Dear in the Headlights

I'm honestly just moving things out of an old blog so I could repurpose it into a portfolio. The following are minimally connected but did happen in the same year. This is really just a dump, honestly.

Originally posted November 2016

She sat, enveloping herself in me and laid her head on my shoulder so she could look me in the eyes. “You know,” she began in the hushed tone she used when she was telling me something serious, “I had a panic attack at the museum. I like walked into the room and all the paintings and statues were bigger than me. It’s pretty pathetic knowing that I can’t go in there all by myself.”

I looked at her, and then away. The position we were in was too awkward for eye contact. “Why do you think that happened?”

“I don’t know.” She looked in the direction I was looking. Our friends were practicing a skit. “I guess I’m scared of big things. Like I could go to rallies at the Bonifacio monument but I couldn’t go there alone when, like, I’m pretty much the only one there. It’s too big for me and it’s scary.”

“So what happens when you and a guy hit it up. And then you find that he’s huge?” I snickered to myself, more out of genuine curiosity than in the need to lighten the mood. 

She laughed in response and shifted a little. “I don’t mind the size. I don’t judge.” Our friends took a break from their practice. Some sat across us and listened to our conversation. They could pick it up, they’ve seen her tweets.

“I’m also scared of huge open spaces. Like, if you guys weren’t here, I’d be panicking. It’s pathetic.” She nodded to those around us, acknowledging their inclusion in this.

I looked at the others to see if they were going to say anything in reply, when they didn’t I said, “It isn’t that pathetic.” I looked back at them and they looked back at me. No one else seemed to really be getting into the conversation. “Maybe it’s like being afraid of the unknown. Kinda what every fear is about. And it isn’t pathetic, I’m scared of the unknown.”

She sat up and I rested my chin on her shoulder, “But I don’t want it to be deep like that, fam. I don’t want my fears to be that deep.”
 

Originally posted January 2017

My dad went over to me, holding a keychain and a few other things. They all had my sibling’s name and were all medically themed. “Have you seen these?” He chuckled to himself in an attempt to lighten his mood but I heard the sigh he made. “I sometimes hate cleaning up around here because of these.” He puts them back on the shelf and looks up at my sibling’s medical school books and material. “It still depresses me, sometimes, to see those kids in white.” I nodded and went back to my own cleaning.

“Before, your mom and I were really just hoping she’d go back to med school. But it looks like she made her mind up.” Pause. He sat on my bed and leaned against the wall, still staring at the shelf. “Before, the only thing that kept me going was the thought that, at least, she’ll be healthier.” I sighed a yeah and went back to my own cleaning.

“You know, with the way you talk and the way you present yourself, anak, you would make a good lawyer.” He said offhandedly. He was looking at me, but I shied away from his eyes. He added, on second thought, “You know you’d be great whatever you’ll be. I trust you, anak, you’re smart, you’re hardworking, and you like cars.”

I tried, casually, “I was thinking of getting a Beetle or some SUV.”

“I was thinking of saving for a Fortuner,” my dad took the car segue.

***

Originally posted January 2017

Rambling. 

I’m not sure if this is finished or if I ever will finish it. I’m not quite sure I like it or if it makes any sense, but I want to keep it.

---

If you wake me up as we pass under the subdivision’s welcoming arc by the gym, I’ll tell you to take a right and to keep going forward until you see a house on the left with a yellow gate and a blue fence. I’ll tell you my home is an old two-story house built in the 70s when my grandparents made their first move into the city. And I hope you know better, that I live in another, much bigger city where there are many more cars, and a lot more cases of vigilante justice. I live in a village past the houses and the stores of the urban poor, the stark contrast between their galvanized iron walls and our tall concrete houses make it apparent that the government had tossed in their hats with urban development plans. But on weekdays I live in an even bigger city, in a condominium unit alone where I spend the days either looking out to count the glowing windows or up and wondering when the stars will shine. 

