I Still Remember

It is so unlikely to see me alone at a coffee shop, I only step foot in one for scheduled meetings. As boring as my life gets with all the work, I like to spend my free time on more decadent spots. Yet here I am. Trying to focus on work that is only one week delayed. Staring at the screen, trying to make sense of all the numbers, sipping on a medium cup of tea latte. Trying to, while my mind wanders off to places I thought it does not know anymore.

I start to fall into a daze, with black ink creeping onto everything around me. Then blobs and splats of color. Music distort into something else. Bursts of light fill the room and just like that, I'm gone.

The new place is hazy and dark, yet warm and comforting, like when you're snuggling underneath a favorite blanket on a stormy night, holding your flashlight on tonight's chosen book. The thunder rumbles outside, and the plot thickens as the two boy detectives get one step closer to solving the mystery. You remember this thrill to be the only good kind of scary you ever knew. Much like falling in love, and sometimes, also a bit like getting your heart broken.

On Writing and Being a Child of the Universe

I've been trying to urge myself to write lately as I have said. I was able to put down a skeleton of a chapter a couple of days ago and it has not been followed by any more attempts since. Right now I just feel tired. Tired and worthless. I feel obsolete. Like the world had spun so fast that I was caught on one space and time and never moved from there since.

I don't know why I'm forcing myself to believe that I should be focusing on a few things. I can't do it. I can't just narrow things down, because I am made to love everything. I am made to explore every nook and cranny, every ugly and pretty, every still and chaos. I am a child of the universe (sorry, Desiderata) and I don't plan on limiting myself to a few things when I can have a little bit of everything. Fuck being great. Fuck specializing. Fuck conventions. I have never lived with that kind of mindset anyway so why start now? There is beauty in living and pride in being just. Not ambitious nor content, not exciting nor boring, not ground-breaking nor irrelevant. Just being. No adjectives, no descriptions. No fucking pressure.

I'll keep doing what I've been doing and I'm sure I'll be fine. I am here to love and create. That is all I will ever do until the day I die.

Break pt. 3

Maybe I should just accept the fact that I am not good in creating anything. In editing other people's works maybe, reviewing, critiquing, directing... but to actually create something out of nothing? I have never done anything of the sort. It is more difficult to start now. I am turning 27 in less than a month and at this stage, with every step I take I am deciding on whether I would keep the physiological privileges of having a roof over my head, food, and a healthy self, among other things, also dragging behind me a wagon of responsibilities. So no, starting to write at this point in my life isn't really as simple as I thought it would be as having a month-long break.

Break pt. 2

Why is it so difficult to write anything other than Love? It was so easy, to write about a blossoming love, a great love, a failed love... but to write about other things... it just feels alienating and unnatural. Maybe I'm not really a storyteller. Maybe I should consider being a non-fiction writer instead. That's just a bummer. I'm not even a good blogger.

Break

Like I promised, July has been a month-long break. I tried watching and reading more but all I acquired is an acute case of social awkwardness. I have lost all my personal communication abilities whatsoever. I can rarely relate and empathise unless we're talking about a fictional character. I am more lost now than ever. But as they say, lost is a good place to start. I've been thinking about what I want to do next because clearly, being the Jill of All Trades of Filmmaking is not going to last forever for me. Eventually, one way or another, we must choose one thing if we want to be any good.

In this road to self-discovery a.k.a. indulgence, the only thing that has been coming up recurrently is the idea of writing to be read. Not really writing for profit nor writing as a profession, but just writing stuff that other people can also read (or see, if it's a screenplay or a stage play.) 

I have not decided on my fate yet but whatever I decide to do or become will require a healthy body and sound mind. So for now, I need to take a shower and step out to eat. Such is the challenge on a lonely, rainy, Sunday night.

Rainy Days and Beginnings

I am starting to hate myself again.

During the process of slowly healing myself--particularly my emotional health--I learned to live an unambitious and content life. Now here I am, throwing all of those hard work and carefully meshed out life mantras by ignoring the stressors and pushing myself past the limit. I have been taking on too many projects and workload since the start of the year. Projects that are not even my own. And what have I gotten from all of that in the end? A low self-esteem and a drained soul.

So starting July, I will be recharging. I need to love myself again.

I Have Become Stupid

I have forgotten how to write, but in an attempt to express my feelings, I will.

I'm growing tired of holding this world up just so everyone can complain about everything that is going wrong. I feel like a politician trying to appease her constituents when I think I know better and would rather rule with an iron fist. But that is not possible in this hipsterful world of freedoms and individualities.

Maybe it is my fault after all. Maybe this is my system of governance falling apart and I just need to keep track of all the shit I have to start, troubleshoot, and finish. Or maybe this is just the summer ending.

If I knew how to draw (or paint), I would draw myself across Shuster St., right outside the Benitez Hall, right when the rain fell. I stand on the pavement--stunned, not able to move. Different--and scattered--thoughts run in my mind, like: Should I run for shade towards the next building or  should I run straight for home in the other direction? This is cool, by the way. But very inconvenient. It does not look like it will last too long, no? All at the same time hoping that the rain will not catch up with me.

This describes exactly what I'm feeling right now. This would make a dream sequence too, but who has the resources, right?

This is a crappy post but at this point, it's better than nothing (or throwing a fit.) It is my duty and responsibility to keep this little world sane. For now, at least. Until the next escape.

Growing and learning

As it happens lately, I only get the urge to post something here when I can't spill what's on my mind to my boyfriend. I haven't been feeling confident these days and a conversation we had today didn't help. It was nothing serious nor special, completely casual, but it left me feeling like shit. He did not say anything wrong and has zero fault on this. We were talking about astrological signs and I don't even believe on such things. Just some points were raised that made me reflect about my character, attitude towards other people, and capabilities.

