removed the huge jacket to bear my luscious shoulders (but ahem!), hiked my collars up ala-Elvis-slash-Count Dracula, and undid just one more button on my blouse (sexy, poof!). Not to forget, of course, I fixed on my signature sexy squint and crooked smile… and I felt like a whole different person. Fairy godmother, nothing! I knew fostering the inborn vamp within all those years would, one day, pay off.
Realization # 2: Most things I have yet to try for the first time are those that intimidate me. They’re too wonderful to attempt half-heartedly. Chances are, I’ve read about it, seen it on widescreen, and/or heard my friends’ stories about it. I’ve been regaled. I’ve been awed. I almost can’t wait ‘til it’s my turn, and yet I do. Perhaps I am waiting for the proverbial golden moment (I think it’s when one’s daring will be most rewarded). Or perhaps I’d rather just, simply, wait. For what exactly, I don’t know. It’s quite harder now, don’t you agree, when others have built it up so much? And, be honest, then form your own expectations, standards even, for when it’s your turn. Muy nerviosa! The waiting for the right moment, thus, unconsciously turns into the more complicated waiting for the right amount of courage to kick in. Bravado, right. It could get quite the task to live up to the magic I can concoct in my own head, thus I’d probably deem it better to NOT DO and just preserve the beauty, the enchantment. Because what if I do it and screw it all up, diba?
What if I attend a rave party and I burst into panic? And they all laugh at me? What if the sordid and salacious rumors about what goes on in raves are all true? What if the Trade Center spontaneously combusts but everybody would be too drugged to notice? Flashes of Ozone, really. What if I am offered drugs and they kill anybody who refuses? What if I take the drugs and it turns out lethal to my system and my brain aneurysm happens again? What if I find myself trapped in a drug-charged orgy of a thousand bodies and I can’t get out, lest I step on somebody’s penis? Those were but few of the thoughts that infested my hyperactive and supernervous brain as he drove us to Roxas. The closer we got to the hall, the harder my heart pounded. Like I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t until we got inside the actual floor that I started to calm down. When we entered, DJ E.E. was playing a chilled set. It was like he knew how to spin everybody into a soothed state (the calm before the storm?). Exactly what I needed. “You should never be afraid of anything when you’re with me. Never.” He said, as he stood very close to me. As the crowd grew thicker and thicker with every slide of the second-hand, I was growing concerned about being left alone, of losing each other. “Stop leaving me,” I said, after I noticed how he tends to walk in larger strides than me. He later on thanked me for reminding him to slow down, and he took my hand, never letting go as we walked all around the grinding crowd. I no longer felt threatened. I no longer felt obscure. Everybody was everybody’s friend. The smell of love and cigarettes filled the air. There was not an unhappy person in sight. If acid was dropping anywhere, I couldn’t care less. I felt as if I was beaming, along with the colored laser lights that shot through the entire place. As Gareth Wyn prepared to take the deck, he and I have planted ourselves on the frontline of the crowd. As we grooved to the intoxicating music, he would put his arm around me and I felt his presence like never before. I, once again, felt the love existing between us, and I didn’t need a pill of any sort. I was reminded of the love we once... always... shared, but I may have forgotten about. It was wonderful, to remember that there, in fact, IS a love that endured… and, if I may, grew even bigger, without us probably even noticing. The undying music paralleled the beats of the harmony that lives in us, in me. Oh yes, this fellow will probably never stop leaving me, but I know now how braided our lives have become and so I should never fear. I realized, as we stood shoulder to shoulder at the foot of the helm of Cream universe, that I’ve finally met and understood how it is to go “on a trip” and yet not lose my way. Even though the darkened house lights, the fog machine, the cigarette smog, the blinding laser beams, the captivating loud music, and the spirit of Miller all seemed to conspire for a particular effect in a whole, I can still see clearly ahead of me, if not clearer. No expectations. Standards left at the door. It was perfect... golden and very fulfilling. It was like I was in a trance. It was like magic. I could not ask for more.
