Grieve and Greet

My phone's alarm went off, as I reached to turn it off, I read the reminder that flashed across the screen: today is your birthday.

For weeks, I anticipated this event, wondering if I will get to greet you, if circumstance will allow me to say happy birthday to you. I honestly thought I would, especially since I heard you were back. I even thought that maybe that was the reason you came back, so close to your birthday. I'm remembering the last time we were together and as I told you that that would be the last time we would spend time together, you whispered, "there's still my birthday."

Yet I was told earlier, you had come yesterday and already gone. There was no phone call, no request to see me, nothing at all. Then it finally hit me: we really are over.

Not that I never really thought of us being in that state. After all, it's been seven months since we saw each other last and four months since we spoke. But somehow I thought you would always come back. It was only a matter of time, that you were only biding your time. Little did I realize that time had finally run out for us.

I'm recalling a line from Graham Greene's End of the Affair. Sara writes in her diary: "I might have taken a lifetime spending a little love at a time, eking it out here and there, on this man and that. But even the first time, we spent all we had."

Have we really spent everything that we had?

Can we ever go back, even halfway?

I write this entry because I'm unable to reach you, though I hope my words will find a way to you in some way or another. And if by some strange twist of fate that it does, know that I remembered you, on this day and always.

Stealing Blind

Someone stole something from me today. It was my mobile phone, my old one to be exact. I had gotten a new one for my birthday last year, but I had continued using the old one as a way of separating my business contacts from my personal contacts.

That phone has been with me for the last three years, the SIM I used on that phone had been with me far longer. Needless to say, that phone and I had history. It contained my history for the better part of the decade.

So it pisses me a great deal to lose it, and what’s worse was that it was stolen from under my nose. The man who stole it casually walked into our store, under pretense that he was in need of help. He was representing a sports league that needed uniforms. I had politely declined, knowing better that sometimes these types of solicitations were completely bogus. Yet he insisted, and I thought simply, that he was just one of those pesky people who couldn’t take no for an answer. And between his incessant begging and polite declinations, I don’t when and how he managed to get his hands on my phone that was laying on the counter, a bit obscured by my pile of stuff. He did everything on a sly. How could I have been so stupid?

I had only realized that my phone was gone, when my sister was calling me on my other line, and told me that she had called my other phone and some guy kept picking up.
I rang my phone to check whether I had just misplaced it, or if it was lost in the jungle that is my handbag. But someone did pick up. It was him. And he pretended that he couldn’t hear me, though clearly taunting me.

I didn’t hang up, instead I told him he could keep the phone, he just needs to give me back my SIM card. I know it was futile to ask a thief to return something of value, but I just had to ask. That phone probably contained more information than that person’s brain could have stored in his entire lifetime.

Then it started. He kept telling me how he thought I was attractive, that he couldn’t keep his eyes off me, that he had to take my phone because he knew I would call my number and that he’d be able to talk to me again. He was bargaining- me for the phone.
And I swear if I could just reach through the line, I would have slit that guy’s throat. I am not a violent person. Nor do I endorse it. And I have no plans of committing murder over a phone. But the things that he said…

I know that what he said was meant to intimidate me. He was threatening to do me violence. Though I admit I was scared, I was so angry. But I was all the more angry that I felt so impotent in my anger.

How could people lose their sense of empathy and humanity? How could anyone simply take something just because they want something, and just because they can? How could you a person feel so comfortable at wanting to hurt other people and feel so blatantly proud about it?

How could they live with themselves? How could they face themselves in the mirror? Do they even own mirrors at all?

I am pretty certain that I will never see my old trusty phone again. Though the whole incident has left me so upset, I will try to rest on the idea that that man will someday his comeuppance. And I fervently hope that it hits him soon. Fast. Hard.

A Send-Off

I met William through Karla. They were very good friends. Theirs was a friendship borne out of unfortunate circumstances. Short of saying, their friendship was forged in fire. I, on the other hand, was a friend by way of association. But nevertheless, he quickly endeared himself to me.

How could he not? He was smart, funny, good looking, and just about the sweetest thing. And he was the sweetest thing. He was as Karla describes him, “the perfect guy”. I couldn’t agree more. During the few times we went out with him, I would jokingly refer to him as my boyfriend. He never seemed to mind. In fact he would gamely go along with it, even though we both knew I could never be his type. I could only sigh and wish that William were straight.

