These last couple of weeks, I have been using this statement, or a permutation thereof, a lot:

What you told me hurts, but that is the truth and I cannot deny that.  The truth is always a good thing.  Thank you.

I have always valued the truth, especially in the past two years since my mother’s passing.  During that time when the power to decide over all of the family’s affairs were turned over to me, I only asked one thing from my family and the people who were involved with us.  That is to tell me the whole truth and let not one fact be hidden from me, so that I may make all my decisions based on them.  That’s when I started to really believe in the power and absoluteness of what is true.

Throughout this time, in all my contemplative moments, I have always asked the universe for clarity… or truth.  Even when I opened my heart to love, I asked for nothing else BUT the truth.  In this quest, the universe has put circumstances in front of me that grants me this wish everytime.  I always find myself at the right place, at the right time.  Today, is no different… 

Today, the truth sliced through me like a cold blade.

I accept this gift, and trust that there is a reason for all of this.

Maybe next time I’ll be wise to ask for happiness… bliss.

I love this song by Carrie Underwood, the chorus of Starts with Goodbye goes like this:

I guess it’s gonna have to hurt,
I guess I’m gonna have to cry,
And let go of some things I’ve loved,
To get to the other side,
I guess it’s gonna break me down,
Like falling when you try to fly,
It’s sad, but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life,
Starts with goodbye.

May point siya dun. (She’s got a point there.)  You have to draw the line somewhere and stand on it, whatever it takes - just what Sidney Poitier said.   This is academy award winner and trail blazer Sidney Poitier with his daughter Sidney Tamiia Poitier.

I just went to Carrie’s official site today and heard her sing these lines:

Sometimes that mountain you’ve been climbing is just a grain of sand
What you’ve been up there searching for
forever is in your hands
When you figure out love is all that matters after all
It sure makes everything else
seem so small

-So Small

When I look at the big picture, whatever I’m going through right now, it’s nothing compared to the last few years of my life. 

Now here comes the mother of all relatable songs from Carrie’s album - I Just Can’t Live a Lie.  Hold up your tissues as you read this.

Oh, I know I could say we’re through
And tell myself I’m over you
But even if I made a vow
I promise not to miss you now
And try to hide the truth inside
I’d fail cause I, I just can’t live a lie

Ouch!  This song is just one big proverbial pinch in the singit.

People will not believe this at first, but I am allergic to beer.  Some say it must be the malt in them, since I don’t get the same reaction with wine and such.  I call it my good-time-meter - the limit with which I know I had too much of a good time.  It is a disadvantage, but it did save me from succumbing to a lot of alcohol and the repercussions… Until now.

I went to a drinking session last Wednesday at my new friend Chris’ house and ended up drinking a lot of the strong stuff.  Aside from the imminent physical problems that I was bound to get from that, I also embarassed myself in front of new friends.  I was very disappointed in myself, since it was never like me to act that way.  The scariest part of all this was that I didn’t even remember how I got home.

Now two days after, I am still suffering from reddish spots (not the eeky kind, the blotchy kind) all over.  Yesterday my palms were red and my upper arms had red spots.  Now it’s down to my ankles and feet.  I reckon there will be no traces of it by tomorrow.  Though the physical damage will be gone soon, I know that the embarrassment and the disappointment of that night will still be here nagging in my head.

During one of my conversations with a friend about my unreciprocated feelings, he asked me if I was already OK with the situation.  In a reckless moment, I muttered:

I feel the feelings, but I will not be governed by them.

I hope one day I could say this and not lie.

To wake up and find yourself leaning against the sinews of  all your heart’s desires, that’s warmth.

I threw a net unto the sea
But then I caught three
Souls that fates wove to my life’s strands
The meek, the kiss, and the hand 

-midnight anxiety, September 27, 2005

To wake up one day and feel that with unyielding faith, the love that you asked for, and its consequences, have come full circle…  That’s warmth.

I never thought I could find
One soul to surpass the three
I never thought that I could find
A day with so much glee

—

I love this song.  It strengthens my belief that things and circumstances come to you when you ask the universe for it.

Love Called My Name by Jodie Brooke-Wilson

Love called my name
I heard the sweetest melody
I felt a change
Down in the deepest part of me

It’s lifted me up so high
Given wings to fly

I found a secret place where love grows
Since you showed the way
Love called my name…

Love called my name
I heard the voice inside of me
Right through my pain
I saw you there in front of me

A vision of paradise
When I look into your eyes

I found a secret place where love grows
Since you showed the way
Cause I was lost and now my heart knows
The way home again
Love called my name

I understand now that when I asked for love, I found someone to love.  It was not necessary for that love to be reciprocated.  The unrequited lover might be deemed by some as the sufferer, but who are we to judge another man’s suffering?

Another gift was given to me today as I woke up.  I just realized that after a few weeks, I had regained the ability to silence my mind.  Finally, in the midst of the inner and outer turmoils I have experienced, I can stop for moment and just quell them, as I hone in on a specific thought or purpose.  Even if there is no thought or purpose, I can focus on silence.

Focus.  This is a gift that I have been asking the universe, for weeks on end.  This I regained with my mind’s silence.

I give gratitude to God for this.

That’s the secret to life.

I’ve always been a giving person, I think, at least outwardly.  It must have stemmed from an idea that sprung from my head one contemplative day, that I might not a good person by nature.  So to compensate I consciously do the opposite.