We had originally planned for a movie. But that’s actually a bit putting it mildly. He had, as he hatched the plan 4 days ago, insisted we pick out a video together at this 40 bucks-a-DVD place he had, just recently, happily discovered. And then we will be watching it in his room AFTER he submits me to his Ma and Pa’s scrutiny. For the last three days prior I lost a significant amount of sleep and appetite over being subjected to parental approval (or disapproval, who knew, huh?). It wasn’t going to be the first time I Meet The Parents, but it was going to be the first time I will be recognized as current constant companion to their beloved scion. And this was not your run-in-the-mill familia, folks. I’m talking about Mom-Running-the-Family-Business-(“power distribution and cable TV in Mindanao lang naman”), Dad-Founded-and-Chaired-Energizer Phils.-Now-Playing-the-Emerging-Stocks-Market-Game, BAVA home address, 8-cars-in-the-garage, Castilian-sounding family name connoting genuine wealth and prestige by birthright, kin to the famed Filipino playwright who has his own theater named after him in the State U type of thing. How does one feel less of an indio, do tell. So yeah, sleep and nourishment became relegated secondary to “What do I wear?” “How should I wear my hair?” “Should I beso or should I curtsy?” “What do I say?” “How do I say it?” and “Where/How should I sit once inside their son’s bedroom?” (Or should I just stand? Gaad!) See, it hasn’t happened and, already, the encounter, in my mind, is fast becoming a major blunderous disaster of Meet The Fockers proportion. I was terrified out of my mind.
(So now that I think about it, sequels/part II’s/The Second Time could be just as petrifying, if not more, than the magical First Time, I guess. It will always be scary when I obsess over not knowing what to do or not being able to do things right. Truly (and here's hitting my bottomline with a thud!), it will always, always (and I mean always!) be a horror ride when I do not have enough faith in myself.) October 20 NabanaNabanaMabanaN.
It’s still 20 days away, and yet I can almost hear my heart starting to tear at the seams. 20 Days from now is… YET AGAIN… another much anticipated “Groan! Not Again!” Day.
Four days before Valentine’s Day 2003, the Sunshine of my life, the Angel of Mine, my Bes told me that, finally, after 15 long years, he is getting engaged. He, for those not in the know, was my latest, biggest version of The Best Friend (a.k.a. Someone You Want But Cannot Have). You know, that male type that you hang out a lot with; who knows you inside and out; who cares much for you, nevertheless; who loves you in his own adorable Pare terms… but not in THAT way you love him (secretly, yes). Yeah, you spend so much time together that you wish to spend the rest of your life with him na… diba? But, of course, he doesn’t have a goddamm clue about your real feelings for him (do they ever? Grr!). Bes is Best Friend Number Two in this high school campus I call “my love life”. And, ironically enough, he and Best Friend Number One share the same name, too. So I bet this early y’all are getting quite a clear idea of how pathetically predictable my so-called love life tends to get, huh? But I digress. Bes told me he was getting engaged the following day, with only the simple request to not tell anybody else about it yet, as I am the only one (“outside of family”, but of course) that he hast told this to. He was so upfront and unemotional with his revelation that I decided he need not know of how his simple secret had actually caused an off-course helicopter to land on my chest, crushing my already flailing spirits; the giant propellers tearing up my dying heart to morbid, bloody shreds.
Obviously, that terrible news failed to kill me. I had work to do, rent to pay, and the rest of my life to still look forward to, after all. But, man, was I out of it! I would be in a working lunch with my boss and colleagues, and be oblivious to her questions to me as I inanely stare at the nothingness that Bes’ impending (as in doom ba?!) wedding had brought upon me. I would be at my desk all day, eagerly trading radiation with my gigantic CRT monitor, foregoing lunch in the pantry with the rest of the office folks. It was as if I was terrified that if I looked away from my monitor even for a split-second, I’d only see his face and start to cry. I would take my periodicals out into the office building’s plant box and smoke my pack while I read alone, under the sweltering sun, rather than join the others in our office’s smoking lounge. I became a hermit, living inside my head for most of the time. And as if things weren’t already bad enough, Bes sends me an invitation to his wedding slated for April 12. It was unbelievable, how impeccable their choice of a wedding day was! But then again, I probably shouldn’t be so surprised… the fact that he chose to break the news to me (and what about this heart sob, sob?) four days before Valentine’s should’ve forebode the possibility of him actually getting married one day after my own birthday. Take away my one tiny thing to celebrate this year, why don’t you?! How completely derailed I felt! I was stunned to almost catatonic. I was incredibly lonely. I felt wickedly picked on by some cruel and unusual, unseen gigantic jokester of the universe.
Addendum: I left that PR firm with my boss and the rest of the company actually suspecting that I was resigning not because of professional reasons, but because I was “emotionally disturbed”. Ha ha. Ha.
