Just a thought January 2014.

Love is more than just boxes of chocolates & bouquets of flowers & jewelries and diamond, presents. It is about you thinking you’re giving nothing but to them it’s everything. Love overlooks money & fails to look at all the material things. It is more than just saying sorry and forgiving.
Love is about learning from your mistakes & trying not to make the same ones over and over. Love is about disregarding all the differences behind, and not bringing them up again. Love does not hold a grudge, because love, you forget all that painful things & move on to the better things.
Love is more than just holding hands when things are good, but holding them tighter when things are bad. Love is more than just saying ‘I love you’ during the good times and happy times, but being able to say the same phrase, with the same meaning during angry times, and in times of distress.
Love is more than just about your partner, but it is more about you and about God. Like they say, if you haven’t found God, you haven’t found love.

Wishing for rock bottom.

Past few weeks has been very tough for me and I've never felt this much of a hard hitting, ever. I am usually a happy person. But lately, all I have within me is guilt, anger and resentment towards this whole ordeal. I am not usually like this. I am not usually the type to lament over the things brought upon me because I have always believed in myself in overcoming these shortcomings. I usually rise up to the occasion. But what is happening to me? I want to understand.
Unfortunately, this time, I am tired. Mentally and physically. I just need one, just one motivation to get me through this slump. It has been so difficult for me to find the focus and determination I used to have. I feel as if each and everyday, I am starting to doubt myself and I even question my capability of handling this whole thing. I do not know if I am able to handle the stress and the pressure I’ve brought upon myself. I do not know whether to stop, think and reevaluate the things I want out of my life. All I know is something needs to be done, and it needs to be accomplished as soon as possible.
Everyday is a drag. Everyday I feel such culpability that I am not exceeding other’s expectations. Let alone, my own expectations. Everyday, it’s been a waste. I feel as if I have the potential to become so much more, to accomplish so much more, yet, my mind and my body is not responding to it. My heart doesn’t know it’s place. I am walking, lost. And I know it’s normal to feel like this every once in a while. I mean, who doesn’t question themselves sometimes, right? Progress over perfection.
Clearly, I am heading towards a downward spiral and I just wish I can hit rock bottom already. ‘Cause the best thing about hitting rock bottom is I have nowhere to go but up. I have nothing to lose. I have nobody but myself. ‘Cause even I said it before and I’ll constantly remind myself every single time… What’s wrong with falling down? When I know I can definitely stand up again. I have to be strong for the everyone else and most importantly for myself.

Note to self.

I think one of the most important aspects about relationships is fully understanding that it is not meant to be perfect. Relationships are difficult, complex and they require a lot of hard work and determination. Just like people. I think that each and everyone, regardless how easy-going a person is naturally, could be at one point or another difficult to deal with. Humans are not invulnerable to stress, to anxiety and the pressures of life. We’re perfectly imperfect, just as it reflects the relationships we have with others. Oftentimes, as people entertain the idea of relationships, they envision a place where they ought to gain something. People often want to find someone that can make them happy. And when that happiness is falling out of place, we find a million and one reasons to let go. Relationships are tedious and requires lots and lots of perseverance. But just like anything and everything that’s worth it, nothing will ever come easy.

Point in our lives.

