Whats Up with Life?

Nababaliw ka na talaga, ano? Nagkandarapa ka para sa isang lalaking na hanggang kaibigan lang ang turing sa iyo. Seryoso ka nga ba talaga sa kanya? Umaasa ka ba talaga na mapapaibig mo siya gaya ng pagmamahal mo sa kanya? Kahit nga mga kaibigan mo mismo naiilang sa thought eh. Just the thought of you having a 'crush'(oh what a lame word) on him is enough to be considered weird. What more kung maging kayo pa, diba? Sila na nga mismo ang nagsabi sa iyo na hindi talaga kayo bagay at katawa-tawa kayong tignan kung sakali ngang mangyari ang gusto mo. Ganun na ka-simple yaon.

Yung iba mo namang kaibigan, sabi nila, masbagay pa daw sila ng isa mo pang kaibigan. Nasaktan ka, ano? Alam kong nasaktan ka kahit kaunti. Alam mo kung bakit ka? Dahil totoo yaon. Kung ako nga ang tatanungin, oo nga, masbagay pa sila kaysa kung kayong dalawa. Hindi naman sa papatulan siya ng kaibigan mo o may gusto siya sa kaibigan mo. Sinasabi ko lang, masbagay sila, di ko sinasabi na dapat maging sila o magiging sila na. In denial ka lang talaga kaya hindi mo nakikita yaon - na hindi talaga kayo bagay. Deep down you know I'm right.

Deep down, I know you know that that he will never love you the way you love him. Get real. Pasalamat ka nandirito ako para ihampas ka sa mabagsik na katotohanan. At anong "you can't choose to love" na kalakohang iyan? Huwag mo siyang mahalin, ganoon lang yaon ka-simple. Mahirap ba iyon intindihin? Tignan mo nangyayari sayo ngayon. Padrama-drama ka nalang sa tabi tabi at nagmumuni kung posible ba talaga kayong dalawa. Kawawa ka naman kung sa tingin mong hindi mo siya kayang hindi mahalin.

The process is clearly simple. Just stop thinking about him and fantasizing over such impossibilities between you and him. Yeah, go on and cry if you must, this too shall pass. I honestly do not take you seriously. Your'e highly emotional. I'm sure you'll forget about him just like you've forgotten your past 'crushes' (oh that lame word again). Of course, I understand your need to make poems again about heartaches and of unrequitted love. You'll most probably compose songs and constantly play Chopin's pieces which are in the minor keys just to let all your misery out. In the end, he's just going to be another guy who's inspired your art which later on you'd regret doing for him. I just have to show you your consistent pattern. Reality check: He's just someone who happens to have activated your dopamine secretions in your brain. Don't worry though, you'll get over him soon, trust me.

Hey, don't get mad at me. I'm just showing you your reality. He will never love you. Ever since I could remember, you've always wished and oh-so-hoped that your 'likes' would somehow like you back. And did they? They didn't. Despite your futile attempts, they didn't. And what makes you think that this guy is different from the others? He'n no different. You think he's perfect because you only see what you want to see. Say that you see his imperfections too, but I bet that even his imperfections and flaws seem so perfect for you to balance it out or for you to accept it. Oh c'mon, in a few months time, he'll be a curse to you. Don't you see, everything is just in your mind! You can actualy control your emotions if you always think logically.

I understand your state. You're in a stage where all your hormones are up and brain secretions are highly active.. You'll get over him in about a year or so, which is not so bad, right?

My advice to you is you should just give the thought up and live your life, girl. Its actually a very beautiful one if you stop dwelling on loneliness without him.  Stop the drama and get real.

(upcoming hopefully: "Para Sa'yo, Trying-Hard Realist")

My gosh, I have too much conversations in my mind. I think I have split personality or something. I have to stop conversing with myself. Thinking is a dangerous pass time.

