An Animal's Death

1) My friend’s cat passed away yesterday. From this sentence, I’m not sure whether I want to talk about my friend, her cat, or simply what happened that day. My thoughts are in disarray, in need of release. I fell asleep sick, and I still do not know how to feel about them.

2) My friend’s cat passed away yesterday. She sent me a message at 3am, asking if I could meet her in the morning. When I replied “yes” at 6am, she broke the sad news. That day was my first time to go to a pet crematorium. We talked and had lunch until we finally got her young cat’s remains. I accompanied her throughout the afternoon.

3) My friend hasn’t been a very long friend of mine; I’ve known her for less than a year. She used to be my manager, and as luck would have it, I had a hard time being friends with her. It’s difficult to tell a friend from someone who makes you work your ass all the time.

4) My friend was hard on herself. When we worked together, she was hard on me too. And when she got transferred, I realized I didn’t enjoy working with people like her. I didn’t need someone so stern when I was already too hard on myself. We both have slightly impossible standards, but she made sure certain impossibilities were “met.” I do not know why she keeps pushing even when we’re spent.

5) My friend absolutely loves her cats. I know she loves them just as much as I love my dog. We never mentioned it, but we definitely preferred spending more time with “our animals” (another bad play at ownership: once you own something, you are deemed to lose it) than people. We trust non-humans more. For their lack of intelligible language, we love them more.

6) My friend trusts me, for some reason. Perhaps because I’ve left their company, or because she thinks I have the time for these things. Either way, I believe it’s because we’ve reached a level of understanding. I’d rather we’re good friends than work mates. For the record, I still do not want to work with her in any parallel universe, or the impending future.

7) My friend is different at work and outside of work. She can be an indifferent manager as she is sympathetic when she’s a friend. This is the same person, and I just had to see the entirety of it. For most of my life, I preferred seeing one side of a person. I thought it easier that way.

8) My friend makes no excuses for her actions. She knows her decisions, she holds herself responsible for the things she does and does not do. But there are limits to the things we know about our friends. Their light parts are just as important as the dark. To acknowledge goodness despite the dreadful, and the out pour of kindness where empathy lacks.

9) My friend’s cat remains dead today. We still crave clarity even when it’s useless. My friend took her ashes home for the last time. By now, I think it’s possible to feel too much and nothing at all. Yet, some regrets become apparent with death. An animal dies, teaches us how to be human, or nothing at all. 

Graced: A movie sequence

"You and I 
step into the light
I'm so graced 
That I have this."  

What ticks me off

Venting out because that's what occasional blogs are for, right?

It frustrates me when I try with all my strength and mindfulness to explain a very important point that represents the crux of my concerns. I find it irritating when a person simply shuts me off while claiming they did not understand anything I said. (If it's my failure to communicate that confuses or overwhelms people, why do others use this limitation to avoid important arguments? Why can't people for a second just stop and really listen. An urgent call comes in all unintelligible forms and yet its "incommunicability" doesn't cancel the fact that something is very wrong.) Worst of all, it angers me when these people dismiss my concerns for another petty "overreading" that's narrow/irrelevant/uncalled for. 

I beg to differ.

I think a person shuts off at the precise moment they stop seeing their own flaws. They turn a blind eye to their own errors, seeing flaws only in others, without correcting their own. The double-standards begin with the bias we have for ourselves. People commit "harmless errors" all too often that the errors become nothing more than "harmless habits." People even justify their actions by arguing that "other people have validated it and are doing it too." (I guess that's the price our society pays for perpetuating a stunted democracy in the age of severely deteriorating attention spans.) It annoys me how they can be so stubborn. They stop listening the moment someone calls them out on their misgivings. 

The most frustrating part?

They don't even acknowledge they were wrong (even in some shady aspect of the word). Hell, they would rather ride in their innocent delusion thinking nothing is wrong. If this form of denial is keeping them sane, I'd rather be swathed in madness! One day the walls of their delusion will crumble due to this unacknowledged internal defect they never bothered to address. 

I find it difficult to reconcile my emotions towards these kinds of people. We're all walking contradictions, I know, but that doesn't give any of us the excuse to 1) stop being good individuals 2) stop learning 3) stop listening. Your age and experience is not an excuse either. 

20 & anything goes

1. I have trouble holding down a job. In my first job, I was an account manager in a PR company for barely 2 months. I hated my boss and my officemates (there were only 5 of them, boss included.) I was a program researcher for a TV show but I only worked there 6 months. I hated the people there 100 times more. This is the reason why I couldn’t stay in one company: I have a hard time pretending to be nice around people I dislike / di ko vibes for various reasons (e.g. unprofessional, too loud, freeloaders, backstabbers etc.) The longest I’ve ever been employed was 10 months. I just bummed around and did freelance gigs, and mostly went to school in between all that.