But not one to cause a scene that might lead to further humiliation, I opted to raise my white flag, would rather die of misery than challenge my female nemesis in this game called love. In the course of the turmoil, a number of friends have repeatedly reminded me “all’s fair in love and war.” They were seriously suggesting that I seize the moment and fight for my heart. Thanks, but no. No freakin’ way. ‘Cos Bes could so easily choose his blushing bride over me and if that doesn’t kill me dead, I don’t know what will.
Okay, so I managed to move past that very crucial, almost-fatal, point of my love life, filling my days with designer coffee, ginpom, friends, badminton, and a drug-addicted boyfriend (which is another loooong saga altogether). I was out of work but had the time of my life, nevertheless. Long as I don’t think about Bes and our golden times together prior to his engagement, I was fine. It took me only a few months to get over him, accept it, and move on (to other heartbreaks, but whatever). That even when he told me that he and his new wife were expecting, I was okay. Pretty much. Of course, I had tons of the witty, wacky, disparaging comments to my friends about the whole damn thing, so the laughter sort of eased the swelling of my healing wounds. “It’s a girl!” he announced to me early one morning, about seven months later. By this time, the galactic jokester and I have become pretty tight that I am now able to laugh heartily at his gags. Last Thursday, they christened their new bundle of joy with, ta-dah, yours truly as one of the ninangs. I think I now am actually in “apir-terms” with this galactic jokester and was maybe having tea with the mythic fellow when Bes asked me if I would accept the role of godmother. So I smilingly said yes. And I don’t think I need to tell you what mean jokes ran through my head and out of my big mouth as I was told of my new goddaughter’s name. I may have become quite a fan of this galactic jokester and his, well, jokes. Yeah, even those made at my expense.
Point is, I’m very proud to again say that I am finally over Bes and the heartbreak he caused me. I’ve gotten my closure, fortunately. I am no longer miserable about it. I found me a new job and a new set of wonderful friends. I was looking forward to every morning of training. It was fun. I even had a crush on a co-trainee, add to that. But just as I was in the middle of reminding myself that “see, Jen, you could be happy. Life is pretty again!” Best Friend Number One (heretofore referred to as Buddy) manifests himself out of nowhere, telling me he is getting married July 25 of 2004.
Groan! Not again!!
Suddenly, all the lessons, all the profoundness that I earned with Bes’ episode lost all meaning to me. As if the closure had flung wide, wide open once again. All with Buddy’s generic SMS announcement. But you should hear the fantastic, flawless remarks I’ve oh so naturally concocted and unabashedly fired towards this second engagement broadcast. I guess the moment my dear, dear friends received Buddy's text transmissions, the knee-jerk reaction was to see if I've been texted, too. That, and if I was still breathing, most probably. "Have you heard??! Who is he marrying?" somebody asked me, in under a minute of receipt of Buddy's announcment. "Me, who else?!" I answered with affected indifference. Hysterical laughter. "Ah hindi ba ako? Akala ko ako, eh." More laughs. Picture this: whenever good friends would look to me with sympathy and ask if I was okay with Buddy’s upcoming wedding, I would say that I am, in fact, ready for the big day, nonchalantly add that my dress is almost ready, too. “Is it black?” they would ask in nervous amusement. “No,” I’d tell them. “It’s a white dress. And with a veil.” I have also told select friends that they were part of MY entourage for July 25 and that they should start training for the wild race towards the altar against “the other bride” na lang. I guess, deep down, I am hoping that I could skip the bleeding heart and exhausting drama this time, and head straight to my closure via absurd wit and hysterical laughter.
But beneath the smart-ass, classy lady façade, I would refuse to eat, would choose to stay in bed all night, even when this delicious hunk I’ve been eye-ing is asking me out to go dancing, and would deliberately turn my hi-fi’s volume below its normal levels, listening to Rachel Alejandro’s Paalam Na.
Another Addendum: Why eat? To quote my lovely Nino, “aalagaan mo pa ba ang sarili mo para saktan ka lang ng iba?” Da best!
