I Just Do.

You don't have to do anything to earn me. You already have.

You don't have to do anything to get me to stay. I choose to.

You don't have to hide, or pretend, or keep secrets. I've known you long enough not to take them against you.

All I want is for you to come around. Because I did, with you. And the view is quite a sight to see.

So let's take this in together. Let's make nice things happen, together this time.

The Leap

My brother loves basketball. His current favorite player is Kobe Bryant. He loves the story about how somewhere in the mid-2000's, Kobe decided to take "the leap". This leap was a physical one. It meant that the player add several pounds of muscle to his slight shooting guard frame, and work on post moves. He would be more than just a guy who took shots on the outside perimeter. He would have more physical power to work closer to the basket, and defend bigger players. (I'm trying my best to make it simple for non-ball-loving friends!)

So yeah. "The leap" my brother likes to say, quotes stressed by his fingers.

It makes me think about my own life.

In all honesty, I'm really lucky. I've managed to survive and thrive this long without making major adjustments to my life, and the changes I made, I could go back from easily. I learned to live alone, in a strange land with strange language barriers, but I got to go home after. I may have failed my subjects and lost a scholarship, but I never had to stop studying.

Lately, I've found that something...crashed in my life. Maybe it was from the car accident I recently survived. Maybe it was from watching people close to me get hurt, again and again, and see them get back up. Maybe it's because, as Pablo Neruda put it, "I am tired of being a man," and the sameness of this city takes away my sharpness.

I have chosen to not sit around. I want to take "the leap". My life has a lot of "high time" markers.

That means:
- I get a decent paying job and amass some meaningful wealth in a year.
- lose close to 100 more pounds of weight within the next few months
- finish my graduate studies
- move out of the family house and into something different
- get really, really good at being alone (more on this another day)

I don't know where this will take me. I only know it will change me. And maybe that's reason enough.

Walking Wounded

I look fine. Everyone thinks I'm ok. They smile. I smile. I drive to do my errands. I do what my parents ask now and then. I listen before I speak.

The past few days, my arm has been pinching me. It's in pain. I can't say why yet - we might get results of the x-rays in a few days. On the outside it looks totally okay. When I put it to work, things change.

I'm starting to appreciate little things. For example, when I'm laid out on a bed, the act of turning to my side or hugging a pillow makes use of muscles and bones in my arm. Those muscles and bones now hurt. A lot. They didn't before. Now the little motions hurt.

For another example, I cannot turn a steering wheel of our cars. Another example: carrying shopping bags. So is lifting my camera and keeping it steady. All these things you need strong bones and muscles in your forearm, shoulder, elbow, and wrist. I don't have those. Not anymore.

We have all these things we take for granted. We don't realize what they do for us until we can't use them anymore. Right now for me, it's my right arm. What more if it's something closer to the heart.

Crashed

I forgot whether it was some kind of Harrison Ford movie where they joke about being able to walk away from accidents being a good accident, complete with a picture of wreckage and burning debris.

Last Sunday, I walked away from the wreckage of the family car. I drove the car, and I nearly spun out of control on the highway. Quick thinking made me dive it into the center island of the road, to avoid collateral damage. I ended up smashing against a concrete barrier.

We were on the way to the beach for a week. We wanted to see mountains too. We were on holiday, all for the birthday of an adorable little boy.

We ended up seeing the white ceilings while doctors looked after us.

I broke the car, I ruined our vacation, and I basically sent two people I care for most dearly to the hospital. I also have trouble working with my right arm, but that's small potatoes. I still haven't wrapped my mind around how much fixing the car will cost, even with insurance. I still don't know how much the hospital figures will end up as. It's mind-boggling.

Truth is, maybe my moods are all just Survivor's Guilt. Or PTSD. Like, I came away from the event where we all could have died. And I'm here, and yet other people are suffering, when I was behind the wheel. They told me not to blame myself - they're right. It just nags at me deep down. Whenever I shut my eyes I smell the smoke, I see the windshield cracks bloom open, I can feel the blood caked on my fingers. 

I'll get through this. I already count my lucky stars - we're alive, safe, and emerging stronger after the event. We didn't kill anybody else. Insurance will help shoulder costs. We did not lose our eyesight, or voices, or memories (as far as I can tell), or more. Sure, we lost some sleep, a nice car, and a little time with each other on holiday. But some have it much worse, so we are still grateful. It's bad luck. Happens everyday, on that highway, I was told.

