mourning deaths

• Denial and isolation: May. It was something I never saw coming. A weakness, a mistake, and a wrong decision I desperately tried to ignore. I looked the other way, pretending everything is okay.
• Anger: June – July. I blamed society, I blamed insecurities, I blamed our jobs and its lack of compensation, and I blame everything and everyone except myself. I’m angry as there is pain hidden deep within me.
• Bargaining: August. I compromised. Novenas, prayers, sacrifices... I bargained to prolong the inevitable.
• Depression: September to present. Regret. I feel disappointed with myself. I feel lonely as I’m learning to accept things as they are – finally letting go. With the reality sinking in, I am overcome with sadness.
• Acceptance: Someday, hopefully soon, I can be offered the opportunity to make peace with all that has happened.

the end is where i begin

i give up. Good bye and good night.

funerals and reunions

We spent the weekend mourning the death of one of our grandmothers. We weren’t related by blood and I wasn’t really that close with her but my mother and my grandmother were. They shared a great past together. It turns out that after emigrating from the province, they were the ones who offered shelter to my grandmother here in Manila way back in the 60’s.

Anyway, it wasn’t really a sad and dark weekend despite the death. There were a bit of crying here and there but overall, the atmosphere was still pleasant. I’m not sure how it is with other families but for us, funerals serve as our reunion. Since we don’t get that much funerals (hopefully, we still won’t), we don’t get to see some of our relatives for a very long time.

Last Saturday, I got to meet some of my cousins for the very first time. Neither of us knew of each other’s existence. It was fun meeting them since of all the cousins I’ve met, they were the only ones whom I felt really ‘connected’ with. It’s probably because they were also anti-social like me. After hearing them admit that they do have a world of their own, I immediately felt ‘at home’ with them. Haha… “We really must be relatives." I said to myself.

It was unfortunate though that I wasn’t able to mingle with them longer today as we were seated separately during most of the event. But still, it’s good enough that I get to meet and talk with them the other day. These are the times when I regret not having a Facebook account.

I guess I’ll just see them again after someone else dies.

poems are lame

Magnetic
Nonsensical happiness, endearing
Obsessive urges you incite
Passion, infatuation, adoration and perhaps even more
Effortlessly attractive, you are worth more than you think you do.

An ABC for someone near and dear. I hope I got it right,

* * *

And to you my confused friend: Not everyone stays. I know that - and yet I’m still hoping that you do. You keep me sane.

double bass wimp

I miss hearing double bass beats. I don’t play the drums like my brother so I get easily amazed by rapid successive bass beats. It’s like a rush of adrenaline energizing me.
Being no longer exposed to music of this genre, I had no other means of getting my fix but by digging up my old-school Slipknot and Mudvayne songs from the grave. Besides, I’m getting old already... some new heavy metal music have become too noisy for me.
I’m now cooling down with Dreams in Stereo by local act Hardboiledeggz. Although they sound a bit emo (I’m sorry, but it’s true), I like how they are able to squeeze in some double bass beats in their songs. And Grace, OMG... I still love you. What could have ever happened to you?

everything at steak

They serve the best steaks for their price range. Period.

I’m so glad Mark introduced it to us.

let’s get this over with

Every stone they throw at you allows you to gain more knowledge. You either learn how to adapt to the pain, avoid getting thrown at, or probably even both. Although every hit you take damages you both physically and emotionally, you still manage to move forward as a better person - carrying and picking yourself up amidst the hurt and the despair. In life, there will always be stones along your path and there will always be people more than willing enough to throw them at you. You will get hit intentionally – that is if you are lucky. There will be times where you will be hit by accident and there is nothing you can do about it but shake your head and walk away. Regardless, no matter how much you try avoiding this, you WILL definitely get hit at some point.

Yesterday, a huge rock hit me. It was from someone that I really trusted with my life. Oftentimes, this person would just hit me with very small stones by accident and I would just ignore them. This time however, it really hurt like hell. With all the hate seething inside of me, I threw stones back. Even if I was able to get even, I still felt immense pain. It was so bad that I was crying tears of anger. Yeah… picture me driving home, holding back emotions as tears were rolling down my cheeks. All these while maneuvering through traffic on a lightly tinted car with the whole world to see. Yeah, I know, it was VERY unsightly. Beggars knew well enough not to knock at my window.

So, my friend, if you want to throw more stones at me, now is your chance.

Let’s get this over with.

the title of a post

Part of my blog-writing style is to leave the title field blank. I’ve been doing this since 2002. It is known that blog titles can greatly increase or decrease the level of interest of a visitor. There’s truth to that as the title alone can help me determine if I will be wasting 5 minutes of my time reading an article or not. This is the very same reason why I don’t use titles – I don’t want my posts to be judged based on it… and… I really just want to waste your time. Haha…

So, let me remind you that you’ve already wasted a portion of your life reading this. Those are precious minutes that you can never ever get back. Haha. Just kidding. Today I’ll try to start giving titles to my entries. I hope this works for us both.

If some friends are worth keeping, then obviously, there are those that are not. How can you tell if it’s okay to let go of a friend? I tried to answer that as ‘lawfully-good’ as possible (sorry, nerd terms) and here’s what I came up with:

• You enjoy your friend’s company, but the happiness you feel is purely superficial. You both laugh at the same jokes and you have a lot of common interests – unfortunately, you also share that with millions of people around you. Just because you are always smiling and laughing whenever you’re with a specific friend doesn’t mean you need to treasure him/her. Now, if you can both laugh at really personal stuff like your crooked nose, your slow wit, or that embarrassing secret that you’ve kept hidden for the longest time, then that would be a different story.
• You play sports together, however, as soon as the game starts, its every man for himself – even if you’re on the same side. You both constantly try to outdo each other’s achievements and you both want to be the best at your sport. For non-sporty, estrogenic people, an equivalent scenario would be... hmm... well, bargain hunting. Yes, you always shop together, but as soon as you see the great discounts, it’s every woman (or man) for him/herself. Although it is good to challenge your friends into bringing out the best in them, the really good friends sometimes just let their friends win.
• Your friends are confident in showing their ‘flawed’ side to you thinking that true friends should know each other for who they really are. Unfortunately, in the process, they expect you to understand and accept them wholeheartedly without question. You shouldn’t be flattered when a friend tells you that he ‘doesn’t practice censorship around his true friends’ after making a rude comment against you. Obviously.
• Last but not the least, a friend keeps telling you that you are his or her closest friend and yet you don’t feel the same towards him or her. Its highly likely because you really aren’t good friends. It’s as simple as that.

I’m guessing that as you were reading the bullets above, you’ve probably thought that I was just stating the obvious. Well, to be honest, I was. Sometimes, we just can’t see what is in front of us until it hits us hard on our face.