A beautiful blur

Sometimes life goes by deliciously fast

Life went by rather quickly in 2014. I haven't had time to sit down and take stock of every thing that's taken place. Life swept me off my feet so grandly, and if I am never swept away by any kind of love affair in my lifetime, I will look upon 2014 and still feel that life has given me enough.

things falling apart

Image from here.

Things are falling apart in our house.
There is the light in the living room with the faulty starter,
the light in my bedroom which pretends to be working until I replace the glass lid and then it doesn't,
the fake old wood varnish that is chipping away from my cabinets,
the creaky front door that sags and scratches the floor when you close it,
the invisible leak that jacks up our water bill,
the ratty couches with their springs exposed,
the wooden floorboards that have become uneven over time.
This is not really my house, I just live here.
But there is the feeling that I am supposed to be doing something more than taking note
of all the things that are getting run down
because these things are happening on my watch, and my parents
are now just watching me
grow into the supposed adult shell that I have developed.
But I haven't.

1:33 AM March 5 2013

what do you sacrifice for your dream?

Image from here.

I haven't written so much this summer, which is a bit ironic, because I thought I would be writing up a storm. Well, I am, but not the kind of writing that I thought I would be doing. I've been working. A lot. Just as summer began, I literally found myself swept up by a work opportunity, and so my days went there --- I was (still am) being paid to write. Nothing literary: releases, newsy types of articles, manifestos and the like. I don't like the writing part of it much, because it feels too technical and thankless at times. But it is for a cause I believe in, and it pays well (particularly when combined with another writing job that I have), and I suppose this is why I am sticking to it and have committed myself to it for the time being.

It is by no means easy, and there are times in my day when I have to ask myself why I am doing this. The answer is really quite quick to come: I am doing it for the money. It came as a surprise to me, especially after the decade that I had, how I could find myself earning as much money as this -- a lawyer's salary almost, even if I am not a lawyer. On the one hand, it feels good, knowing that I can provide for myself well enough by my writing skills alone. I know that I am committed to doing this (and to not writing literary stuff for the time being) because I want to save up enough to fund my dream of studying and living abroad.

This new mentality comes as a surprise to me because when I started working, there were so many things that I wasn't willing to put up with. But maybe that was because I found advertising to be so thankless. Or maybe, I really was just too idealistic going in. I'd like to think that I was able to draw the line somewhere, and move in a progressive way, learning from one job to the next, finding myself better and in a better place to work too somehow. Now, there are still parts of the job that I find difficult to deal with, but I find myself more pliable to the things that are thrown my way. I see myself being able to stick to it for longer, far longer than I ever have before.

So for now, I am sacrificing my time, doing the work because I know that it will help provide for the dream that I hope to achieve. It feels almost grown up, to be honest, to give up something of my self for a bigger goal. I haven't felt very grownup in a long time, but I do right now.

Parents

Photo from here.

So my parents are at a funeral tonight. It's their 3rd one in the last 5 days. Thankfully (not for the ones who've lost their loved ones, of course -- may they rest in peace) tonight's wake is for someone who is older than them (one of their friend's dad I think); but the other 2 were relatively contemporaries both in age and and lifestyle. Having my parents go off to these funerals feels terrifying and unsettling for me. While it is a fact of life that people die and that more often than not, our parents die before us, I question whether I am ready to survive a life without them. Most days, I think I am not. I question whether they have taught me (or whether I have learned) enough life skills to live on, and I also question if they feel like they know me well enough to make a pronouncement on whether or not I have made them proud as a person.

A lot of the time, during the most random things, I find myself looking at them and thinking about things I will miss about them when they are gone. Like how my mom falls asleep every time without fail when praying the rosary, even if she is the one leading it. Like how my dad's shirt hangs over his belly when he's sleeping, exposing his midriff to the cool air of the electric fan. Like how my dad bangs on my door in the morning to let me know that we are eating breakfast.  Like how when I look at my mom, even when she is being obstinately difficult and irrational, I see a sense of survival that I find myself depending on and that I am not sure I have. Like how when I turn on the radio in search of happy sunday music (mostly standards), I often see my dad's rounded figure tapping his fingers out on the table because he loves those too.

I am thirty now. It is such a strange and scary place. I thought I would know more, be more -- but I'm not sure I do, I definitely know that I'm not (as I imagined I would be at this age). What I can pride myself on though is that I am trying. Always trying. With weekend plans, with my daily life, with my plans for the future.   But what I am sure of is that I am thirty, I am not quite ready to be without parents yet. Not to move out, not to get married, and certainly not to fend for myself in the case of untimely demise (DEAR GOD NO). Who knew that I would be feeling this way at thirty? I know sometime in the future I must be ready, or at the very least, willing to live in a world where I have the most grownup opinion that I can count on.  But not yet, God.  Not yet.

On turning 30

Image from here.

I turned 30 a few days ago, and it went very differently than I thought it would. For the longest time, I have been dreading turning 30 because of recent developments (or non-developments) in my life that have set me back and changed my views of the world from how I perceived it a few years ago. For one, nearly my entire twenties was spent working in attempts to survive law school. All of this work was geared towards becoming a lawyer at the end of all that work and hopefully settling into a financially stable and exhausting (though rewarding) work life. When I turned 29 last year, I got the most devastating (I'm still recovering from its trauma) news of my life learning that I had failed the bar. The knowledge that I could fail something I had put so much into really crippled me, and I cut off many friends and hid from the world for a year trying to recover from the news. I couldn't make myself take the exam again and I had to really ask myself if I was willing to spend another year of my life working towards something that felt so futile and so thankless.

