It's finally the end of the semester - the end of my Junior year. The semester that has passed is special because it was suppose to be the hardest one of all eight semesters that all BS Management students of Ateneo ever had. But apart from that, it was extra special to me because it was a time when I felt that I've learned a lot about life.
In Ateneo de Manila, regardless your course, you will be immersed in humanities subjects. You will have to go through some history and political classes, and endless theology and philosophy classes. This makes the students "think differently". Students become passionate not only in what they're doing but also in what they can achieve. The goals become different. It is not only about earning money anymore, it is about being able to allow change to happen in the world that they do and do not belong to.
Of course not everyone gets this kind of an epiphany. Differences in point of views make human living more interesting after all. But I felt it. I felt it in my bones and in my guts that this just might be for me.
Although I am a Management student, and although I want to pursue a career in the corporate world, this sixth semester opened my eyes to a passion I never quite grasped before. A passion for allowing change.
Gone are those days where I just worked for myself. Those were the times when I kept on asking about the whereabouts of my inspiration, my drive, my passion. Now it is clear to me that what I am working towards is something bigger than myself, but that won’t scare me because change is attainable even with minute movements.
I don’t have to be a mogul in order to allow for it, I just have to be make sure that I am not stepping on any toes, so to speak; and that in everything that I will do, I will have in my mind the consideration of that goal.
Bao.. Eto na yung sinasabi mong click.. Talaga nga namang nakapagtataka ang puso ng isang tao. haha. Although I feel relieved that you are finally moving on, I also feel..sad. When you said "hands up ako dito", yun yun eh. BOOM. Parang sumabog at nagkalat ang pira-piraso ng puso ko.. Just a few hours ago, nagconfess ako kay nicole na parang nagugustuhan ulit kita..pero ayoko i-entertain kasi baka lumipas rin naman.. But now that this happened..I'm still not sure whether or not I like you again. But I really am hurt. I know.. wala akong karapatan mag reklamo dahil mas matagal kang nasaktan..pero hindi ko kayang i-deny na masakit ok.. haih. Tignan mo nga naman..all things do come to an end.. Ang sakit sakit sakit. Although naniniwala ako sa kasabihang "never say never", parang sa ngayon, nararamdaman ko talaga yung "ayoko na". This heart breaking pain is too much for me.
The story is about a girl who thinks too much. That girl is me. I am now in a situation where I cannot drag anybody in..because I'm afraid they'll mess up with what I might or should be thinking. I actually don't know what I am supposed to think. What if I got it all wrong? What if he doesn't really like me, and I am the only one in this imaginary world who's making life so hard for myself? What if he does like me, and right now I don't think I like him, but in the future I suddenly realize I actually do? What if I never do get to like him but then..he's what I need? Wrong. What if he does like me..and I do like him now? Not true. What if feelings will just come afterwards? Won't I be just screwing up a perfectly good chance to land a guy who's responsible, caring, obsessed about me? Assuming he really likes me and this is not just an illusion.
But..now. At least for now, I have no feelings for him. Disgust is what I feel about myself when I think about using him. Disgust right here and now. Because I can't imagine myself confronting him about my lack of interest. Disgust because what's stopping me is pure selfishness. I am disgusted. I disgust myself. Disgusting, selfish, cruel person..
So I have run into a problem. This problem..haunting me for a few months now. It seems to have something to do with freedom. My freedom. Petty as it may, this problem has been depriving me of sleep and peaceful thought. Or this might as well be a case of conflicting desires. One thing I cannot understand about myself, among other things, is how I can want something but at the same time beat myself up about wanting it. It's like a very masochistic move that just tears me apart. Yet I keep on doing it. Sometimes I lie to myself just to a peace the demons inside me. There are demons inside me?? To be or not to be. To be the bigger man or not to be the bigger man. To do or not to do. To do nothing or to do what just might put me in a spot where I will be insecure but at the same time relieved, guilt-free, happy. Well what can I say? Now, that's the real question.
My last post was about a heartbreak that i thought I'd never get over with. It slipped my mind to explain the story behind the title so I am just going to spend a few paragraphs here to talk about it.
Almost Lover is a song by A Fine Frenzy.
