An Open Letter to My Ex-Best Friend

Hi. It's been a while.

Writing to you seemed like a good idea earlier while I was thinking about it as I was walking past that area where tricycle drivers camp to buy something to eat for lunch. But now that I am actually dong it, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I just really want to tell you a few things:

I get you now. I get why you chose love over friendship. I get why you had to let go of me, your best friend for countless years, just to have a shot at a girl. You chose to give your relationship its best chance. It just so happened that the process involved asking me to step out of your life. It's not entirely your fault. I get it now because I did a similar thing. I endangered the relationships I have with the people closest to my heart to give way for love. It's a risk but I get it now.

I apologize for not seeing it through your eyes. Perhaps I really needed to experience what you went through to understand. It must have hurt turning your back on your friends. It must have hurt as much as I am hurting now. It must have been very difficult for you. Probably almost as difficult as it is for me now. You reprogrammed your life just as I am reprogramming mine.

I haven't heard from you for more than a year but common friends told me you are  quite well. How did you manage it? How did you handle the pain of losing friends who stuck to you like a family? I really want to know because I'm losing my mind. I need help. Even after everything that happened between us, at times like this I still wish that we could go back to the you and me who used to talk about how we would help each other get through the tough times. I miss how you lend me your back to cry on because you hate seeing me cry and you hate not being there when I do. So you compromised and used to give me your back instead. At times like this, I really do wish we were still the same old us.

But we are not. I do not know where you are, what you are doing, and who you have become. Do you even have a Facebook account? I'm not sure how far we're grown apart. I am just so consumed by the possibility that, if given a chance, we can rebuild whatever was broken. That chance is a fine thread, yet I hold on to it like I hold on to my dear life.

Right now I am fighting for what I know I deserve and I can only pray my bravery will pay off.

I miss you. To be more specific, I miss the you I remember so vividly in my head. I hope that guy is still there somewhere.

I wish you well.

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Photo taken from this page.

Kaleidoscope

 

One move and everything changes—

Effect so similar

to the science of glasses,

mirrors, and light.

Binding fragments of an image

to create an alluring masterpiece
though it is, in reality, a mere illusion.

One move. And everything changes.
We know this and yet we turn that wheel.
Willingly
though half-blind of what to expect,
we wonder what's next.
Curious, we press questions
'til we end up still wanting to turn it,
not heeding the voices saying:

"One move and everything changes..."
Too brave not to do it so we do.
Steer and steer
'til we well up at the frame we behold.
Now blame wondering.
Now blame curiosity.
Now blame ourselves.
We proved unprepared to see the answers.

One move and everything changes.
We sought for a bridge—
a slim path, even—
to walk across this cliff,
but as though reading along
the climax of a romance novel
and flipping to a missing page,
we found a bigger gap instead.

ONE move and EVERYTHING changes.
Too broken to take it,
we close our eyes shut,
hide in regret in the darkness
behind our eyelids.
Yet that will not save us,
nor fill in the chasm.
No.
It will not undo that one move
that changed it all.

Awake

That's how you stay

     When you lay in bed

     With just one thought in your mind.

On our part of the world,

     Silent Asia,

     They rest, dream, sleep.

Our heads

     Lie with the other half,

     World's wild West.

But we carry neither noise

     Nor muteness.

We mind only this:

     I think of you.

     You think of me.

That's what keeps us.

     Yes, missing keeps us

     Awake.

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Photo taken from this page.

I am the Worst Person

So, I haven't been writing for the past few months only because I was afraid that if I put things into writing, they become eternal. They become emotions I can conveniently retrieve every single time I scan through my blog. The past couple of months weren't exactly the best time. Quite the opposite. I was afraid that I'd dive back into that sinking feeling if I read through this post again in the future. I was afraid that if I wrote them down, it would become even more real. Like etched in stone. Tonight, however, it dawned to me—they're meant to be written as reminders of how I should always strive to be better to not ever go back to that horrid state again.