I just wish I had easy answers to use, or had somebody to talk this through like I do for my clients. Everything feels like walking on thin ice, with time pressure.

The Broken Pieces

There was this book that a friend loaned me. I won't say the title. That would be telling. But it stuck because I heard that it was something a girl I liked a lot was a fan of, and I heard my friend liked it too, so I borrowed it, read it, and it struck me somewhat too.

It explained that when we love other people, it's like giving a piece of your heart to someone. Every new person in our lives comes in and takes a piece. We go from person to person, forming new relationships each, and they all get a piece. We break up, we break off another part of our hearts, then find someone one to give another part.

Then, at the end, we find someone we really want to give the whole heart. So we try and look at what of our heart is left to give. We find out we've given away our heart in bits to others, like little floating shards of glass. We give the one last person a heart missing parts. We cannot give our 'whole selves'.

And you know what was funny? I was a college student then, reading this, and seriously, seriously thinking it made a lot of sense. I felt, "Hey, I can't go committing to others so easily. I need to take every single girl I want to take in my life very seriously, and only one can get to keep me."

Hence, I became a Man who Can't be Kept. And I learned to be vindictive, jealous, and self-centered in some ways too.

This line of thinking poisoned me, and I think it poisons others too. We think we feel less of ourselves the more we open our lives to others. We add to our list of partners in bed, or the people we date, and when it doesn't work out we doubt if we can love as hard. Then we try again, and we add to our fears. "Can I still do that? Will they think me dirty, having had others in my life, having shared my love and my body? Should I have waited until I met the right one?"


It's a nice picture, seeing our hearts as breakable, and made of sharp pieces. But it's not accurate. Hearts are not glass, hard and fragile and dangerous to others and ourselves. Hearts are muscles. Hearts beat. They quake and shake and are surprisingly strong. They also heal, mend, and grow. Like every muscle it breaks in little parts, so it can be bigger than the last one, the muscle fibers wrapping around the tiny cracks it breaks off.

I learned that loving doesn't mean we break off parts of our heart. Real love doesn't use itself up. It doesn't drain us - it renews us, refreshes us so we can go and give more. Even when we think we can't, we find it. Even when we feel lost and alone, the heart is strong. And full of powerful stuff.

We can love more than we ever had, if we allow ourselves.

And I guess that's a lesson I'm learning and picking up for myself these days. Better late than never. 

The Perfect Day

She knows where I live. That means one day, I can hear the call from the village guard, or the telling barking of our dogs. Somebody's at the door, and it's her. I'll likely still be in my house-clothes; a T-shirt, my shorts, slippers. It would be a chilly evening. Nobody would be home.

She would come in at my request. She'd go straight for the den, the room I appropriated for myself at the ground floor, turning right from entering the door. I'd ask why she came by, but her eyes wouldn't break focus. She said she sought me out to talk. And it was urgent. That a phone call or a text wouldn't do. I'd offer coffee, tea, water, and they'd all be for later, after we had words.

I'd ask what's wrong. She's said nothing's wrong. But that she had something to tell me, to let me know. And I'd concur, and I'd had stuff to let her know and feel too.

She'd shut the door. We're alone now.

And we needn't say words. Our eyes, lips, hands do the real talking.

Depression is Like...

Real life often is like fighting a dragon.
So I do little 'escapes' from real life.
My imagination reminds me I can fight dragons and win.

Achievement Unlocked

Achievement unlocked: I put a small child, son of a friend, to sleep in my arms.

He's a small boy. I'm fairly tall by local standards; more than maybe 3 times his size. The whole evening, our little man was squalling, yelling, throwing food left and right. So much more energy than we bargained for. It nearly spoiled a quiet dinner with friends.

But as the people around me tried their best to set the small apartment right, I picked him up, and started to hum along to "Zelda's Lullaby.". (Because, video game music, guys.)

He looked at me like it was such a weird thing. I walked around with him. I stood with him. I swayed slowly, left, right. I did this before with my cousins when they were small; it wasn't my first rodeo, as they say.


I sat in front of an electric fan and watched his eyes flutter shut, slowly. His breathing slowed. His mouth no longer looking for things to put into it. The people around me fell silent - the whole flat was filled with only my slow song.

I never saw myself as becoming a father. I still don't. I don't know what it's like to have a great father. I only know the mistakes that were made with me. I promised myself I wouldn't carry those mistakes forward. What better way than to never try, right?