At one point, we all thought we were always going to be alone. That no man will ever fill that void in our hearts we’re longing for would ever be found, or better yet, find us. The time we believed that our hands are meant to touch and feel no other man’s warmth, no other man’s pair to hold, to lock with and intertwine.
That point in time, that moment, we suddenly feel and realize the left side of the bed seem pretty damn cold and empty, no second tooth brush in the bathroom and blue razors to match our pink ones. No dirty socks to fight over, no toilet seat to start an argument, but yet no chest to lay our head to hear those deep breaths, inhale, exhale, as he slowly falls asleep.
But even at that point in time, we’re perfectly fine by ourselves. We’re at the point where we accepted that being alone is quite satisfying, more time for me, myself & I, without ever feeling lonely.
And at one point, we all thought he was the one. That one man to call your husband and a man who will call you his wife, eventually. A point where you both paint a perfect picture of a wonderful and happy relationship years ahead. A house with a colorful garden, two children, maybe three, a swing set and a swimming pool.
That point in time there was no one else but you & him, him & you, and there was no other but countless dreams, goals and plans. The point where nothing he can ever say or do, will make you think twice about how you feel.
Love is a beautiful thing, you both believe and at this point, he was the only man you hold, you lock lips with, you make love with. The time he was the other, in significant other & that, that’s when you realize he’s the one making the left side of the bed warmer and warmer, each and every day and night, as you listen to his heart beat, that’s beating your name, as you both slowly fall asleep breathing each other’s love.
But at one point, things simply change. You are still you and he is still he, but slowly drifting from that ‘you & me’. At one point, feelings simply go. There’s never any guarantee that tomorrow, you will wake up, and wake up next to him.
At one point, we wake up to a whole another person who is doubting himself, doubting you & worse, doubting love. We wake up one morning to someone who is falling out & falling apart. At one point, we wake up to somebody who wants to take a step back, a step further and further from the woman he claimed he loved. And at this point? We lose everything. We lose our trust in love. We lose our trust in relationships. We lose our trust in people.
But yet at one point, we rise above it all, move on and simply, let go. Hoping that at one point, well find that certain ‘other’ that won’t ever leave us, no matter where we are at any point in our lives. And you know what? I promise you, we will.

Beautiful Mess

I will never be that woman that will ever have flawless straight hair, or will I ever have those gorgeous perfect curls. I always have that whole messy, wind-blown hair that I style for like 5 minutes. I will never be that woman that can ever wear anything stylish or designer or elegant ‘cause I’m too clumsy for that. It’s almost always certain I will ruin the fabric by spilling something on it. I am a klutz. It’s almost too embarrassing to admit.
I’m very disorganized, sometimes. Okay, most of the time. I’ve never succeeded in using and maintaining a planner, or my white board in the kitchen, or my corkbord next to my desk. I always buy them and they last for about two months. Yet, organizing is one of my main jobs, and I am a rock star at it.
I’m that one woman you see outside of Safeway, carrying groceries on both hands with her cellphone ringing, trying to find it while at the same time, trying to fish for her keys, but end up having no luck in doing so. In panic, she drops cans of Campbell chicken noodle soup & she’s now picking them up in the parking lot, while the cans are rolling & rolling away… Yes, that’s me. That woman.
My life is not always together as much as I want it to be. I breakdown sometimes. I often feel like a loser & I believe that God is playing tricks on me, picking on me every now & then. Despite this, I know that this is the real me. This is just who I am. Slowly, I am starting to realize that I’m just really that simple, ditsy, sports-addicted, tomboy-woman that has a complex personality & a bit of irony in her.
I’m a mess, but I know I’m a beautiful one.

Well, it doesn't burn anymore.