It's no big deal. I just can't start work until I learn to resolve this with myself and stop this worthless and unhealthy musings.

Honesty is the B in Apartment 923

As mentioned, I had just fairly recently moved in to Apartment 923. I share a room with my boyfriend and our friend sleeps in the next room. Living together for the past month has not been perfect but it has been filled with so much love and happiness, which is truly all I want and need in this hard knock life.

Last night though, after drinking a glass, getting reasonably high, and having some good sexin', I brought up what I can only call in hindsight as a Never-Ever-Bring-This-Up-Or-Else conversational piece, which, if you come to think of it, is worse than taboo. Basically I phished on the things he wanted to know about me or ask me but didn't have the courage to bring up. And by "phished," I mean I probably already knew what his answer was going to be but would like to hint that he didn't need to say it because I knew. I just wanted affirmation that these issues/questions did exist in his head but he need not say them out loud because I already plan to do something about these things, I just don't want to talk about it. But he did say it. To my face. He thinks that I'm not doing anything with my life right now. So he wants to know. My plans. And what I want to do them. Well, that sucks. I know I can't always have what I want but hey, I thought I was being loved here, cared for and accepted for who I am and all that pissy shit that comes with the heaviest four-letter word in the world.

The Narcissist B in Apartment 23 is Me

I want to go ranting about how he knew right from the start that I'm like this. Maybe not this this, hut Confused-And-Fickle-Minded this. I made it clear from the beginning, I'm a free spirit, I make my own decisions, I do whatever I want , I may or may not conform to his way of living, set of ideals, thoughts, beliefs, manners, language, cultural practices, food preference, music taste... And in the past month that we have been living together, though I am still confused with a lot of things, I have already found that I do not hold the same sensibilities as him in some things and I live with it. Because be a loser, be broke, be a mopey mess, as long as you're a good person, I will love you no less nor will I raise questions. But as I have been told time and again, and as I have refused to believe every time I look at the stars, fairy tales do not exist. Time will come that even if I think that I had already explained enough of myself, I shall explain once more, because apparently it is not enough to tell them that your actions (or lack thereof) will not always be clear to them, when the day comes they find themselves confused, asking why you do (or not do) certain things, you have to say exactly why. A relationship is an endless series of explanations. Sounds exhausting, no?

Love Comes at a Price and I'm Not Sure I Can Afford It

Because it's a two-way thing. Because he has been nothing but good to you and you will not even give him that little peace of mind, of knowing that it is going to be okay, that it will not always be like this (though you do not know that for sure), that he did not choose the wrong partner (this too). You will not give it to him because you're this horrible person, free-loading to the love this relationship gives. Sucking it in as your life source but not willing to sign in your soul in return. Sacrifice is a word you are not ready to understand yet. You would like to think that your presence is enough, and that's where you will always be wrong.

Growing up sucks

Things are fucked up and I have nothing to blame but myself. I would expect myself to say that it started with deciding to enroll for this semester but I was actually enjoying school when the stupid film project had to happen to my calculated life.

I have just moved in to a new place three weeks ago with my boyfriend and my former roommate. Things are okay for us, but I'm struggling financially. Academics is a burden. I cannot focus on anything because I'm being hounded by my school performance day and night. I know I should not bother with acing anything and should just accept my mediocre fate but I just cannot bear wasting my time on homework if I will not get anything out of it in the end.

A surprising and very needed commercial break though, an ex-love made contact and we had a catch-up last week, the back story of which is excruciatingly long. He wanted to apologize for being a douche and I was expecting an entire conversation of him explaining himself and me affirming how douchey he was  but it turned out to be a long catch-up of how-have-you-beens and a quick "sorry" from him in the end. I'm not sure I got something out of that either. I mean I did, it was fun and it was a relief, but I have not turned the experience into anything yet so the whole thing is considered irrelevant until then.

I know what I have to do to be able to move forward, I will have to quit school so my brain can shift its focus to the other things. But if I do that, I would have to accept my defeat from this ancient educational system. I can't figure it out by myself so I think I will have to get help. Tonight I contacted NGF again after two years, asking for a list of counseling services they might be able to recommend. Shitty, right? Asking for help after telling myself that I have had it together all this time.

I don't want to give up what I have right now and reinvent myself all over again. It was an escape, thought a tricky one, to reinvent myself every time something like this happened. Those experiences made me. No matter how emotionally grueling my earlier adult life had been, one thing's for sure: it was never boring.  Recently though, I have been enjoying the steady life and actually been looking forward to settling down. Am I growing old, getting tired of adventures? Heaven forfend.

When you feel like you don't have anything maybe you really don't and you just have to suck it in

What nobody understands today is that I'm having a very bad day.
I am tired and lonely even when I am resting,
even when I am not alone, even when I am smiling
I can tell I'm not okay

I want to look outside and see the world fall apart
but what I really need is some sleep,
a slab of salmon and a proper mango tea.
But I lie on the sleeping mat, thinking about
how I can't afford
neither the destruction nor the healing
not even think about life's meaning

I wish I have a proper house,
away from the rhinitis, the itchy pillows, and the mosquitoes.
Away from the thieves who like to creep at night
and steal away my peace.

I wish I was at home
and it was story time with little Koko again
and movie time with my Pao and Gab and Nat
and dinner time with my parents again,
and I don't have to worry
about not having someone beside me
when I get nightmares in my head
and grind my teeth in sleep.

For tonight I will just try to doze off
and maybe I'll see
a prettier life in my dream
a bouncier dance, a happier beat, away from the manic-depressive swings