I've noticed that many of the blogs I've been reading lately possess the never out-dated theme of LOVE - usually the forsaken kind. Many of us, specially during this stage of our lives, are still searching for the 'right one' or if not the right one, at least someone fairly satisfactory, or for extrememly desperate & impatient ones, practically anyone, just to fill in the emptiness of being alone - of not having a better half. Pathetic as the later one may seem, it is undeniably in the nature of every being to complete oneself, as if two contrasting puzzle pieces find the need to perfectly fit each other to create that one magnificent image. The problem for many of us is on finding that one puzzle piece among the myriad of other pieces - some persisting to fit yet the ones we choose, resisting.

 A few weeks ago, I had an intimate discussion with Karol and Bart about love. For obvious reasons,the topic of love never fails to ignite entusiasm in us and I think it goes for everyone as well. One can never have too much of it. Karol gave a sermon(priest to be ba ito?:P) on waiting. He told us about an inspiring article he read on how waiting plays a vital role in not only finding the right one but generally with life. Just as he promised, he sent us the article.

Since a lot are still stuck in that 'he will never love me' stage and the "im hopeless in this life" outlook, I figured I should post this for those who are still waiting in agony. I hope it will give you the same consolation it has did me.

 

 

The Sacrament Of Waiting

by  Fr. James Donelan, S.J.

 

The English poet John Milton wrote that those who serve only also stand and wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait render the highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline, more self-control and emotional maturity, more unshakable faith in our cause, more unwavering hope in the future, more sustaining love in our hearts that all the greatest deeds of deering-do go by the name of action. Waiting is a mystery - a natural sacrament of life - there is a meaning hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery because there is so much waiting in our lives.

Everyday is filled with those little moments of waiting (testing our patience and our nerves, schooling us in self-control.) We wait for meals to be served, for a letter to arrive, for a friend to call or show up for a date. We wait in line at cinemas and theaters, concerts and circuses. Our airline terminals, railway stations and bus depots are great temples of waiting filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved one - or wait in sadness to say goodbye and give the last wave of hand.

We wait for springs to come - or autumn - for the rains to begin and stop. And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next stop. We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion. We wait for success and recognition. We wait to grow up - to reach the stage where we make our own decisions.

 We cannot remove this waiting from our lives. It is a part of the tapestry of living - the fabric in which the threads are woven to tell the story of our lives. Yet current philosophies would have us forget the need to wait "grab all the gusto you can get." So reads one of America's greatest beer ads - get it now! Instant pleasure, instant transcendence. Do not wait for anything. Life is short - eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you will die. And so they rationalize us into accepting unlicensed and irresponsible freedom - pre-marital sex and extra marital affairs - they warn against attachments and commitments - against expecting anything of anybody, or allowing them to expect anything of us - against dropping any anchors in the currents of our life that will cause us to hold and wait.

This may be the correct prescription for pleasure - but even that is fleeting and doubtful - what was it Shakespeare said about the mad pursuit of pleasure - "Past reason hunted, and once had, past reason hated." Not if we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh, soul as well as heart, we have to learn to wait. For if we never learn to wait, we will never learn to love someone other than ourselves.

For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a mystery, brushing by our face everyday like a stray wind of leaf falling from a tree. Anyone who has loved knows how much waiting goes into it - how much waiting is important for love to grow, to flourish through a lifetime.

Why is this? Why can we not have it right now what we so desperately want and need? Why must we wait - two years, three years - and seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree should take so long to bear fruit - the seed to flower - carbon to change to diamond.

There is no simple answer - no more than there is to life's other demands - having to say goodbye to someone you love because either you or they have made other commitments; or because they have to grow and find the meaning of their own lives - having yourself to leave home and loved ones to find your own path - good-byes, like waiting, are also sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth - the budding, the flowering of love needs patient waiting. We have to give each other a time to grow. There is no way we can make someone else truly love us or we them, except through time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting - of being present without asking demands and rewards. There is nothing harder to do than this. It truly tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But there is life in the gift we give.