So our loss was another team’s gain. There was nothing that could be done about that.
But yesterday, both teams experienced a loss. Being Black Saturday, it was made more black by William’s unexpected passing. It was meningitis, and it struck him down as quickly as it had come to him. No one saw it coming. And all of us who knew him, couldn’t understand what could be gained from it.

I couldn’t claim to be a close friend, out of respect for those who knew him really well. But he has touched my life, as he had countless others, and I could all honestly say that my life had been enriched because of that, no matter how brief it had been.
The whole Christian world celebrated Easter today. I woke up praying for some kind of Easter miracle—that somehow I would receive a text message saying William had miraculously survived, and he is well. Obviously, it was not to be.

This is the irony—No resurrection at a day we rejoice at its alleged possibility.

They say everything happens for a reason though we may not understand it at the time. No matter how much it hurts or doesn’t make any sense, all we can do is to trust that whatever has happened, it will serve a bigger purpose.

This is not a eulogy. I choose to believe that William is not dead. He is alive and forever young in our minds and hearts.

So goodnight and so long, William, sweet prince. You will be missed.

Faux Friendship

Is friendship really possible after the good of a romance has gone? And if so, how exactly do you begin to be friends without falling into the trap of being more than that? What would be the defining parameters? What can you, and can’t you expect from either side?

“Why don’t you call, when you say you will? Is it because I don’t belong to you anymore?” sings Rachael Yamagata. She sings my sentiments, but I also do know that I can’t oblige him to do that, or even be upset when he doesn’t.

“Why don’t you come? Don’t you miss me at all?” Rachael’s smoky voice wafts through the nebulae of my mind. He said he was due to arrive today, I look at my phone’s inbox to read his message to confirm, and there it is, a timebomb of a date. I waited for it to blow up, but the explosion, a message to ask me to see him never comes.

Has he forgotten? Was he just too busy? Or did he not want to see me again? But more importantly, why am I still waiting? Why am I worried that I won’t see him? If he is just a friend, then I would be fine even if we go without seeing each other for months. It wouldn’t matter.

But I am a liar. It does matter to me if he calls. I count the days leading to his arrival. I imagine what I will be wearing, his reaction when he sees me, the conversation we’ll have over dinner, the banter, the now chaste kiss goodnight.

Rummaging through things that are not mine, I see it. An email advising he won’t be able to make it for the appointment. His schedule is too tight. He is needed somewhere, someplace else.

Yet I need him here. And his place is as vacant as the memories that we are supposed to make. His absence is a hole, a tear in this precarious reality I conjure. His silence is loud and screaming.

“We can only be friends now,” I told him. “This is friendship or nothing,” I voiced an ultimatum. He complies, and I hate him for doing so.

I may have lied, but I lied for a good reason. I want something real with him. And what we had before, though he may argue otherwise, was far from real to me. “Just because you label this differently from me, doesn’t mean it’s nothing to me. It’s just semantics,” he told me before.

But I didn’t believe him. How could I? Intellectualizing this whole affair, he was. Semantics, my ass.

So I gave the ultimatum, in the belief that if I pushed him towards the side of friendship, then I would finally have something real, something honest. Something I can hold.

It is a lie. And sadly, it is only I who believe it.

The Dark Side

"I think he's some sort of crazy,"I told S.

"I think so too," S. agrees.

"No, I mean, crazy, crazy," I said, referring to a recent phone conversation I had with him.

Of course, it's quite mean of me to think of him that way. He has a darkness to him, but doesn't everyone? And perhaps, one reason why I would choose to think of him as crazy is because until now, i couldn't quite figure him out. He is a narcissist, that much I can tell. Besides that, it's anyone's guess.

Then, eureka.

While watching en episode of Criminal Minds, one of the characters, S.A. Rossi profiles an unsub as someone with the Dark Triad. In psychology, the Dark Triad is characterized as Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy.

Bingo.

So in the interest of knowledge, I googled the symptoms and tried to see if it would correspond to his behavior. Did it? I think i'm just gonna keep the results to myself.
But I did chance upon an online test gauging how much tendency you have of being a psycho. It tests whether the Dark Triad is present in an individual.