We stumble across about a million things in our every day lives that make us think, make us remember, make us become aware about certain situations or realization. Some of these things maybe funny to us when we remember them, some can remind us of painful memories, some… just make us realize how we have left those things behind us, how much we have grown, how much progress we have made.
Recently, I have stumbled across this certain quote from Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism. (Side note: I am not Buddhist, although I do some reading about other religion ‘cause it fascinates me. And though I was born a Catholic and practice it, the more and more I learn about other religions, the more and more similarities I find within each of them. It’s very interesting!)
The quote said, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned.”
It made me think about the people who angered me, who hurt me, who made my life a living misery in the past. Then, as I went through the short list that I have, I can only remember their names and faces. I no longer remember the pain they have inflicted.
I used to be an angry person. I used to hate each and every single person who did me wrong. I used to make certain feelings, certain judgement, certain actions - unwelcome. I hated love. I loved to hate. I couldn’t forgive, I chose not to forget. In my mind, reconciliation does not exist. I believed one day, I will get them back. One day, I will make them feel the excruciating pain they have once brought upon me. I knew time will come, I will get my revenge.
My heart turned into an ice cold piece of shit organ. My heart was filled with anger, anger towards these horrid people, and most significantly, anger towards myself. And that, I believe, is the worse kind of anger. Nobody said sorry, nobody said anything. I didn’t. They didn’t.
Years later, that’s not the case. I grew up and I grew out of it. No longer do I feel hatred in my heart. I may not know if they regretted what they have done, but either way, I have found it in my heart to forgive. I found it in my heart to forget. My heart became so much easier to carry, so much lighter from the baggage I used to carry.
I have learned to forgive. I have learned to let go of the past, surrender the painful grudges that once taken over me. I have learned to let go! And most of all, I have learned not to grasp on hot coals & throw it back to them. Cause in return, my hands, well, it doesn’t burn anymore.

Just a thought December 2013.

Message Sent". Now, you wait patiently. You stop and think and then think yet again. Typed up, is a message that holds the entirety of how you feel. And your emotion, your damn feeling is summed up into a 3-part text message that is currently in the process of being delivered to that one person you’re dying, wanting to let your feelings be known to. And you stop breathing for a moment. Five seconds has passed and deeply, you exhale. You inhale. You exhale again. You find yourself brushing your hair lightly with the tip of your fingers and for another 3 seconds, you find yourself staring blankly on the screen. You bite your nail just a little bit and you tell yourself to stop. You wait patiently.
“Message Sent”. You think again. And now, the 32 second mark hits, your heart starts beating faster. And again, faster after another 2 seconds. And again, faster, after the fourth second. “He’s probably reading it now.” Or not. You stop and think that maybe, he left his phone somewhere he could not get to it right away. Or, he’s taking a nap. Or it fell inside the toilet bowl, damaged and forever the message you have sent is gone. Or maybe, just maybe, just as how you felt, his heart started racing, his chest started pounding, his hands started sweating from the moment he read your message. Or also, maybe, he thought it was ridiculous. Or that you are pathetic. And he doesn’t care. Or he thinks it’s so funny he’ll even screen shot it and send it to his friends just to brag about the fact that he makes you feel the way you do. Or not.
"Message Sent". It’s been a full minute and you almost wanna regret sending it. You play out a million different scenarios of what could have happened and the cause and effect of what you just did. So many different things are going on your mind. Yet, you still wait, less and less patient every single second the clock ticks. You stare at your screen once again. It kills you to wait, but you do. You always do. You’re so anxious. You’re so excited. You’re almost too scared. You’re kinda numb. You’re just… fuuu.
Then, another minute later, your phone vibrates. “Message Received”.
Your heart stops.

Perfectly imperfect.