And I know you know better than me that my home is not simply where I rest or where my heart is. And I know you know better than me that I don’t put my whole heart anywhere. I take it apart by the fibers and hand it to whoever pays me attention, whoever so much as bothers to tell me that they care, whoever I lose track of time with and find that I can’t help but mention how much I love them, wherever I find myself thinking that someway somehow things could be this way. And that’s a lot of people and places and things that hold a part of my heart. And I’m forgetful, I misplace things. I forget that I leave a part of me with the people I know I will never see again or people I know I will never see; in a bookstore where I could find about 20 books I’d like to take home with me but will only ever want them before I see their price; on the overused couches of cafes that make me spend too much money on drinks and too much time side by side with someone I’ve found myself in; in blue and white corridors where we were young enough to think of hiding strange letters in the cracked and movable floors; in embraces during sports events and practices where I’d find myself talking more personally than I would without the gesture; in houses with amber walls and the comfort of holding hands and staring into eyes that I know I want to see for the longest amount of time I could think of. I forget sometimes that I’ve ever had a heart at all and I forget sometimes that my home is all in the past. And I forget still that I had taken my heart out so that there’s nothing to burden me, and I’ve left my home behind so that there’s nothing to go back to. But somehow I wish somebody would give me back the fibers– chewed, dusty, I don’t care– and take me into their home even for the littlest while they can spare.
 

***
 

Originally posted February 2017

this is yet another unfinished thing. i doubt i will ever finish it.

also

dear chesca, fuck you

***

one time i was told that bad boys were hot. i didn’t get this. why would anyone be with someone who was not good for them? i asked a friend and got shrugged off, i got told that i’ll get it one day. and that one time buried itself under all the other things that meant little to me. until that one day came. why would anyone be want to be with someone bad?

and it hit me while i was listening to your favourite band, wondering how in the world i could help you fix yourself. and it hit me how you’ve spun my world around you. or how i fell into your trap and spun my world around you. and it hit me that i never noticed that it ever happened. that somehow i started thinking that we could be together. but it hit me. why would anyone want to be with someone who was not good for them?

i’m not saying that you’re a bad girl. i’m saying that you’re not good for me. that the air you breathe might fill my lungs with cancer. that a problem shared might be a problem halved but it didn’t mean a lighter load. that a spirit split didn’t mean we were soulmates or that our lives or livers would be any better off. you said that you’d never want to hurt anyone, but you’re sucking the life out of me, but it doesn’t mean i wouldn’t let you.

 do you ever just wake up in the middle of the morning, thinking about things that have been said to you. because here I am fully regretting how I never know what to say. I've never been well-versed in affections and I've barely any experience with my own emotions, aside from sadness  and emptiness. now that good things are happening to me, i don't know how to feel. or if they're good things at all. my mind has shortcutted into defense mechanisms, i guess, that automate the responses for me and it's hard to rewire.

and it was morning. and she was gone. it wasn't as if that was a bad thing. it was just cold. she didn't hate the cold. it's just that it was a slap on the face, the cold, the loneliness.

11:12

I honestly don't want to sleep tonight. Sleep will transport me to tomorrow, and I don't want that to happen.

So things have been pretty rough lately, what with me having to face growing up and all-- college, homework, social impediments, mental hindrances, climate change. I don't know. Things have just been riding on me lately, or so I feel them to be, and I haven't been handling them all too well.

First, my sister's taking a leave from college. Well, that's not the problem, but the problem here is that my parents are pretty darn diddley upset about that, for pretty understandable reasons. But she did leave for pretty damn understandable reasons that dwarf, in my perspective, my parents' reasons (Bias? Probably.).

Second, I'm going to college on August. My parents want me to go to the college my older sister used to attend so that when/if she goes back, I can be there to help her out. (She stopped because she was depressed).

Third, well that didn't happen. I didn't pass the college's entrance test. I may however still sort of make it, supposing the university reconsiders.

Fourth, with the above three riding on me, my emotions, and my ability to handle them have been teetering on the edge. I am currently looking to a possible case of cyclothymia, what with my ego and depression and the swings to and fro.

Fifth and finally, my self-diagnosed cyclothymia and my envy has taken me into the world of isolation, what with my ego splashing around and getting everyone's beautiful clothes soiled. Yes, I am jealous of my friends for some unexplained reason that keeps changing for which I don't know why. And yes, I did get my ego up one time and sort of indirectly bashed them by posting journal snippets on my personal twitter account.

So shit.

I don't know anything anymore.