I've lived a life where I'm supposed to be okay being alone. I've watched my hopes of finding a proper partner get dashed, year by year, troublesome girl after troublesome girl. I suppose it's a sign of our age - we young people don't want a family. We want to enjoy ourselves. We find greater meaning in our adventures and our personal struggles, and less so in the absence of it. I entered my 30's accepting the fate that I'd likely never be happily married, let alone a father of a child. I even thought I'd be part of the clergy, living a celibate life content and quiet.

But at that evening, I looked across the room and saw how the two single moms I was with saw how I was doing. They never saw me do this. They probably never thought I was capable of such gentle care. Like it was such a big shock. Like they couldn't believe I could. And I did.

I smiled and kept singing. He may not have been my kid. It may have just been a good day, one day out of what would be years of bringing up a troublesome boy.

That moment I felt maybe it's not so bad after all. Maybe it's days like that - those days make it worth it, never mind the child's not mine.

Crushing

If you only knew,
in my quiet, carefree life,
how the mere mention of you

lights up little torches in my chest,
leading through a safe, little lane
through my life's darker days,

or how the letters of your name,
leave an aftertaste,
a texture, flavor I can't place,

or how the softness of your cheek
somehow, someway,
seeks my lips, at the end of our nights,

and how all these add up, pile up,
and build a titan of memory,
crushing all, Dearest,

would you come around,
change me,
and maybe, for the first time ever,

keep me?

Unsent - Difficult Things to Say

You won't see this. I know. I check my metrics.  

And I was hoping never to have to say it out loud.

But just the same:


Dearest,

I'm writing this down because when I write it down, I mean it more. I avoid the awkward stuttering and broken choice of words I find with you.

So here.

I was ready to walk away from everything about you. In some ways, I still am. I knew that one day, I would finally end all the agonizing days of asking "What if I did something better?" or "What if we tried something over again?"  It never came, that day. I kept wondering about you in my quiet days alone. But it would fade. I would walk away, keep walking, and never look back.

And that was gonna be it. I was gonna be fine.

But then I had a feeling I had to know for sure. I found my niche, my life started to pan out properly, and I was turning the page. I just had to fix one last little piece: you and me.

I sought you out. You asked me to see you. We cleared the air. The day ended well.

And that was supposed to be it. I was driving you home, and that was how it was supposed to end.

But, I guess that's never the simplest answer, is it? What happened was you and I, in some broken fashion, resumed the dance - that familiar sway of coming in and out of each others' lives, filling it with favors and flavors, family and friends.

Friends. We would stay friends. Because you're happy being single. And so am I. And also because I can't be kept - I'm nobody's angel. I have many things I still need fixed. In essence, I have a life away from you. 

Or so I thought.

Day by day I watched the other parts of my life fade fast. I would watch all the other interesting women in my life just mysteriously pick up and leave. It was like they just quit, gave up, or were pulled away by something. I saw friendships, even family, who once warned me that nothing like this ends well, well, sing a different tune.

You would tell me, too, day after day, that there were so many others who came by, asked, and never really stuck. And I've been doing my best to smile, and cheer you on.

But truth be told?

There's a well of difficult things more I need to pray over, write down, and lose more sleep on.

And all those things, lately, involve you.

History

I got to the beach with high school friends. The first thing I did when I got into my room was to find a table next to an electric outlet. I promptly sat down, and set up a small work station. I pulled out my ancient Apple laptop, the one barely able to function. I tried to get the Internet to work thanks to my phone, and hopefully get to writing, reading, and catch up with my needed work.

I didn't do much from that. I did, however, chance upon an old archive of chat messages from years past.

It was the recorded history of me with the other people who walked in and out of my life. It was like some kind of treasure trove. I can't post them here - a gentleman must keep secrets. I can say that it makes me ask questions of myself.

I remembered (and still do remember) many things differently. What I didn't realize was that there were spots I tried hard to forget - how, early on, my efforts to be warm were met with ice, or how I would find long stretches of me chatting met with silence and *seen*. It gave me perspective - I was never really wanted or cared for then.

I found more, and they dated to days when I was gone, when things were awful. There seemed to be this great need to see me, to talk to me, to find time for me when I had none, when my life had moved forward. Was it because I was needed? Because I was finally appreciated? Or was it because I was, in some ways, just the different variable from when things were bad?  Like some echo you struggle to keep hearing, as it disappears to the cliff's arms?