It was 2010, I was still in a relationship with my high school classmate but our relationship was really rocky at that time. Then there was this other guy who I will hide by the name Joe. Joe was being my comforter during my rocky relationship and to cut the story short, I fell for him.
So I was listening to the song on the radio when he called on the phone, and I told him about the song and how much I can relate to the lyrics "..Goodbye my almost lover, goodbye my hopeless dream.." Joe and I got so emotional cause we both knew we couldn't be together because I was still in a relationship.
That night and a lot more nights passed and the problems I had with my boyfriend made our relationship shatter to the point that it was not reconcilable anymore. And as expected, Joe and I became a couple. My relationship with Joe was nonetheless smooth except for the fact that we kind of had to hide it.. That seemingly little factor turned out to be a really big deal because of the deep reasons behind it, and I think that that, our loss of accountability to the public, was what eventually tore us apart.
The other parts of the lyrics are "..should've known you'd bring me heartache, almost lovers always do.." True to that!
Anyway, as I write now, I am proud to say that I am done and over with with this break-up. It took me 2 years which was a really long time, but I am glad because I know that I have become much stronger than before. My mind is now clearer about the silly notions of love I thought I understood so well. I think this experience has also taught me a great deal about maturity. And I am grateful. All throughout my emotional turmoil, I know God has been molding me and He finally gave me rest before I reached my breaking point!
The relationship I had with Joe, especially the part where it ended was a stage I needed to go through. I found out that I had an obsession that I had to get rid off because it was ruining me. There are still traces of this obsession in me but this experience helped me cure a big part of that obsession. And like what grade school teachers usually say, "That's the lesson for the day." but I guess in my case, for 2 years.
Just the other day i was doing a monologue here in my room about how i cant get over you. It has been 2months since we last texted, a long couple of months i must say. I missed you badly. Even if it has been two years and counting since you broke up with me, i still hurt so much. I was surprised that you replied this morning (because you never replied anymore, maybe you felt sorry for me and finally gave me a break. haha.), but not as surprised as when you told me you were courting someone. And that you went out of town with her.. Funny how i am still so very so very so very so very affected..
I knew this day would come, the day i have to face the fact that you are over me. I know you've been over me for so long, i just didn't have to actually face it until now. Now.
You think im so silly to have waited this long and you probably think im such a loser cause i cant find someone else. I just wish i could have said the same thing about you.
I still hang on to those promises. I still feel overwhelmed every time i remember the "us" that we were..and every time i realize that there's no such thing.
You've paralyzed me in a really bad way.
But i hope you are happy now. Thank you for toughening me up.
Love. It is a tricky subject. Other than Jesus Christ, I don't think anyone understands its ultimate meaning.
There is this man who has been pursuing me for roughly four years now; at first he pursued me for one year then we had a relationship for a year but then we broke off because it turned out we weren't ready for each other yet. To cut the story short, he's single, i'm single and now he is pursuing me again. He's okay. I think the feelings i had for him before were just buried down somewhere in my heart and now that he wants to get back together again, my feelings are, well, resurfacing again.
One of the reasons i broke up with him was because of lies. Not so harmful yet frequent lies. It was enough to break my trust and fear for my future if ever i ended up with him. Now that i am considering to get back together again, i seem to occasionally disregard the fact that i still fear the tendency that our relationship will be built in mistrust. I disregard because my feelings of wanting to get back with him becomes stronger by the day. However, the thing is that it becomes stronger not because of growing love, but because of all the wrong motives.
He is a great guy, he can provide for the future that my family needs and would need, he makes me feel secure. He's near perfectly ideal. But the problem lies within me. I am clearly not ready yet. To be in a relationship entails each partner to help each other grow in all aspects of this life that God gave us; My idea of relationship is not at all that mature yet.
I need him to wait longer. Because not until i mature should i allow myself to decide with regard to these very important matters.
We had a D-group discussion awhile ago about priorities. I have been trapped with an issue connected to priorities for a while and i could not help but become emotional when i shared to them about how much these issues were bothering me.
Is it a sense of responsibility or just plain egoistic nature showing? I have been battling with this question but i have been afraid to know the answers. For me, these priorities were my motivation to pursuing success because otherwise i would not be aspiring so much.