And when I am left alone during the late hours, I would mindlessly repeat to myself, “Jen, it’s okay. You’ll be okay.” But I nevertheless have this sinking suspicion that I, in fact, am not. I’ve never been farther from it, “okay”. It will never be okay to have one’s heart torn this way. And twice, at that. I have always believed that mine is quite a simple wish, and it is this: to find somebody to love and who will, of course, simply love me in return. I mean, how complicated is THAT??? Why, millions of people have succeeded in finding it! Am I so darned more clueless than the rest of the world, stubbornly looking for it in the wrong-est of places? My best friends have all gotten married (“always a veil sponsor, never a bride”… And twice in 3 weeks, jeez!) and are already having beautiful babies (“Ninang Jen! Ninang Jen!” I need a friggin’ calendar, it’s just not fair). Most everybody’s doing It, even the lowest of the low, while here I am, left to counting the Best Friends who came and went, cringing at the thought of how many more Best Friends might be on their way, still. Hang on a moment, I never asked for a superpowerful regenerating heart. I want just one. JUST ONE! Is it so wrong to then hope for just one person to come take it and NOT break it, too??! While the rest of the universe is almost stumbling upon their soul mates and living out their happy-ever-afters, I just stumble. As the rest of the world is falling madly in love with their Prince and Princess Charmings, I am just falling. I am just mad. While I have to sit and watch the rest of the world get engaged, all I get is enraged. And as the rest of this overly-infatuated world is getting married, I am just An. Invited. Guest.
Tell me if it is too much to ask to love and be loved. Hey, it’s not as if I am asking for Superman-gorgeous, Captain America-courageous Adonis to catch me from a burning building, no! Even just an unassuming, disheveled Ch*** is more, more, more than enough to sweep me off my feet (although, this fellow might just be an exception… “I knew I loved him before I met him,” and it doesn’t get any cheesier than this). But still I get no one. Am I too ambitious? Or is the world just too damn un-giving to me?
Hasn’t it been said, time and again, that we should all be so lucky as to marry our best friends and spend the rest of our lives with them? That, or marry the love of your life and ultimately discover that he/she has, at some point, evolved to become your best friend? So, what? I’m THAT unlucky???
After two heart-breaking rounds with the notorious “Best Friends” of my life, people who see me laughing now are most probably thinking I’m pretty much used to it. Let me tell you now that, no, nothing could be farther from the truth. Because there simply is no way of getting used to this kind of heartbreak. It’s not so much that I am used to it than I have actually given up. I surrender. I quit. One bout with a Best Friend is more than enough for me, thank you very much. Heck, it probably should be more than enough for anyone. But TWO? Come on now! It’s probably the world’s sick way of telling me not to count on true love and mind-blowing romance ever happening for me, even though the other people are getting it. I wonder, am I being told I don’t deserve it? Actually, I’m not so much as being told, but more like I’m being beat up over the head with it, really. Because one more of those “someone’s out there for you, just you wait,” and I swear I’ll puke. “Somebody better is waiting, you’ll see.” Because who else knows me better than these two guys already??? Kaya nga best friends na kame dibaaaaaaa?! Neither dare to tell me “maybe you are born for other, greater things” ever again, else, not only will I throw up on you, but I shall force-feed you my hurl. I don’t think I need to remind everybody that the same people who once said that “love is the greatest gift of all,” and “to love and be loved are what everybody should be aspiring for,” are, ironically, the same people who are now telling me that I am probably made for “other greater things”. WHAT OTHER GREATER THINGS??? What is there that is actually greater than LOVE? And don’t even bother telling me that there are way more forms of love and passion than just the romantic kind. Because I would then have to ask if you could ever have sex with your mom, your dog, your best friend. (Hell, I certainly didn’t.)
And until anybody can give me even a mildly satisfying answer to that bold red question of mine, I guess I’ll have no choice but to pile all the wedding invitations I keep getting into a huge box, keep dressing up for all the wedding receptions (word of advise: all a girl needs is ONE pair of smart, sensible, classy silver slip-ons and she’s set for life), and keep greeting everyone else “Best Wishes”. I shall quit drawing up my own list of a bridal entourage for my own special day, quit looking at bridal magazines for the most beautiful ivory gown I could find, quit hoping that the people I greet “Best Wishes” will, one day, return the same fervent wish for me. And maybe now is the best time for me to stop making friends with men named Paolo.
05 July 2004, 2:55am
September 14 Tonight the phone rang.Some 365 days ago, I think it was That I started asking, everyday, What if the phone rings? What if the phone rings? What if the phone rings? A first 365 days have already come to pass Since I last heard from him. Since his phone last rang. I, perhaps, had been Occupying my thoughts with such An unanswerable, if only To beg The Other, more macabre, Question What if the phone never rings again?
I’m nearing the 730th day And the phone never rang since. His phone never rang In my thousands of dials Or it probably would have But I’ve stopped trying.
I’ve, perhaps, rested on the belief That, one day, I’ll know what to say When, or if at all, the phone rings again. That, or I probably stopped believing.