Just this week, I gave my friend Chris a 512MB micro SD (No ‘why aren’t you giving it to me!!!’ hate mails please hahaha…. we’re such nerds!).  Then a few weeks before I gave a bunch of bags to my cousin.  The thought “give to get” was permeating in my mind.  I was hoping for an LV bag actually, or the SPF Jacket I saw last Thursday to come my way, but sometimes, the universe proves that the human mind cannot fathom what’s just beyond the horizon.

I come in to work today, a Saturday, holding a latte on one hand, a crepe on the other, a bag on my shoulder, donning a pair of shades and a dirty look… quintessentially my dont- mess-with-me-I’m-working-on-a-Saturday-without-overtime-pay look.  My manager happily (and bravely) approaches me, and tells me he has good news.  I am completely blown away by the news.  Yes, it’s THAT good.

Wow, all of these came out of a microSD and some bags.  Thank God!

In a good way it is, with lines such as these

Live In My House
I’ll Be Your Shelter
Just Pay Me Back
With One Thousand Kisses
Be My Lover - I’ll Cover You

The song is I’ll Cover You from the broadway musical Rent.  It simply gives me goosebumps.  This kind of love, I want!!!

…  between love and a waste of time.

My morning ritual for the past couple of days was to listen to the Avenue Q OST while on the cab.  When I get to this song, usually just after the Nichols Bridge area and into the scenic ride along the military base, I find myself wallowing in the sad melody.  Add the drizzle in the morning, parang MTV. 

What can I do?  I can so relate to the dilemma of the actor singing e.

Tanong, am I but one of the few who can truly reach out, hold out and acknowledge a feeling in its truest form?  That is, without all the bruhahas, complications, and dancing around in political correctedness?  That is, without all the let’s just be friends, and other one-liners plucked out from Viva Films?

If so, how scarce are we?  Are we like the elephants, struggling to survive in a world that wants us extinct?

I’m rambling again.  If you don’t understand it, or worse, if it makes you think I’m crazy then I feel sorry for you.  Read a William Blake, pick up a Chaucer, understand Poe.  Do anything you can to set your mind off to start asking questions.  It is, after all, the unreasonable person who can affect change in this world.

Today at breakfast, I decided to finish off the Coke Light in the fridge.  I poured it into my glass, and it started bubble up so quickly that the bubbles rose to the brim of the glass.  I stopped pouring, raised my hand as if to stop it, and I thought:

Surface tension, surface tension, surface tension!!!

That’s when I realized, ang nerd ko!

This is the last of my heartbreak entries, I promise.  Then I’ll do my best to be my headstrong, fun-loving, sane self again.
I had lunch with my good friend Rach today.  We work in the same company, but have, since June, been assigned to different locations.  We chat everyday, but that’s different.  You lose spontaneity when you chat, and miss lightbulb moments in the process.  I told her everything that transpired over the last few days like it’s my day in court.  She, as always, listened ever so carefully to every moment and feeling that I described.  It’s a feat because, as some of you know, I’m very thorough.

She told me that she had the same experience, and she survived by pulling herself out of the situation.  She stopped spending time with the person she felt affection for, when she found out that, at that time, the feeling could not be reciprocated. 

I took a moment to search within myself, to a place where every feeling is raw and true.  I realized that maybe, like Rach, I too cannot walk that grey line. 

Maybe, just maybe, I love this person so fiercely, that it’s impossible for us to be friends.  Maybe… I need to forget with as much conviction as I have loved…

After drinking on a Monday night with one of our foreign mentors, I didn’t really retire immediately.  Believe it or not, I still had the energy and coherence to chat until 3AM with friends.  During the long conversation with some of my new friends with whom I am surely to be fated as drinking buddies, it seemed like a good idea to form a group.  The Group’s requirement for members would be to ingest alcohol, and not be killjoys.  Anyway, it’s going to be fun.

We even came up with a poster.  Such commitment to the joys of partying. :D  I’m cyclops, and we derived it from an X-MEN poster, if anybody’s wondering.

Thanks to my brother Aki for the help.

Kakainin mo ang mga salita mo.  When you use this phrase in an argument, make sure that it’s not Jessica Zafra on the other end.  That’s because she will say, “sureness!”  and leave you dumbfounded.  Well, maybe not sureness, I’m channeling chuvaness, but you get the idea.  After losing a bet between friends, she’s going to eat paper, on video.  It’s supposed to come out in October.  I can’t wait hahaha.

I use this tactic to win arguments very often, while getting the best surprised looks from people.  When  someone tells me something like, “You’re such a bitch” or “Ang taray“  I say “Ah talaga..” or “Oh yes I am!”

But they know that it’s all in good fun… maybe…

After staying in Goodland, Buendia (a.k.a. Badlands), we finally moved back to the Net2 Building.  No more rickety walls, noisy neighbors and an elevator reminiscent of the movie Shake, Rattle and Roll 1: Refrigerator.  As you may have known from my previous posts, I volunteered to coordinate the move.  I went to Net2 at 8:30AM on a Saturday (Insert jawdrop here), and immediately saw my nook on the 10th floor.  More space!

After a couple of hours of tallying the boxes that came in, we went to Pier One for lunch.  I ordered a soda but ended up with a bottle of beer which I gladly didn’t complain to anyone about.  When we came back to work, I learned that tally and tipsy rhyme, but thats the only positive thing that I can say about these words when put together.

We eventually survived the moving process.  After about a couple of hours, I finally claimed my space at Global City.

I didn’t bring my laptop so I decided to stay and chat with some of my friends.   I wanted to confer with them because I found the root of my despair, beyond the heartbreak.  My self-esteem issues developed because I felt ugly - definitely the byproduct of the rejection.

But I don’t have that problem now.   Thank God!