10 Things I Know To Be True
I’ve been meaning to write something about how 2011 has been great to me. During the start of the year, I was kind of hesitant with everything which I think was brought about the prospect of me turning 25 this year. Nine months into the year, this is turning out to be the best I can remember in terms of realizations and discoveries about myself and how I deal with other people. Then I came across Carina’s post and I took it as a nudge from the universe telling me that I should get started on that blog entry.
1. It is a constant thing, rediscovering and reinventing yourself.
The things I thought to be true about myself when I was 18 were just mere shadows of what I am now. Looking back, I was so afraid of changes in myself that would, in my opinion, compromise who I really am. I strongly adhered to things that are truly me. I vowed to never outgrow my ‘jeans and shirt’ phase and never be caught dead wearing anything remotely girly in fashion. But hey, as I am typing this, my nails are pink and this huge elephant ring I wear on my right hand is staring at me. It’s a nice feeling to surprise yourself now and then. Also, I dig the look on the faces of the people who are shocked to learn something about me that they thought I didn’t have in me. Like when topics on getting married or having kids, I swear I saw jaws drop when they heard me and my intentions of having a family of my own in the near future. (Get over it guys. I always dreamed of carrying my kid to a PTA meeting, full sleeve tattoo and all. Also, to wear floral Doc Martens with my wedding dress).
2. Money matters.
Early this year, after staying in my job for a whole year (the longest ever in my life), I resigned. It’s not so much of a boss-employee thing, though sometimes there are days when you just want to get those goddamn internet cables and make a noose out of it. It was just that I felt like I had to do something drastic so I can say to myself that I bungee jumped off a imaginary cliff before I turned 25. I told myself that I don’t want to be a year older and be stuck in a job that didn’t feel good to me. So I quit and now I am trying out the concrete jungles of Makati.
What came with this new job was a new and stronger reserve to save money. Imagine the fear I felt when I realized that I’ve been working as a writer since I was 18 and I have nothing in me to serve as proof that I was actually earning something! More than for myself, I felt fear for my family. God forbid but what if something terrible happened and I don’t have a single penny in me? I mean, don’t mind me. I honestly think that I can get by on my own. I would probably walk away when hit by a car or something. What I can’t bear is the thought of not being able to do something for my family when they need it the most. Everyday I get to hear people rant on how they are saving for this and that. I feel a bit of envy creeping up on me because here I am, with a considerable amount on my bank account and I can’t even buy myself a new pair of shoes or a brand new book. (I always buy from BookSale).Last night while watching Project Runway rewind, this designer/contestant said something about his jacket that he needed to deconstruct just to make a new dress which was part of their challenge. He said that he didn’t care about it and he did what he have to do in order to win. One day he’ll be rich and he’ll buy millions of it to make up for that single jacket he had to ruin. That’s what I think, too. I may not be able to buy all that I want because I am saving for something more important. All the jackets in the world can wait.
3. A Thing That’s Worse Than A Heartbreak? Losing A Friend.
If you knew me in real life, you’d know what I’m talking about here. If you don’t, let’s just say that I experienced the worst break-up one could go through. And that person wasn’t even my boyfriend. She was a very good friend and I had to cut ties with her because it really wasn’t doing me any good to be still friends with her. It was very much like a bad relationship that went from worse to worst and I always found myself on the losing end. I always end up compromising a lot of things to that person’s advantage. I did what I could. I held on to our friendship as long as I can because friends are not exactly like things you can throw away and find a replacement instantaneously. It takes time and a special kind of trust to be the way I was with her with someone else. Admittedly, I am not a very easy person to be with and the fact that I lost one of the very few people who understood me was really the worst feeling imaginable. So we’re not friends anymore though lately, there have been attempts on her part to reconnect but I guess I am not ready for it. There was just too much hurtful words thrown both ways. I don’t think I can just look at her eye to eye and tell her that everything is okay because it is far from being okay. Now don’t think of me as a heartless monster. Forgiveness is somewhere in the future but now is not the time.
The best thing that I got out from this experience was that I’ve become so much appreciative of all the friends that I have right now. I also realized that you need not be with a friend 24/7 in order to qualify under the category ‘strong friendship.’ What’s best is that you get to spend time apart, get to do the things you both need to do with your lives and when you finally get to see each other, it feels like not a single day has passed. I love the set of friends I have right now: friends from the neighborhood I grew up in and friends I knew from college and a few from high school. I hope you don’t go through this whole breaking up thing with a very good friend. It’s horrible.
