I have so much feelings right now. (The Fault in our Stars)

Coca-Cola (The Fault in our Stars).

The only good thing about getting chicken pox is having the time to procrastinate school-work and getting my thoughts reborn.  And so I start with this rather masochistic quote; “Pain demands to be felt”. I mean, I don’t have any bragging rights about reading the book because apparently, I haven’t. But upon hearing this, I knew from that moment on, I was my feelings.

The thing about watching the movie is getting confused between my salty-tears and the acidic sweetness of this bottle of coke. I know I’m not allowed to drink it because of my gastric problems, but for some reason, I still do. And I am well aware that after watching the movie, I’d be caught up in the waterfall of my own emotions. But I am mostly mindful about the needle-pricking pain in my upper abdomen after drinking half of this bottle.

I now understand the irrationality of this pain. It demands to be felt because it doesn’t want to be forgotten. That is why people do it because with every pain comes the memory we have to a person. And that not having to feel this pain again means forgetting him or her. Maybe we’re all connected to it not because we’re masochists but because of our inability to let go. I guess attachment is just another lesson to live by between about what was and what is.

But then again, pain takes time to heal but while on the process, we can always share the story with someone special. Like what’s printed on this little red bottle, “Share a Coke with Jhon”. Whoever that is, Thanks for sharing calories, metaphors, and a little bit of my feelings.

P.S. I will the read the book someday. I’m just saving up money to buy a cart-full of tissue rolls.

Thoughts for my Abnormal Psychology class

Since I can’t attend school for a week or two (health reasons), might as well make my thoughts productive.

Make up session to my followers #1

Let me start catching up with the most clichéd number on my blog, “18”.  Here in the Philippines, celebrating your 18^th birthday is a turning point for a girl’s life. Kind of like the equivalent of sweet-sixteen for the westerners. Traditionally, it has to be one of the most important events on your post-puberty days since you will finally cross-over to the early stage of womanhood.  Most Filipinas plan this “big” event their whole lives — 18 roses, candles, treasures and all of those fancy girly stuffs. In my case, I chose the event less partied by. But life has more experience in being a party-planner than I am.

Twist of fate (360 deg)

Since childhood, my parents and I have been talking about my “debut” but not in a festive way. We have come up to a decision that the celebration will only be of my closest friends (birthday meal). We’ll just save up the money to be spent on my college tuition, and hopefully, as my parents promised, another trip to somewhere around Southeast Asia (*cross-fingers). I didn’t have any issues with this, in fact I agreed wholeheartedly since it’s more economical. And personally, I’d rather spend my birthdays with a few (worthy) people.

Everything was going as planned, but not until my department chose me as their representative for my college’s annual pageant. And the unforgiving magic of it all, it happened on my birth date.

It was a tough time since I have to train, attend school, practice, and study for finals all at once (talk about smooth-sailing to womanhood). Most of the things I felt and thought about were pressure, sweat and tears. Add to it are the harsh (bullying) comments from my opponents. Yep, everything was perfect… perfectly painful.

None of it resembled what I envisioned it to be, “in peace and solitude”. Nobody understood what I was going through and how I value my 18^th birthday as something simple and numerically symbolic. Unfortunately, the anxiety of the pageant and my not-so-private-birthday made me so “will-broken”.

Soppiness overload (Let them know the ugly truth)

I couldn’t function anymore so I wrote something for everyone to read on my Facebook.

Minutes before 12 AM of February 15^th…

“It pains me that I have to spend my 18th birthday on a stage competing with everyone else. I feel sorry for myself because I have to wear shoes that barely fit me and describe who I really am inside. If I had it my way I would’ve been celebrating it in peace and solitude. I would’ve worn my usual sneakers, order myself a cup of coffee, and walk alone. Just me and my thoughts — my own personal time as I enter young adulthood. Instead, I have to do and be the otherwise.

But I guess seeing my family and closest friends from the stage makes all the sacrifices seem little, makes all the pain in my feet indifferent. All the tears and sweat I shed will be worth it. They will help me fly… from a young lady to a young adult.”

Backstage blues

During hair and make-up, one of my handlers asked me “Are you on menstruation?”. It was an awkward but true-to-emotions question. Not that I was irritated, it was more of the fact that I didn’t have the energy and excitement. Everybody expected me to have the “I’m in it to win it” disposition, but I was as sloppy and flabby as my legs are that day. (But no, the tides were rather blue than red)

How could I be happy when I’m at the backstage with other girls and boys getting dressed up with fancy (sexy) clothing, disco-ball sized bling-bling and accessories, and make up as thick as the flour being used at the bakery?

I’m in a room full of people who seem to be light-years away from who they were. All I could do was plead to my handlers to keep things simple — P-L-E-A-S-E- NO bling-blings, godzilla like earrings, cleavage, feathery stuffs, and bakery-finished make up. (I just couldn’t see the beauty in this? Am I normal?)

Everything and everyone was just all too much for me to handle. So there where my backstage team prepared and sat, I started to breakdown (Bye make-up, Hello Halloween!).

But our organizer approached and started singing a Happy Birthday Song until it sounded like a choir (probably some of them wishing me well… not to win). I appreciate the thought but I think I cried even harder after they were finished (lol). I know that some of them were saying that I did it all to get attention, but hell no.

I was unhappy that I have to celebrate my most awaited day in front of a crowd who’s going to critic every move I make. I was miserable enough that I wasn’t alone with my close friends and family who appreciates me minus the make-up and dangling earrings.

I just wanted a way out of everything like a runaway bride pageant version (of course with my best friend as an accomplice). But I can’t, in the name of my proud parents and loving underrated department.