2. I do miss having an office job. If ever I find another job, I’ll probably quit it again in less than a year. HA!

3. I loathe unnecessary plastikan. I’m getting too old for that.

4. Most of what I do today is influenced by my mood. I’m so afraid my mood swings have taken over my life that I can’t become productive anymore.

5. Despite my lack of commitment to any type of job, being late for classes or meetings, and not having any real structure in my life for the past 2 and a half years, I am in fact what you call a manang. Proof: I spend Friday nights at home with chips and soda / tea / coffee AND a lovely book. I don’t keep alcohol for myself at home (well, not anymore.)

6. On the evening of my high school graduation, I got a call from my old yaya who left when I was ten years old. After congratulating me, she asked if I already knew I was adopted. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I tried my best to sound unsurprised. I ended up sort of saying I’ve known it for a while. When I asked who told her I was adopted, she simply said one of our other maids (her cousin) revealed it to her. I didn’t believe her because something about how she knew a thing like that seemed fishy. However unconvinced, I still felt insecure. What if it was true? I started fishing for information from my brother, the other maids, and my folks. You could imagine how my heart dropped when my brother said he couldn’t remember our mom being pregnant with me. Of course he could have been too young to remember, but it still left me worried. Anyway, to cut the long story short, I talked to our oldest maid and I found out it’s just a joke one of the yaya’s made up which my old yaya apparently took too seriously. What a bummer.

7. I’ve had pneumonia 3 times in my 25 years of existence. Most of my friends know I quit smoking (except when I was in Dumaguete, but I haven’t touched a stick since I came back) and this, aside from my fear of getting cancer, is the reason why. I was 16 when I first got sick with it not knowing how serious it was after coughing and wheezing for a month. I got well after taking antibiotics for a week every six hours. The second time I had it was after a medical exam administered by the college I was attending. A week later the family doctor said I got it again. I got really scared the third time around (call me paranoid but I think it’s bronchitis!) I swear to god if I get it again it might be the end of me.

8. There was a time I dated a girl in college when my then boyfriend was away in Ilo-ilo. The girl turned out to have a girlfriend as well. An even sadder story? When we both decided to return to our partners, none of our relationships worked out. It took us a year to talk casually with each other again. We endured another 2 years of awkwardly working together on group projects (e.g. shooting a film for an entire semester.) After we graduated, I messaged her just to say I was sorry. The girl asked to meet me and I never replied. We’re still friends on FB.

9. I received an indecent proposal when I was working in GMA. A gay make-up artist tried to convince me to sleep with a lesbian balik bayan from the U.K. He thought I’d be delighted with the prospect of having a sugar mama. (I wonder why?)

10. Other indecent proposals: When I was 19, a girl who was stalking me on Multiply asked if I was interested in having a threesome with her and her ex-boyfriend. I was so young and innocent I turned it down. Today I think I should put this on my bucket list. (We’ll see?)

11. I have never seen A Walk to Remember.

12. Four years ago, I almost got caught with marijuana when the police stopped our car for a random check-point under the Katipunan flyover. My ex-boyfriend and I were in a friend’s car and we were smoking weed on our way to Mag:net (oh god where have I been?!) We noticed the police before hitting the U-turn slot and pulled over a few blocks. We opened our windows and turned the A/C on full blast. Our friend came prepared with Lysol. We hid the stash under my seat. After briefing ourselves with what to say when the police asked us stuff, we went for it. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. Good thing they didn’t have a drug sniffing dog. I remember laughing like a retard after passing the police, but I was depressed for 3 days after that.

13. I was a member of our parish choir for 5 years. I used to love singing in church. I even learned how to play the guitar in church.

14. I am vacillating between agnosticism and atheism. Don’t worry; I am very tolerant with religious beliefs EXCEPT the bigoted kind.

15. I’ve tried sending my CV to schools in hopes of becoming a college professor. Good luck with that.

16. I am mostly insecure about everything because I know that whatever I do well can be done better by someone else. It’s a very humbling thought, and also a very inhibiting one.

17. Latest realization: Nothing’s / nobody’s worth all the trouble. At the end of the day, you only have yourself. Well, that’s just me.

18. I don’t invest energy on being liked anymore. I think I’m merely making life easier for all of us. I’ve let go of some social aspects of myself for a year now. I really don’t mind if people find me boring, inattentive, insensitive, aloof etc. It’s mostly true. And I find that being away from a lot of people keeps me from wondering what other people think of me (did I say anything offensive? did I do well enough? why is so and so mean towards me? etc.,) an activity which isn’t exactly productive either. But when I’m there, I’m there. I give you all my time and attention.

19. What makes me sad: Having impossible standards even I can’t achieve.

20. Truth: I am a better reader/critic than I am a writer. 

As much as I’d like to claim I am a writer, I’m not sure I’ll ever be good enough to become one. I've always had to remind myself that the writing and the poetry is all just part of it. The goal has always been to live.