After a year of being inactive, of trying to grapple with who I am as a person and with what strengths I do have, I decided to forego taking the bar (indefinitely), choosing instead to work towards rediscovering my passions and capabilities. I am entrenched in the creative writing world now and on most days, it feels like this is (as it always has been) a much more comfortable fit for me than law ever was. Still, so much of my life feels like a question. I wonder always if not taking the bar is the correct step, if I will regret that I put it off for so long, or even if I could make as much as I did had I chosen to focus on becoming a lawyer and not on rediscovering creative writing.

I had thought that turning 30 would give me this clarity that would make me see things from an entirely different perspective, but the day crept in quietly, and without much fanfare. There were no glaring epiphanies or sudden directions or life paths discovered, only an awareness that I had been around for 30 decades now, and that I had better learn to enjoy the small moments as much as I look forward to the bigger ones. Life is made so much of the smaller moments, and I suppose these are the things you remember when you look back on your life later on.

If this year has taught me anything, it would be that life too is so much about having the courage to take chances. I had thrown myself into the ringer by accepting a project that allowed me to travel to 5 different cities in less than 10 days so close to all my deadlines, leaving little time for me to work on them. But I did it anyway and came out (for the most part unscathed).  So much of my life and my decisions are based on the prudent options, always foregoing adventure for what is expected, what is practical. This time, I just really wanted to do it without questioning if I could or couldn't.

I took this lesson and applied it to my birthday, and how I wanted to celebrate my life from hereon. It was an exercise in deciding how I wanted to do things, and then finding a way to do them anyway. I heralded its arrival with a few friends who stayed with me till midnight, over tapas and sangrias. I spent time with my family, and then gave myself the chance to relax and take it all in on a weekend jaunt to Baguio, one of my favorite places to visit. As I sit here now, by the balcony, enjoying the cool air while writing off the delicious food I had from the buffet, I feel quite pleased at the idea of wanting something and then making it happen.

Hopefully this is the start of a more conscious, more deliberate life, focused on the little things as well as on the big things. I want to stop fearing things and do more of them. Off the top of my head, I want to dare to dream about standing on a surfboard, riding a bike, go to Europe, kiss someone, and maybe even fall in love. I want to try new food, meet new people, find something that I am absolutely passionate about, and reclaim my fitness. I want to really feel alive, finally.

Love

Image from here.

Valentine's Day was always a sour point with me, especially when I was in college and even when I was in law school; there is always this pressure that one feels whenever they are with their contemporaries (or is it just me?). When you are around people the same age as you, and who are in more or less the same circumstances, you are always made to wonder what is so wrong about you that you couldn't find someone to fall for you in that swooning, drooling way. You are made to see people in the throes of romance, holding hands in the halls, dressed up for special somewheres and you ask yourself what the hell is wrong with you. All my years in school have more or less gone that way, so much so that I have come to hate Valentine's Day and all the judgment (self-inflicted and otherwise) that came with it.

But I think so much of the (imagined) trauma comes from heightened expectations. Whether or not you are in a relationship, all of a sudden there is this urgent need to label and assess your romantic inclinations or your potential to be the recipient of such. (It amuses me that I now sound like a professor of sorts -- well, I have been analyzing my non-existent love life long enough to be an expert!) And when your current state falls short of romantic norms (and it will, because of said heightened expectations) you belittle the love that you do have in your life -- be it from family, friends, or (if you are so lucky) paramours.

I have learned that the best way to survive this holiday is to expect little, but to love more. Love yourself. Love your life. Love all the things that make you smile about your day. Love the friends you do have, love the time you have to yourself, love the space in your heart that's still open and hoping for romantic love.

This will be my last Valentine's day as a twenty-something, and I will be celebrating it alone as I always have. I am not (no longer) bitter about not having found love yet; and I have stopped blaming myself for all my perceived faults and shortcomings. For now, I am secure in the idea that I spend my days trying to be the kind of person that I want to become -- Hopeful. Always striving for the future -- for something better. Striving but at the same time grateful enough to celebrate what I do have now. I have family, who, though they show it in the strangest of ways, love me and care for my welfare. I have friends who celebrate who I am now, but who also believe in who I can become. I have myself, and (finally) the awareness that I have today to be alive and to make what I can of it. So while I dream of romantic love, I will not be bitter if it doesn't come. Every day, alone or with someone, is a gift.

Image from here.

 
P.S. 
Spent the earlier part of the day watching The English Patient for my Brit-Lit class (it was so good!), the middle part of the day reading and writing and letting people I love know that I love them, and then spending tonight with high school girlfriends for our annual Valentine's Day dinner (an event which we have been doing since we were 13 year old freshmen!) My life is full, and for that, I feel blessed. Hope you realize how full of love your life is too!

Learnings

Some things you just can't learn from books. Image from here.

The past week was so interesting to me, mostly because it was an exercise in deviation. From routine, that is. For the past few months, I have really been struggling to put myself on a schedule, to achieve certain checklists every day, in the hopes of being more productive and feeling more fulfilled with how I spent my time. What was strange to me was that even when I did manage to accomplish many of the things on my list (work, research, private writing etc.), I didn't really feel more fulfilled or motivated afterwards. I wonder if it was because of the quality of goals that I accomplished, or because of the direction that I was heading towards. Last week was an interesting experiment in that I threw out my to-do lists and decided to do things on the fly. It was one of the most fulfilling weeks I've had this year (or maybe in the last 2-3 years).