And here you are, sipping the last of your grande white mocha as you fish for your car keys, reading the last paragraph of today’s headline, and the same second you look up, getting ready to leave, you see her walking through the Starbucks door as she checks her phone for the time. Your heart suddenly falls into a quick stop. Well, something like it. You have never seen anything so beautiful. You’ve never seen anyone look so angelic. Like, as if her beauty runs all throughout her body and radiates into a bright white light that is shining into and out of her very soul. And at that moment, you felt as if you’d die if you can’t know her first name. As if it would kill you not to have her in your life.
And here you are, fast forward to three months later. The past three months might have been the best three months of your twenty plus years of existence. Not only do you know her name, but you now also know her least favorite color, her second grade teacher and how she likes her steak medium-rare, mashed potato with white gravy on the side. She’s smart, interesting and funny, like, at times you imagine her sitting on a stool, with a spotlight focused on her pretty face, doing a stand-up in a dark lit room, with you as her only audience. She makes you feel amazing day in and day out and you, you actually really want to be with this wonderful girl, until you found out, she messed up in the past. (I’ll let you write that part).
So now, here you are, you bail. Without giving her a chance, you up & walk away.
Man, let’s face it, people change and that’s the truth. There are good people who turn bad, just as bad people turn good. We might have had a horrible history, but that shouldn’t define us. Just because we messed up, doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t get up from it and change to make ourselves become a better person. We constantly change. We are a work in progress.
We need to realize that it can take for us to make thousands of bad decisions in order to land on a great one. But that, isn’t that the process of becoming better? We are perfectly imperfect and in essence, that’s what makes us beautiful. Our flaws, our inadequacies, our short comings, all but a reflection of our progression in life. Darkness doesn’t stop our progress. “Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become”.And, believe it or not, our past made us the great people that we are. Why? ‘Cause we damn well learn from it.
So once more, here you are, sipping the last of your grande white mocha as you fish for your car keys, reading the last paragraph of today’s headline, and the same second you look up, getting ready to leave, you see her walking through the same Starbucks door as she checks her phone for the time. Your heart suddenly falls into a quick stop. Well, once again, something like it. At that moment, you see the same girl. The beautiful, the angelic, the smart, interesting and funny girl who loves medium-rare steak and has amazing stories.
Yes, the same girl you up & left because you couldn’t give her a chance.
So there you are, feeling as if you’d die, all over again. Not because of wanting her. Not because of wanting to know her name. But because now, it kills you, because now you know, you’ll never have her in your life. Because now you know, she’s with another, someone strong enough to see her and the reflection of her life, her beautiful past, her present and her future, just as amazing as the beauty that runs all throughout her body and radiates into a bright white light that is shining into and out of her very soul. And at that moment, you realize how lucky that man is for having her, all of her. And you, my friend, let that slip away.

The Last. Post break up after a year.

I have already accepted the ending of our story I can almost call love. Ironically, you’ve given me so much to look forward to, so much to anticipate, yet nothing to hope for at the same time. I’ve once again freed myself from you, mentally, and opened up a place I call my reality. I’ve tucked my heart back into my sleeve, but this time, I know it’ll eventually find its way back into a dark, cold place I used to store it in; a place where I thought I’ll never once again revisit.

Although a part of me believes that I came out on top, and that all is fair in love and war, the other part of me believes that there’s no chance of winning when you’re at war with love. The memories, whether they were good or bad, will always remind me of my defeat. And that shit just cuts deep. Way too deep.

The thought of you is insanity. The photographs will simply diminish as they are placed in the bottom of this big black box I store other keepsakes in; a box that will be hidden in some dark corner in my empty apartment, much like the dustiest and dirtiest corner of your soul. In other cases, a folder that will be named as “Do not open until further notice” or somehow, someday, I will find the courage to drag them to a little icon resembling a trashcan. But until then, day-by-day, you and I, and I and you, and the “we’s” and the “us”, will no longer fill my vocabulary, eventually, in my internal memory.

I thought so much for us. So much like an artist painting a perfect picture that slowly came to life. ‘Cause being with somebody like you just made me feel nothing less than alive. And dreams became nothing less than dreams, ‘cause everything felt so tangible and so vivid. Now, they’re just like any of my other visions, buried deep in my subconscious, deprived of a clue on how to unravel and unleash them for interpretation. I question sometimes if it were even real. I ask myself if we were even real.

I wonder if what we were or what happened to us is from a movie I saw and just like a little girl I used to be, I pictured myself in the shoes of the main character. Or maybe, I read it in some book - memories of waking up next to you, and then seeing that effortless smile, or maybe, it was the post it notes wishing me luck for my exam at two o’clock. It might even be the memories of our long car rides, as we listen and sing along to our song, or just staying up all night talking about… life. Our life. Or was it falling asleep holding each other’s hands? Or the way you kiss my forehead? Or as cliché as it sounds, the way you brush away that stubborn strand of my hair. Or the way you smell my hair while I try to understand the concept of dielectrics and capacitors. Or read up on your favorite phylum, cnidarian.