4. One can never have too many books.
Books. Where do I even start?
I love books. I love them so much that there are times when I’d go inside a bookstore and all the money that’s left in me is just enough for my fare back home. I love them so much that my Mother scolds me for having too many books scattered in my bed. I love them so much that I even told Yayo that when I die, I want him to take possession of all my books. (Yayo said yes though a few hours later, he told me that he didn’t want them anymore because he didn’t know what to do with all of it.) There are times when I just want to take a vacation and bring with me all the books in my shelf that I haven’t read yet. That is the ideal rest and relaxation to me. It’s true, I buy more books that I can read at an acceptable pace but I have no regrets. Nothing at all. I am just looking forward to that day when I can say hasta la vista to this day job I have, put my feet up and have all the time in the world to do nothing but read.
5. Take a breather from all the bullshit. Take the time to be alone.
One of the many quirks in me is that I get this sudden and urgent need to be alone. One day, I’d be surrounded by all of my friends, enjoying a night of beer and belly laughs. The next day, I wouldn’t want to even get out of bed and get out of the house to talk to anyone. (No, this is not called a hangover or PMS.)
It’s not bad to be alone. Sometimes you just need to get away from all the crowd and all the bullshit that comes with it. Don’t you just hate it when you spend all your energy the whole week trying to zone out from all the bad vibes surrounding you? There’s too many reasons (people included)to be in a real toxic mood and this is what I’ve been avoiding lately. There are people who feel compelled to cast you in all their unnecessary drama or those who do nothing to you personally but somehow you just feel this unexplainable irritability whenever they are around. I’d rather stay at home and read a book than to feign interest or pretend to listen to someone’s selfish banters. I can go on and on ala-Holden Caulfield about the kind of people who qualify as emotional vampires. People can be annoying. Period. Run.
I still owe Con Cabrera a Filipino translation of this one. Teehee. Listen to this and have great ideas on what to do when you just want to be alone.
6. Patience is a virtue never truer than when you’re older.
Patience is not very different from courage. It just takes longer.
I am not the world’s most patient person. If we agreed to meet up somewhere and I arrived at our meeting place first and you are not there within the next 15 minutes, I am most likely to send you a barrage of text messages asking your whereabouts repeatedly. If within 30 minutes and you are still nowhere in sight, visualize me doing breathing exercises to calm myself. By 45 minutes, you would have received from me text messages in this manner: “Tangina mo. Nasaan ka na?” What would happen within an hour? We would never get to that point because I would most probably have gone home.
I know that’s a shallow representation of patience but I just liked to give you an idea of how much I hate waiting. That said, I am now slowly teaching myself, with a turtle’s pace, to be more patient. The things we want more than anything else in this world don’t just fall into our laps, just like how that apple fell in Newton’s lap. And no, gravity don’t help. Our generation got used to having everything in an instant: fast food instead of home cooked meals, email instead of snail mail, etc. There are times where I wished I could just add water to things and immediately have them in front of me. Let it be clear first that by waiting, I didn’t mean that you do nothing else. Waiting suggests a kind of surrender and this is the reason why people hate waiting. Yes, you submit yourself to wait for that something but while doing so, do other things in your life. Be better at your job, establish better relationships with people around you, build a stronger faith. Anything that will make you forget about waiting and remind you that you don’t have to shut yourself from the world while patiently waiting. And waiting applies to an entire universe of things: love, a better self, a better job, a fitter body, the works. As for the thing I am waiting for the most, I remember someone told me, “Things are gonna be the best if you just wait.” So here I am, doing the things I need to do in life while waiting.
7. Believe in the kindness of strangers.
I have always loved those moments when people I don’t know display kindness not just to me but to other people. It’s a reminder that the earth is not a cold dead place. (Kudos to those who get the music reference. Hehe.)
One of the best things that happened to me this year was the Deftones concert and how it was made possible by probably the kindest stranger I’ve ever known. (insert link) I share that experience with my friend, Jeyem, and I know five or ten years from now when we’d find ourselves talking about that day, we would always go back to that guy who let us inside the VIP section.
One of the things that never fail to uplift my spirits are Facebook messages from people I don’t know in real life. Apparently, these people have read some of what I wrote and took the time to search for me in Facebook and tell me how they liked it or that they were glad to have read it in a certain time in their lives. In such circumstances, I am reminded that I am blessed to be given this kind of opportunity. What I do may be simple and not at all grand, but at least I get to touch other people’s lives.