There was just so much hurt in there too that I projected onto chat screens, and while this was happening, there was also a lot of deep concern that I was too emotional to see. Or perhaps, because I'm not a vocal, verbal lover, and I appreciated things more than just words and nice lines, that I could not catch where the words begin to nudge me towards work to patch my wounds together.

I'm different now, we're different now. But I also wonder if we're really not all that different. That there is no such thing as different hearts, or growth in others. Only that we finally learn to dance without stepping on each others' toes.

Remembered, Rewritten, Revised

He is joined at lunch by a very attractive lady.
 
 "Don't you feel hot? Why do you wear those scarves?"

"It's not something I tell everyone."

"Well, tell me."

"See, I collect them. I never bought any of them, mind. They're all gifts. They're mementos of a kind. When I want to remember somebody, I wear the one they gave me."

"Even if it's hot like now?"

"Yeah. Kind of helps me keep loved ones in mind."

"I get it. My grandmother gave me one. It's special to me."

"Yeah. Like that! First one I got was from my Mom. She gave it to me when I was coughing, and it helped keep the throat warm. Then came another, from a friend, and another from my sister. And more just came along."

"Mmm."

"I brought them to remind me people care."

"So... that one you're wearing now? What's the story behind that one?"

"This? Uh..."

"Somebody really special?"

"...It's complicated."

"Go on."

"I... well. There was someone I cared for, deeply. She gave me this on a trip out of town. One of those 'Does your boyfriend know you're here?' kind of trips. You know what I mean."

"Oh! The plot thickens."

"I told her I had to go and do this thing. So I'm here."

"Did she try to stop you, persuade you to stay?"

"No. She said she supported my choice. I had wanted to do this for a long while. Just got around doing it now."

"...And you think about her sometimes."

"...Yeah."

"Hmmm."

"You... okay?"

"Hold on to that girl."

"What?"

"You should hold on to her. It's not everyday you find someone like that."

"I...I don't think I should."

"Why not?"

"She found someone else. She said she's happy. And I don't want her to wait. There's...just too many reasons, and too much history. So much happened as to why it doesn't work out like that."


"..."

"And I'm leaving soon! It's just... It's not. Not that simple."

"Nothing is."

"I know. But... it'll be okay. At least, that's what I want to say about the choices we made

"Your choice. But you'll see. People like that only come once in a while."

Lip Service

It's all it is, whenever my family is involved.

Like, they tell me they'll leave me alone for a month as I try to salvage my semester. Then in a single week, I'm bombarded with requests for help and all manner of errands. I don't do them. They get upset. I tell them I can't and that they promised they'd leave me alone. They complain that nobody else would do it if I don't.

They tell me they're proud of me. By morning, they try reassure me that what I do gives them a good feeling as a parent. Yet in the evening, over dinner, they complain that I'm not doing enough, that I'm not making enough money, or that they have nothing to hope for with me.

They offer to buy me nice things, which I say "I don't really need." They insist. I cave. These things don't get bought - I end up paying for them, out of the money I earned. They offer to pay back the money. I decline. They insist. I say "Okay." They still haven't paid up.

They tell me "if you don't like it here, you can leave." I asked them "Do you want me to leave or do you want me to stay?" They say "no, please don't leave. You're the one who gets stuff done here." So I stay. And in a few days they go back to treatming me miserably.

They promise to be more open and listen to me, but they never do. Meanwhile, they move my things all over the house, that recovering my things eats into time, energy, effort, and productivity.

I'm tired. I'm angry.

I Know, I Know

Today I secretly wished that somehow, the years wound back and we were right there, sitting on the floor again, singing to familiar music. That the years apart hadn't really changed much.

But I know that I made my own journey. You made yours. And it did change us. And we came back to this city believing differently, when we once saw the same things the same way.

I still wonder at times what I would have done differently, even if I already know the events really were beyond my control.

But I digress. I still mean it: you are loved, and prayed for, and in most days, deeply missed.

Piecing It Together

Because I can't piece together my thoughts, let alone this thing I'm trying to write, I went and started trying to read my old stuff.

I remember my younger self having so much energy! I was always juggling five or six different things in college, be they org matters, a 21-unit semester, family things, the efforts of a love life, and more.

These days I can barely get anything done. I wish I could go back to my old self, and I started reading through some old posts to make myself feel a bit better.

My old blog posts and journal writing efforts all come round to me. I remember the younger man who wrote those things. I remember the lost bits and pieces of emotion welling up in them. Some were happy. Some were sad. Some unlock little events in my life that I kept secret, even to myself, and could only be found when I read them again. Others were the exuberant bursts of a heart, that, well, nearly burst.

