Love Will Tear Us Apart

Do you know what happens when you get your heart broken? You overcompensate.

You do the stuff you don’t usually do. You study hard, you get active with a lot of community endeavors, you read books you thought you’ll never read, you exercise and make yourself better. You become somebody else. You occupy yourself with many things, thinking that you’ll get over him sooner than you expect. You keep yourself busy. You keep your head clear from any of his memories.

You run from his memories. You opt not to watch the TV shows that he likes. You turn off your iPod once you hear the music he listens to. You hide him from your News Feed on Facebook. You delete his messages on your phone. You throw away your photos together. You try hard to disintegrate yourself from him.

You wake up early to start a productive day. You work harder, you push yourself to the limits. You go home, a little drunk and tired. You hit the bed. You don’t have the energy anymore. You sleep late, and the routine continues the next day. You become a robot, merely existing, barely living. You tire yourself. You work until you run out of energy, until your body cries for help, until your mind screams “Rest!” You work and work and work and work until you hit pit bottom.

You keep fighting the urge to regress. You fight off any unwanted emotions. You keep telling yourself that you are strong. But in the end? The fact remains—you have a hole in your heart that no one/nothing, not even the greatest accomplishment, can ever fill in.

Can't Buy Me Love

Everyone has a price.

Mine was PHP 13,500.00. I was once a slave for PHP 13,500.00. I spent nine months of being a slave for money, which can't buy me love (as The Beatles would say.) I became a servant for money. And where does that leave me? What has become of me?

I got lost in the process. I got more confused. I lost my perspective. All the things that I have believed in were thrown out the window (as Sugar Ray once told me.) I became a massive bomb of self-destruction. I wandered without a cause. I talked without substance. I existed without a goal. All for PHP 13,500.00.

I was pathetic, yes. I became a victim of my own country. I became a victim of the system--the very system which I tried to change when I was in college. I became a slave, a person without a personality, for money. Money that can't even buy me happiness. And I allowed it.

Thirteen thousand five hundred pesos got me nowhere. It made me worse, instead. It changed me into someone I despised. I lost my idealism in life. I lost a part of me that I can never have back--humanity. I have turned into this money-making machine. Money changed me. And I hated it. I know that that amount of money is not my worth, but I still took it, believing that money is the solution to everything. And I regretted it.

I lost some friends in the process. I blamed them. I blamed them because they did not warn me about the real world and what it can do to me as a person. I blamed them for not giving me a heads up. I blamed them for what I have become. But really, I knew from the start that it was entirely my fault. I blamed myself for being superficial. I thought I could make it to the real world, unharmed and triumphant. I thought I could handle it, but of course, the Universe proved me wrong. I was too idealistic and too stupid for the real world. I was too young to handle such amount of responsibility.

I had been disillusioned by that meager salary. Then, just like a light bulb, an epiphany crossed my mind: The "mature" world is not for me to take...yet. I am still young in all aspects of my personhood. I still need to grow up and to learn a lot of things. I am not as tough as I believe. I need a retreat. I know soon, I deserve more, but not just now.

So, I decided to leave my job and to retrieve what I have lost. I decided to go back to the academe (to learn more, which I haven't done in college), fix my life (which I unconsciously wrecked before), rebuild my belief system, and reunite with my old retrospective self.

As I am writing this, I commemorate my 37th day of bumhood. I am young and I am broke. I may have no money, but I like the current version of myself. I still believe that everyone has price. It's just that mine is not as cheap as what I had bargained for.

Being 20 and All That Jazz

The clock struck 4:10am, and suddenly I am 21.

I felt a sudden thug in my stomach as if I swallowed a live gnome. I felt my gag reflex acting on me. I felt sick. And I am 21.

I thought I'd be 20 forever. I don't know. The idea of being 21 did not cross my mind until I realized that I cannot stop time. I thought I could be infinite, endless, limitless, 20 ever and ever. Until time has decided upon me. It was a bit heartbreaking.

I liked being 20. I was not too young and not too old. Just right, I guess. Twenty was the right age for me. It was full of angst, chaos, drama, and other shit I would rather not discuss now. It was a different kind of ride. Too much had happened. My ideals were shattered, my heart was broken (by different circumstances and people), my morals got twisted, and my dreams were... Well, I cannot remember where they went.

I liked being 20. I can get away from almost everything--from social responsibilities to personal ones. I can blame my age. I can blame anything, but I did not. Being 20 was more of an adolescent age for me than adulthood in a lot of aspects of my (non)existence. For one, I have committed a lot of risky behaviors (which I would rather not specify here) in a span of one year. Then, I was attacked (yes, the term is attacked) by human emotions--from lust to lovefrom helplessness to nirvana. I had too much of everything to the point that I intentionally forgot most of it. And then, nothingness.

I liked being 20. I wanted to stay 20 forever, but time has decided. It cannot be helped. Now, I am 21 and I am still as lost as I was when I was 20.

Bang Bang Shoot Shoot

Solitude is bliss.

It is the time when everything is clear as if everything is real. Nothing matters, just the moment of clarity and deepened understanding of the things that are happening and going around you. It is the only time to wonder and to wander. Ideas come and go. Words flow into infinity. Songs play in your head like a series of epiphanies.

The sky is dark, and the stars shine brightly, lightening the pace of uncertainty. Nothing really matters. Not even the universe. Savor that moment. Taste that time. It will only come once. Or maybe twice. But who cares?

The Great Perhaps

I failed my part of the bargain.

Do I feel remorse? No. Do I feel regret? No. But there's just one thing in my mind: The Great Perhaps. It is not regret that provokes this kind of question. No, not regret at all. It is more of human nature that gives me this kind of idea. What if I did my part of the bargain? What if I did what I was supposed to do? What if I did things differently? What if, will everything be different?

No, of course not. Everything will still be the same. I will still think of the The Great Perhaps, mainly because I have done things differently. And it's normal. It's human nature to want something we don't have. Why? Because we love the thrill. We love the chase. We love the challenge it poses to our humanity. Well, at least for me.

I like chasing something I can never have. I like the feeling of uncertainty, of whether I can really have it or not. It makes me feel as if there's still hope in humanity. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, there's still more to life for me. It makes me feel as though I am made for something, that I could be someone else. It makes me feel alive even for a while. But most of the time, it kills me.

AAAAAAHHHH! THE GREAT PERHAAAA *some text missing*