It doesn’t have to be as grand as getting to see your music god face to face or anything life-changing . You would be surprised to know that even the smallest things can give us a smile. Awhile ago, I went out to buy lunch at KFC. I was told to wait extra five minutes for the fries. I looked for a place to sit and waited. I was pretty sure that it was past ten minutes already and my order hasn’t come still. Then this lady crew came with my order and I saw that there’s no gravy with it so I asked for one. She went to get some and took extra time to arrange the food inside the take-out plastic. Para hindi daw matapon yung gravy. And I was about to leave, she followed me up to the door and handed me tissue. I smiled as I pushed the door open.
8. Some people just thrive on being mean.
True Story:
Back when I was a high school junior, my Filipino teacher asked me to read a story in front of the class. (See, this is clearly an indicator of what her intentions were. Why would she need someone to read a story in front of a group of people perfectly capable of reading on their own? Let me tell you something about her. I never really liked this teacher. She was abrasive, always playing favorites and just wasn’t charming enough to serve as an inspiration to adolescents.)
So I stood up and went in front of the class and began reading. I was probably into the second paragraph when I realized what she was really up to. It turns out that the story was about a fat girl and how she was eating everything in sight and destroying every weighing scale she steps on. She did it on purpose, that horrible witch. For her it was a joke worthy of a classroom full of laughter. To me, it was humiliation at its purest form. I have always been that fat kid and I didn’t need a declaration in front of all these people. I wanted to keep on reading and show that I have not fallen into her trap but every sentence was too much, like being stripped naked in public. I dropped the book (I think) and rushed out of the room crying. If you asked me about this incident probably five years ago, I would probably tell you that it left me scarred for life. But now when I look back, what I just get out of that experience is that sometimes people can be so fucking mean. Yes, even a teacher.
9. Own whatever it is that you turned out to be.
Things don’t go according to plan most of the time. When I was 12, I really wanted to be a scientist and come up with the cure for AIDS. I was really fascinated with science back then but high school physics and chemistry changed my mind.
During that time too, I was beginning to be involved with the school paper because I didn’t want to be part of the school’s speech choir. It wasn’t that bad after all because we get to compete in different journalism contests which means that we get to go to other schools. By the time I was in high school, there wasn’t anything else appealing to me in the elective choices other than the journalism class so I continued with it. I mean, can you imagine me sitting through a two-hour cosmetology class? The whole two years of Journalism elective was great and I even get to be sent to Cebu for it and meet lots of new people. College was amazing writing-wise. Aside from becoming the EIC of the student publication, that was the time that my whole take on writing was changed. I owe it all to the people who surrounded me that time.
I wouldn’t say that I got into writing because of the lack of choices in front of me. I got into it because I embraced it and learned to love it. I really love writing. I know that I am not someone in the world of writing but I am happy with it. I may not have a Palanca to brag about or anything close to resembling a remarkable career in writing but I am satisfied with what I have.
“My life might be little and boring, but at least it’s mine – not some assembly-line, secondhand, hand-me-down life.”- Chuck Palahniuk, Rant
I mean, what is more awesome than getting to do what I want most in life? I get paid to write. I get to pursue this one thing that I really feel most comfortable in. That is more than reason enough to be thankful in life.
I may not have invented the cure for AIDS but hey, being writer isn’t that bad at all.
10. The future is scary exciting.
The future scares me to death. The prospect of being a failure years from now is more terrifying to me than any other horror movie. Who knows what will happen five or ten years from now? I could still be the same person I am right now or by some wicked twist of fate, someone better. Or I could be stuck with a crappy job (or worst, unemployed!), a non-existent bank account and depressingly alone.
What we don’t know scares us. Uncertainties and doubts eat us. We have this constant need to be assured and we don’t get it, we resort to fear. I am all guilty of that. But I intend to change that. We shouldn’t let fear eclipse the fact THAT THE FUTURE IS EXCITING. Aren’t you dying to know where you will be ten years from now? For all you know, what you are doing right now is nothing compared to your future self. Don’t get ahead of yourself and start thinking of the worst. I’d rather do something and confront my fear than to let it take over me and do nothing about it. It is not enough that you don’t like the rut that you are in right now. What matters is what you do to get out of the labyrinth.
“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (…) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.” – John Green, Looking for Alaska
The future is an entire universe of possibilities and what it turns out to be is up to us. The future is what we make it to be. I have no one else to rely on other than my fearless self.