You always knew I was going to be somebody to you. And I always knew you were going to be somebody to me. I laid my heart on the line, played the game and I lost. Not entirely, but I knew for a fact, I didn’t win. After all, even if I accept I came out on the bottom, and that all is fair in love and war, there’s still really no chance of winning when you’re at war with love. Maybe that’s why we shouldn’t fight love. I should have known better.

Nonetheless, I realized that my heart needed to be broken. My heart needed to be set on fire so I am reminded how prevailing and resilient it is. I needed to feel alive, and you made me feel that life by devastating it. I might not understand the reason for everything, why things are the way they are and why we feel the way that we do. But eventually, somehow, I’ll be able to shed a light on what this is, or what it was. I might not be entirely sure on what this experience wants to tell me or why it needed to tell me this bad, but at the same time, I am grateful it did.

There’s nothing more than I can say but just be thankful for allowing us to cross paths and essentially gaining the courage to try and walk that trail together. I no longer have ill feelings toward you or feel the pain that used to reside in my heart. All I have is memories that will slowly, but surely, burn through and be buried deep into me, until one day, the thought of you, and the sound of your name will no longer remind me of neither the good and bad, just the recollection that we once shared moments together. And when that time comes, you’ll be nothing but a recollection, with neither pleasant nor unpleasant emotions attached to it. Simply, a recollection.

Until then, I shall continue to accept the ending of our story I can almost call love. One that once shined so bright in my heart, it burned me through the core of my entire being. The story that taught me more about myself by learning more about you, and that taught me how I deserved more, by showing me less than what I deserved.

You’re a story that taught me a great deal about friendship and the significance of family. I am thankful for you teaching me wonderful things and for showing me an amazing side of you. I hope that one day, you will find that special person who has that strength to genuinely care and love you. And when you do, I also hope that she has the heart to walk away from you, but will never do.

Just a thought November 2013.

"You need to surround yourself with people that are better than you. In that way, you grow.” (I needed that. Thank you, Rzeznik.)
It’s crazy to think how much we learn about ourselves through learning about other people. I guess what I am trying to get at here is that when we see someone else’s character, not only does it shed a light on them for us to see through, but it also builds our own. Ultimately, it imparts that light on ourselves too.
The past couple of weeks, I have realized how much I have outgrown some of my friends whom by definition of age, are a lot older than I am. Somehow, somewhat, our mindsets are not moving entirely up to pace. Don’t get me wrong, I care about them and I guess you can say, respect their lifestyles but sometimes, I feel as if I have to lower my standards to hang out with certain people, talk a certain way or not talk about certain things because they often misconstrue it as - “I’m coming off like I am better than everyone”.
You see, sometimes too, I feel the need to put up with their bullshit hoping that maybe, just maybe, if I just try and open their minds, show them that I care to listen, I can be at least a stepping stone to turn their lives around. But, no.
So for now, I am done. No longer do I feel the need to give certain people advice, only for them to end up doing the exact opposite. How’s that for appreciation? It’s a fucking waste of my time. There are certain things that I can no longer tolerate and some people I can’t stand, regardless if I’ve been drinking or not (‘cause with alcohol, I guess I can tolerate more than usual).
One of my mentors once told me that I should always surround myself with successful people. This way, there would be no jealousy and envy among each other. When I surround myself with others who possess the same motivation and drive that I do, there’s no room to fail. You build each other. You support each other. You help each other. Not drag each other down.
With that being said, no longer will I surround myself with people who weigh me down, ones who wants my company, only to join their misery. No longer will I take time out of my life to listen to recurring problems that aren’t make for me to solve. Since, shit, they don’t listen anyways. I won’t bother.
I’ve realized there’s only two important things I need to say to people:
"Thank You" and "Fuck You". And for these certain people, it’s the latter