But tonight Tonight the phone rang. Not his phone, though. Mine.
Truth be told, I was shaking I couldn’t bring myself to answer I wasn’t sure if I wanted To pick up. I was shaking.
I’ve lived a lifetime in The last Almost 730 Days. And, although I’ve chosen “Chances Are” and “After All” as the arts That our life together has imitated, I suddenly wasn’t sure If I wanted to Start again After the last Stop. Didn’t know if I wanted To take another chance.
In the same way he came to me At a time I least Expected it, He’s returning At a time when I’ve decided On Someone else.
But, God, I did know one thing: That I wanted to hear his voice Again. I don’t know why, but I did.
I said yes to seeing him We’ll be meeting in the morning He was remembering, From his end of the line, The times we shared The DVDs we watched on my TV The CDs we listened to together His favorite chocolates That were “always in your fridge.” He was asking about Buday, who drove him away The last time “Is that pesky dog still around? Can we please lock her in the bathroom?” He was recounting our past At a time I was already looking to my future. “No, she’s not to be locked in the bathroom ever again.”
Tonight, out of all nights, He comes back. Eerily, I am bereft of the old feelings I can’t find them anywhere. Tonight, after almost 730, He hasn’t changed. Strangely, I am sorry for him And glad, a little bit. Tonight, the phone rang And it wasn’t his It was mine. Tonight, he called me When my night Is his, and everybody’s, morning. I’m still shaking.
-- Sept. 7, 2005 -- What if the phone rings?I feel sad and weak. Yet again horribly fixating my endless gazes on the nothingness that abruptly consumes the entirety of my existence. From the tips of my aura down to my very core. Yet again, I feel as if I am treading on shifting sand. Do you remember? Are we ever meant to be? Will you still love me tomorrow? And, at the risk of sounding excruciatingly senti and frighteningly baduy, does the moonlight shine on Paris after the sun goes down? When will I ever learn that to ask too many such questions could be asking for trouble, begging for merciless death? But then, I have to ask, What if the phone rings? I walk home each day after work, and the first thing I ever think of doing is to call your number again, everyday checking if you are finally back. And then again right after I wake up. It has become, more than just a practice of needy anticipation of your return, almost an anatomical exercise now. After about a month of such aimless dialing, I suddenly realize one day the phone could ring and I will hear you say hello. What then? Will I say hello back and how are you? I miss you and can I see you tonight? What if the phone rings? Would I be able to overcome the sweet surprise and ask you where and how you’ve been? Where are you now? Are you alone? Would I have the courage to tell you that you have always been in my thoughts and have waited for you to pick up every single day? What if the phone rings? Would I be able to bravely say that you are the only man I have ever loved this way and, in spite of everything, the only one I could ever think of loving for the rest of my life? We shared some. We shared most. We shared something. And then we lost. But don’t you remember the beautiful feelings? The wondrous passion? The sacred union? This is all I have left… the memory of it lives on. I gave you everything I could afford, and then some. How could I possibly dare to imagine that it was all for nothing? You loving me tomorrow is all I could think about. But the probability, not to mention the sanctity, of change escapes me. Because in the rare times in our past when I would finally earn enough courage to exact the change, you charge back in, unannounced, easily telling me “hey, I’m back in your life.” Goodness. I know I CAN’T want you back in my life again but I also know I still do. God, I do. And just to preserve the stability; to keep the placid balance to each day, I try to contain things within. Believing that a mere tremble of my lips could shake everything back into total disarray, I would struggle to remain uncharacteristically silent. Keeping my questions, always in a whisper, to my struggling heart. What if the phone rings? Will I cry tears of happiness? Or will I shed terrified tears, being gripped in sheer disbelief at how I could be ever so willing, still, to subject myself to more uncertainty and the possibility of yet another goodbye? But here, south of the moon, is still the most beautiful place I have ever seen, and being with you, though so briefly, is the most glorious me I have ever been. If and when the phone does ring, though I have no idea now what I would say, less so if I would be able to say it, I just know I’ll have the perfect courage to say exactly what it is I want to tell you once I hear your voice again. Because it is better to believe this than ask, What if the phone never rings again? It is so dangerous to ask. It is. Because now I know even the moonlight over Paris, apparently, does end.
(But yes, here, south of the moon, is still the most beautiful place I have ever seen, and being with you, though so briefly, is the most glorious me I have ever been. So maybe it’s okay to ask.) (... sometime 2004) |
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