So lovers wait for each other - until they can see things the same way - or let each other freely see things in quite different ways. There are times when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the balance of intimacy of the way they were. They have to wait - in silence - but still present to each other - until the pain subsides to an ache and then only a memory and the threads of the tapestry can be woven together again in a single love story.

What do we lose when we refuse to wait; when we try to find shortcuts through life - when we try to incubate love and rush blindly and foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough to assume? We lose the hope of truly loving or of being loved.

Think of all the great love stories of history and literature - isn't it of their very essence that they are filled with this strange but common mystery - that waiting is part of the substance - the basic fabric against which the story of that true love is written.

How can we ever find either life or true love if we are too impatient to wait for it?

After months and months of trying to come up with the perfect tune for my poem "Buntong Hininga", I finally finished it today! Wopee! I expanded on the original version to be able to compose a longer and more melodious song. The original version is in one of my previous posts. :)

 

Buntong Hininga

verse1

Puso ko'y tumatalon tuwing ika'y nakikita

Tuwing ikaw ay padaan

May nangyayari sa akin

na di maintindihan

 

nanginginig ang binti

namumula ang pisngi...

 

Refrain:

Tahimik na wika sana'y dinggin

pagbigyan sana ang aking hiling

Manatili ka sana wag kang umalis

O iiwanan mo nalang ba ako?

 

Chorus:

Buntong hininga na naman

at pagkasawi

ang aking nadarama na naman

sa paglisan mong muli

 

Verse2

Ngumiti ka sa akin

at ika'y nangamusta

sabi ko, "Mabuti naman"

Di mo lang alam

O di mo lang alam

 

Nanginginig ang binti

Namumula ang pisngi

*refrain - chorus

 

Sa iyong paglisan ako'y muling nasawi

Hanggang buntong nalang ba?

Buntong hininga na naman?

Buntong hininga nalang ba

At isang sekretong ngiti...

The most dreadful moment that could ever possibly happen to me is when I decide to surrender to hopelessness and detest all the idealisms left in me. The time I shall begin to renounce poetries, songs, writings and works of love or misery or passion for life is the day I will stop all expressions of art - the day wherein I would just be living only to exist. That is perhaps the day I will begin to feel numb. If only numbness occured by choice then I would definetely rather feel than be cold... but because this develops from the delusions of hope which time refuses to reward, I might unknowingly become like one of them soon...- those who have forgotten the zest for life.  I feel like I have started to venture into the convenience of the other side and it scares me a lot to find too much comfort in that practical place. The momentum of my life might stop and I will not be able to grow with too much easiness.

God, I hope I will not find too much comfort in anything.

If I cannot write a poem for you, my love

Forgive my barren mind and do not be offended

 

Forgive my distracted mind

All I could think about is being with you,

Holding your hand and watching you smile and laugh

Your hearty laugh keeps ringing like music in my ears

Imagining your voice washes away the cacophonies around

I long for your touch and presence

And as I yearn for that moment,

All I could do is smile in solitude,

Engrossing myself in dreams of you and me…

I shall never tire of feeling this glimpse of heaven

Though a fruitless pass time this may be

 

If I cannot write a poem for you, my love

Forgive me because I want it to be perfect

I have erased and crossed out verses and lines,

Ripped tons of pages from this notebook

All this in attempt to express my love for you

 

Forgive me if I choose not to compare you to a summer’s day

Or that to a blooming flower where the honeybee sucks

I cannot write about the engulfing stars that shimmer in the night sky

Nor can I write about the shining crescent moon floating among it

No, I could not compare you to it

It would be too banal and trite

It would be foolish of me to write another poem

Of starry nights and inconstant moons

And of summer and fragrant flowers

They have been too common even long before Shakespeare’s sonnets

And you, my love, are not common at all

Nor is my love for you

 

If I cannot write a poem for you, my love

Forgive me if no words are coming out of my head

There is nothing that I could compare you with

For your rarity and exquisiteness is unrivaled

That your name should become a new word

To define what you are to me

 

_____ (his name, i prefer to keep anonymous for obvious reasons. :P)