I remember that I almost died, many times, on the ER, in the mountains, in random allergic reactions - that means I have many reasons to eat up life and feel.

But some memories I kept real and vivid in my mind, and I never wrote about them. Sometimes because I was pledged to secrecy. Others, I didn't want the Internet to find them. I didn't want everything in my life to be too open a book, and I took to pen-and-paper diaries instead (which promptly got lost, good job). Still others, I kept a different memento - a necklace with a bronze cross, photographs, a scarf I always wore, or a phone that never rings.

I wish I wrote more about what happened to me, or that I took more pictures. I wish I had more ways to unearth memories like I did when I really, really needed to find the younger, stronger me. 

But would I really want to be the same immature young man? No. I just need to find where I drew that energy, now that I find myself so empty too often.

Winding Away the Awful Month

The past month has been regrettable. In many ways.

There were lots of nice moments, and lots of positive things. But I'm going to be glad to be rid of February. I hope that the damage it caused will pass soon enough.

Now excuse me, this 'overdue' paper will not write itself.

Sacred Space

I'm not exactly a prayerful man. But I've taken to reading Sacred Space. It's a website managed by the Irish Jesuits. It's like a daily devotional - every day a short prayer is written, together with a reading from the Bible. It's a quick way to do the daily prayer that reviews your day (the "Examen," as the Latin-speaking old priests called it).

I was struck by this particular line attributed to St. Ignatius:

"The wrangled tree does not see itself as a statue, even as the sculptor takes her chisel and molds a masterpiece."

I wonder at times how am I being sculpted? How am I being remade? 

I do not know where I am going, only that I hope I needn't go there alone.

Mid-Feb 2015

I am not joking when I say that the middle of February has some of the worst experiences I've managed to survive. They often involve me getting into conflicts with people, and those tend to be family. There was one I learned (the hard way!) of my propensity for mental distress. The others include (but are not limited to) failure (academic and professional), loss (property and relational), heartbreak (don't ask), and occasional splash of scorching weather with no sign of rain. People hurt me. I've hurt people. I've watched dreams go to shit. They all seem to coincide with an season when people remind me to love, love, love.

This year had the makings of all of these years too.

But you know what? Between the little disasters, the looming problems yet to be fixed, the awkward positions I got caught in, and more? Between the good company I've kept, the small victories I've made, the little surprises, and the people I've learned who are more than worth fighting for?

This time this year wasn't awful.

Not one bit, at all.

current music:
 ♪♫
It's not you
It's not me
We're never gonna be
♪



And I'm unable to sleep. I've got those lyrics on repeat. They're part of the closing minutes of the last concert by Up Dharma Down I caught. New song, I think. I love it. It's haunting.

And it haunts more tonight. Because I whispered "I love you," to someone I absolutely adore. In that, I was told how 'feeling close' I act sometimes, despite how deeply flattered, deeply touched, deeply moved I am able to make her feel. (She once whispered this to me over the phone, once, in case she forgot.)

I told her the truth: "You talk about how you wait for someone to love you. But when it's right in front of you, you push them away."

*Drops mic*

I don't take those words back. I'm never going to. I'm not content with being somebody's option, if I can be wanted, needed, kept somewhere else.

Busy Bee Hustling Here

I'm embracing my inner hustler. I have been out of my house for 9 or so straight evenings now. I do not know how my family can be understanding, let alone tolerant, of my behavior. But whatever. I'm trying to carve my place in the world.

I always believed that people should be allowed to make their mistakes. I am also guilty of being a hypocrite about this. I used to be upset when people dear to me screwed up. But at the same time, I needed my own space to screw up.

I can't afford to be inconsistent about this now. I'm dealing with people who may be undergoing many difficult experiences in their lives. I need to be understanding and open to how they choose to live. I don't always have to agree. I just need to be open. I need to allow them that space to make the choices they want.

I remember listening to a guy tell us in a retreat once: God loves us in a way that He gives us profound freedom. He lets us make our own mistakes. He allows us to break His rules, because He trusts us that way.

I'm not a deity by any means, but I understand. I want that kind of love. I want to be able to aim to give that kind of love too.

So tonight, I'm stepping out yet again. Night number 10? I lost count now. What matters is I keep pushing and striving. I gotta keep putting one day after another, helping to make nice things happen for others. I don't expect this to all pay off. I just want to be able to try.