Of course, it is a pop quiz and totally unreliable. But who knows, it may contain a shred of truth to it. So I took it, and the results are posted below:

Not really a psycho

You scored 9 on Emotional Detachment and 7 on Chaotic Lifestyle!
Relax, you are quite healthy. You are emotionally stable and you lead a normal life, as far as conditions allow. You may have other problems (if you score too low on detachment, you may be oversensitive or lack self-esteem, if you score too low on chaotism, you may be pedantic or rigid) but psychopathy is not one of them.

If your combined score is 5 or less, you are completely average compared to general population. If your combined score is 20 or more, you have a mind of a true criminal. If your combined score is 30 or more, you have a mind of a psycho.

Your Analysis (Vertical line = Average)


*Detachment Distribution
You scored 9% on Detachment, higher than 31% of your peers.

* Chaotism Distribution
You scored 7% on Chaotism, higher than 15% of your peers.


So i guess, i am quite simply, an average person with but a few issues. Take the test, if only for fun. I dare you. http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-psychopathy-test

Breaking the Silence

It’s been ages since I’ve written anything. I missed it but then again I had been too busy to miss anything except sleep, and not doing anything. Okay, that might be stretching it a bit too much, because yeah, I miss more than a just few things and a few people.

But what I am getting at is that I simply had no time, and more importantly, I had nothing new to say. Yeah, sure, I’ve flown to places, did stuff, met new people (dated may be a more appropriate term) but it seemed that I never exactly left and the more people I see, the more that I just wanted to be alone. Bottom line is, I don’t want to keep rewriting things here, rehashing old themes, old emotions. I told myself that until I have something fresh to say, I won’t say anything at all.

Then a few weeks ago, it happened. Something new happened. I started dancing. To most people, this would have earned a raised eyebrow and a “so what?” expression. Dancing? That’s it? That’s the new thing? But to me, it is something new, as I’ve never really taken to dancing, at least not counting the time I took Hawaiian dances during the fourth grade. I just never really thought myself as very coordinated, or graceful enough; and dancing remained to be one of my biggest frustrations. I always wished my mom had enrolled me in ballet rather than in music lesson, which I really didn’t get to use except during the time I was studying it.

Anyways, to make the long story short, I enrolled myself in a dance studio and decided once and for all to stop whining about wanting to dance and just get into it…finally. I wanted to learn the basics, loosen my rusty and creaking joints and muscles. I wanted a beginner course, and I took what seemed the easiest—striptease.

I took it mainly for two reasons: first, it has been built up to be as much as a fitness routine as it is dance. For someone who has an aversion to gym, it seems perfect. It is good exercise while it lends to certain degree of creativity. You don’t get that while pumping iron.

Second, I thought it was more practical. Heck, it’s not like I can jazz dance my way into anything, or suddenly prance around when I’m feeling it. That would probably buy me a ticket to the nuthouse. But striptease…well, that’s a different story. I could, ehem, dance my way to um…pleasure, so to speak. And if none of my efforts in my career pay off, well, it could offer me an alternative career. Harhar. Big laughs.

Besides, another reason (so I guess I have three) is that it fulfills a certain interest of mine: burlesque and pin-ups. For some reason, I’ve always harbored a secret desire (not so secret now) to do a pin-up pose or to dress up in classic burlesque or cabaret, and be a showgirl of some sorts. Don’t ask me why, I just do.

But little did I know, is that even though it may seem to be the easiest compared to belly dance, jazz or flamenco, it can be as demanding for someone who hasn’t had training in dance. The first time I attended the class, I almost burst into tears! I look at my instructor who seems to be double-jointed everywhere, and then I look at me, and I seem to be a plank of wood trying to dance! I felt as if all my control issues were showing through my dance. I was so self-conscious, I was embarrassed, I was terrible!

But I never felt so exhilarated. I was having fun. I was happy.

I vowed to get better at it. Three weeks into the class, my dance instructor tells me, “you’re improving!” and I felt like a puppy getting a tummy rub.

I am far from being the next finalist in “You think you can dance”, but who cares, I am having the time of my life. And heck if I’m gonna stop now.

Martyrdom is Not Dead

Overheard a conversation between two girls by the bathroom door in a bar in Ortigas:

Girl 1: (emphatically)"I don't know why, but despite what he's done and what we've been through, I still want him back."
Girl 2: "Really?"

I wanted to storm out of my cubicle, cut into the conversation, give Girl 1 a pat on the back and say: "I can totally relate...I don't know either."