On the bright side, I passed the college I sort of really want to go to. But I'd probably have to find a scholarship or get a job for this so I can help my family pay off tuition because this university is hella expensive, and not quite the one my parents want. I respect that they don't entirely like it.

But I mean, things aren't winging in any direction wherein there is a foreseeable solution to anything.

It's fucking scary.

The results for the university my parents want me to go to came out just today, without any announcement. I was reviewing for one of my tests tomorrow, so hearing from my parents that the results came out and that I didn't pass, took me by surprise. I mean, I wasn't exactly entirely expecting to get in anyway, but I wasn't expecting it to be that soon and that suddenly.

I went into a shock almost instantly. I was dizzy. My mind was racing. And all I thought of was to appeal for me to get in. I lost my passion for the other school in a heartbeat. Because I knew that I disappointed my parents. I knew that I wouldn't be able to be there for my sister. I knew that nothing was going to wing in the way I subconsciously, despite all odds, thought it would.

I planned out the entire thing in my head. I fantasized it; romanticized it.

I mean, I would be living in a completely different city, studying something I did generally agree with. I wouldn't have my friends follow me after the mess I'm in with them. I wouldn't have to care about much else aside from my studying, my sister, and myself. I could've begun an entirely different life. I mean, man, the possibilities.

But it just didn't happen.

One thing went wrong, and everything else in the pciture just up and left.

I'm sort of disappointed in myself. I'm not sad that I wasn't able to make it to that school. I'm not sad that is shows that I was, for what it's worth, smart or anything. I'm sad that those possibly perfect opportunities for solution are gone. I'm sad because my parents are. I'm darn diddley scared now.

Darn-to-the Diddley scared.

I just don't know what's going to happen anymore.

When I go to school tomorrow, upset, people will think that I have no right to be upset, because I already made it to the second best university. But I can't explain to them this shit, because it's classified family information. Neither can I tell any of them this thing without either crying or being a mess just trying to explain it; as I did right now.

I don't want to sleep.

Because I don't want tomorrow to come. I don't want tomorrow and my problems to come.

11:38

I think (and I do that a little too much than healthy) that maybe, just maybe, I was just an angry teenager who just had to release all that pent up anger. That that rather large bottle labeled "anger" in my heart was filled with angst enough to last me a year. So it was just right that I built up walls for myself, surrounded myself with happy things and just became happy. It was alright that I kept to myself and lived in my own world and made myself happy that way.

And now, I think I've used up all that anger and stuff. And I think I might just be ready to get out of here to see what else makes me happy.

I hate people.

I don't exactly hate people and I definitely do not generalize them. The only reason why I say I hate people is because it's so much easier to say it. It's easier to say  hate people than to say I fear rejection and be told everyone does. It's just easier to hate people than to explain that I fear reaction and responsibilities I am given by lots of people. It's easier to say I hate people than to say that I'm currently abstaining from social interaction and have to explain why. And it's just easier to end the conversation and be judged as a loner than to stand up for something people won't understand. And it's just easier to go on without people telling you to open up because it's hard to be alone.

I just hate the explaining because I'm going to have to keep doing it over and over and being proven wrong and wrong again rather than to be pat on the back and understood.

I hate people.

I know for a fact that people have lately been losing interest in actually listening to me. It's sort of taken a toll on me and I've ended up stressing about it a little too much. When I brought this up to Juliet he told me that I may need to find a way to release my stress (he barely said that, actually, but that's how I take our last conversation). So I've resorted to coming back to writing.

It's actually really stupid how dependent I am on my writing. I gave it a break for about a month since I had so much work to focus on and because of that I am actually starting to have physical manifestations of my stress. I find it really funny because I never knew how much it would actually mean in my life.

Writing, admittedly, was not something I ever thought of as a hobby growing up. I always thought it was a chore even if I did find it something I was fairly good at. It was only last year when I figured I had a chance at it. And thanks to my friends, I was able to develop it. I was able to find the art in it and stuff. 

And the this year, because I wasn't in the same class as my friends I became even more dependent on it as I abstained from human interactions. Maybe because it was trauma, maybe it was because it was just more convenient. I don't know. I haven't found out why yet. I ended up journaling and even through journaling and closing myself up from others, I found someone to consider a friend.

Ahh, writing.

Don't take me too seriously. I'm just ranting here.