Am I pressuring myself to do something i do not need to do? Something i think others need me to do but actually only need to prove to myself that i am worth something?
My kinakapatid and I were talking awhile ago about the evolution of social classes in the Philippines since his generation to mine today. He started enumerating the different social classes and their attributes from class A to class C. He said it was simpler before because when you did not own a business and lived by wages then you were part of class C, if you owned at least a small business and earned from it to feed yourself and your family then you were part of class B, and if you were like the ones who lived in mansions and threw their money in casinos yet still have lots to spare then you were part of class A. But as time went by, the divisions became more and more complicated. At first there was the emergence of class D, on which he joked was used to connote the word "dead" because those who were in class D had nothing to live by and were just plainly waiting for death to come. Then he added how class B was further divided into different class of B+ and B-, class C into C+ and C-, the differentiation could have went on and on. Then i told him that our conversation in a nutshell would just be that it would be hard to go on dividing society into social classes, society has become so complex. So who screwed it all up? He firmly believes it was democracy that did it, i thought otherwise (although it was hard to argue with him so i just kept the thought to myself). Looking at the bigger picture, with or without democracy, humans, ever since Adam and Eve screwed up in the Garden of Eden, have been destined to entropy (entropy- moving towards destruction; one of my favorite words since highschool 2ndyear). I am grateful to have learned in SA21 the significance of food getting to our human life, it gave me a broader perspective in viewing things. Anyway, I just think that regardless of who was in charge, this continuous perpetuation of social classes that are becoming more and more complex are a given since it is our nature to grow more in terms of population and technological advancement.
On a side note, it is hard to look at the bigger picture (and talk about it with others) when most of the people you talk to face reality heads-on. Questions such as "and why should this matter to me?" and "who cares about that?" surface and it becomes increasingly hard to even see the importance of the bigger picture yourseld.
When i got home, i was still at daze because i was surprised twice for my eighteenth birthday. I saw my mom and I told her that it was very clever of her that she was able to keep all those surprises from me. I was actually anticipating the dinner with my family because after all the excitement, i just wanted to spend a quiet and intimate family dinner as celebration of my day with those whom i can be totally myself with. We went to Mario's for dinner because the ambience their was nice. I did not really eat much because i was already too full, but i definitely enjoyed the company of my mom, my brother and my kinakapatid, Kuya John.
I know i did not know how to express much of my appreciation for my mom, but i really wanted to let her know how much i wanted to thank her for absolutely everything and just tell her how much i love her. That night was nice, because i had a chance to say thank you. As in a literal "Thank you, mommy.", even if it sounded short, it meant a lot coming from my heart.
When we got home, i was ready to rest because it has been a long day, but i decided to stay up a bit more to print some school stuff. Around 11:30pm, someone rang our doorbell. I was wondering who would come at such an hour. Then sprang from the door were my good friends! Nicole, Joana, and Helaine came into our house hugging and greeting me a happy birthday! In a few seconds, a singing from behind me called my attention, my mom was singing happy birhtday as she brought out a huge nice Goldilocks cake! It was two layers, frosting and all, also with a ceramic figurine. It was so pretty and i just wanted to keep it as a keepsake. Wow, was the only word i could think of, i guess this day would never end! But i thought of that in a good way. My mom prepared so much for me too, but even if she did not, i would not have really noticed because i think everything she has done for me was already more than more than what was enough!
So Nicole suddenly throws in a plan of "photoshoot" for a project with me, Helaine and Joana as her models, that night! I would not go into detail. The shoot was not so great, it was late and i was tired and i was starting to get cranky because i felt that my day was kind of "used". But i kept my cool and went along with the whole thing. Nevertheless, i was really grateful that they would take the effort to actually come to my place that late at night just to surprise me.
That day, my debut, was a culmination. Of what, i can never answer. I know i am still me, i know i've gone through another year and learned a lot. I know i will learn more in the future. But in that day, i felt so much love that i was, in the littlest sense, changed in terms of how i viewed the "world" surrounding me. Thank you to all those people who love me. Thank you to all those that cared and thought of and for me. Thank you Lord for giving me so much blessings, not only material but also blessings of relationships with the best and worst people of whom i learn from each day of my life.
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