Like a human sacrifice ready to jump off the cliff in the name of the gods, I wiped my tears on my make-up smudged mushy face. I took an awfully deep breath and told myself, let’s just do this shit and it will be over soon…

(Did I win? I love you guys so yep, to be continued…might as well add photos too)

P.S. I’m not against beauty pageants, I still have high respects on beauty queens. I just don’t think I’m psychologically and physically fit for it. In short, we’re not compatible. It’s not for me.

Just another petty explanation

“But a year ago, I deleted it. Instead of running away from my problems, I ran away from myself.”

Looks like my WordPress page is suffering the same fate as my Facebook page. One minute I’m all in, the other I’m running away. I admit, I have commitment issues. It’s been months since my last substantial and heartfelt post. And to be honest I’m still struggling on what to write, no, let’s change that, I’m struggling to find that “desire” to write. Or maybe I’m too busy on being a girlfriend/obedient daughter/studious undead college student/ vulnerable 18 year-old human being with humanly emotions.

I know all too well that I owe an explanation or a floodgate of posts to the people who are following me, but I promise I tried. Whenever, words float around my head and start rearranging themselves into thoughts, I tried so hard to listen to them, but I guess I tried harder to ignore my own voice.

Of course, I’ve rationalized as soon as I realize I’m running away from myself.

“I left writing because I thought I needed to shut up for some time. Like a sponge, I decided that I’d have to absorb things for a little while. And when I already have or learned enough that’s the time that I’m gonna squeeze every word out. I would pour them thoughts to blank sheets of paper. And just like the rain, they’d be setting me free.”

It’s only now that I realize that these statements are just cover ups to the truth — that I’m afraid to understand myself. I’m terrified to relive the feelings that I don’t want anywhere near me. I’m scared that the people who read my blog will eventually realize what a bowl of sadness I am. Or maybe I should be something more important than crying my heart out on a piece of paper.

So I push them away, until they pile up on my head, and on days like this, I let go.

I don’t know if I can be as active as I was before again, but I will write about a few highlights of the previous months.

For the mean time I leave you with this.

May 07 2014 (3:15 AM) I decided that me and writing are like Oreos — one does not simply separate the cream from the cookie.

It’s the rainy days.

I think that some of the people in my life are a lot like rain. When the weather is good, I selflessly push them away. I never really understand their worth until the unforgiving summer comes. And  the heat of everything had dried me out of nothing. But it’s when the drought finally had me craving for a drop of their presence —that’s when I realize I need them.

Paper poems for my family

This is a poem that I wrote for my relatives who are selflessly working abroad. Still, it served as an e-card sent last Christmas.

Truly, their sacrifices in giving their family a good life will always be treasured. It’s not easy being away but they pull through for the love of their family.

Friendship on a floating bookstore

After the long silence, I didn’t really know where to begin. I hope this is a good start. I wrote this poem which served as a Christmas (2013) e-card for the crew of Logos Hope. This is for Ate Juline, Kuya Roger and Silas — three heartfelt people whom we met in the enchanting night of June 9th, 2013.

They were memorable in every way. I thank them for sharing such precious moments with us. May they change more lives just like the way they changed ours, forever.

(Friendship Doodle is not mine, all credits go to the owner)

To Gab, who’s going to fly tomorrow.

Just have to let them words go…

What is (not) Young Love?

Young love, I never saw it coming until that random bus ride back from my mother’s hometown.

I thought it only exists in Nicholas Sparks’s novels. And that they become movies instead of my own reality.  I thought it’s only shared between Romeo and Juliet or can only be read between the lines of the Sweet Flicks on Star Movies. I guess now it’s not just a story that I get to hear among my friends or a love song played on the radio. It’s not a poem that I wrote about my past and my exes. It’s not just a breakfast at Mcdonald’s. And it’s most definitely not the same as fantasizing One Direction from t-shirts, posters, and albums.

Young love wakes me up stronger than morning coffee.  It gave me a reason to have a relationship with Wifi and my phone. It uses adorable stickers on Facebook Messenger. It smiles and settles on the crappy, pixelated, and choppy Skype video calls. It puts me to sleep, sometimes it doesn’t. It sends messages and songs between the category of sweet and corny. And it always fails in attempting to wake me up at 3 in the morning.

It’s on the world clock that I get to look at like a manic student waiting for dismissal. It patiently waits for me to get my homework done and gives motivation on Statistics exams.

It’s on the world map posted against the bedroom wall, where I trace the distance from where he’s at to my heart.

It makes plans when the gap finally closes in from computer screens to meeting each other eye to eye.

And it writes our love story in the chapters of 2014 and hopefully to forever. So it may not only stay as young and as in love as we are, but in time, grow as we would have.

I fell in love with… caramel bars

Love is like eating a caramel bar. You walk-away promising yourself that one is enough, that you had enough. But it doesn’t matter, because the next thing you know, you’re halfway towards it. You long for him, you miss him. Until one becomes two, three, to empty. He is empty. And you look around the corners of this brown box, convincing yourself that there’s gotta be more, there’s gotta be something left of him. It’s then you realize that all that you are is just a sugar rush. That love is not here to stay because there were never lows, but only highs. The feeling of being high on his sweetness. But its just temporary, you are temporary.

My box of happiness.

I guess I understand now that I am in love with Caramel Bars. Because underneath its rough edges and “peanutty” textured layer is a place for a familiar softness. A place that will always have a home in my heart. And everything else — the warmth, sweetness, and perfection — makes me want to need it, forever. I know now that he is my caramel bar, and I love him.