(Fair warning: This is an "I" post. So... Yeah.)

I feel like shit. I feel so lost and incomplete I can barely walk with my own two feet. I have been gliding along the winds of change and I have no idea where it's taking me. I am not better but I know I haven't gotten worse. I am just what I am. Lost. Incomplete.

I am the worst child of God. I have been so soaked up with my swelling emotions that I never even made earnest efforts to seek Him again. I have always prayed. I never stopped. I just felt like I have lost my connection with the one person I know I should lay my life on the line for.

I am the worst daughter. I have done everything every daughter should be ashamed of. I have disappointed my parents in every non-fashionable manner. I do not have the face to even show myself to them.

I am the worst sister. I have grown distant to the two people who look after me when I couldn't seem to manage myself. I shoved them off, maybe a bit too far, that I can't seem to reach them even with both arms extended.

I am the worst friend. Instead of being supportive, I may have ended up unconsciously competing with his girl only because I thought I'd be less important to him if I didn't fight back. Turns out fighting is never the cure. In the process of hurting them both, I lost my best friend and hurt myself.

I am the worst partner. It's difficult to date me because of too many restrictions. Though I work on things, I am quite a slow learner. My eagerness to adopt and adjust and be better is there, the work is there, but the progress takes time. If the guy I'm dating can't stretch his patience, then we might not be able to stretch our relationship.

I can be quite disappointing.

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Photo taken from this site.

Time

Time heals. Time restores.

Time moves forward and opens new doors.

Time is slow. Time is fast.

Time stored us plenty memories that last.

Time pardons none. Time is on time.

Time ticks in an endless cyclical rhyme.

Time can be measured, controlled 

in seconds, minutes, and hours.

Time can be owned. This time, it's ours.

XOXO, Gossip Girl.

Finally, after five years of running on TV, CW has put an end to one of my favorite TV series, Gossip Girl. Fun fact, GG is the first US TV series that I watched in perfect order. Followed by my all-time favorite, How I Met Your Mother (which is ending this season, too). 

Since 2007, we have witnessed how a mysterious online writer stalked and, in a way, controlled the lives of the modern royalties of Manhattan's Upper East Side. 

Serena Van der Woodsen and Blaire Waldorf and their friends have been everywhere and they have pretty much all the material things we all could just wish we were born with. But aside from the loud promotion of fashion, wealth, and beauty, there are other exciting things that happened to this bunch of elites and social-climbers.

1. Serena

Went to high school in Constance; was the queen of Constance until she ran off to boarding school without a word to everyone; tried her very best to go to college and dropped out to work; fought with Blaire a hundred times but made up with her always; went into a relationship with Daniel Humphrey, the lonely boy from Brooklyn; broke up with Dan, got back together, then married him in the end; had a lot of other relationships in between, both good and messed up; went away a lot of times and still went back to New York; always the damsel in distress; always turns into the phoenix who always rises from the ashes.

2. Blaire

Instant Queen B of Constance when Serena suddenly disappeared; dated Nate, Chuck, and Dan, but married Chuck in the end; went to NYU then took over Waldorf designs; first marriage was with a royalty from Europe; got pregnant and lost the baby in the accident; almost lost her inheritance; got kidnapped plenty of times; tried so hard to remain on top not knowing that no one could take her throne away from her.

3. Nate

Was in a pretend relationship with Blaire for the longest time until the story about him cheating on Blaire with her best friend leaked from GG; survived complicated family situations; went to school, dropped out of school and started a business; slept with almost all the women with significant roles on GG (Serena, Blaire, Jenny, Vanessa, Juliet, Charlie/Ivy, Lola, Diana, Sage) except Lily and Georgina; betrayed and defended friends; been in jail; the only person who never gave a single tip to Gossip Girl.

4. Chuck

Slept with almost all the women in Manhattan until he became monogamous; deflowered Blaire; fought and reconciled with his best friend; owned a bar and then owned a hotel; lost a father then witnessed him get resurrected; somewhat killed his father for real; got in two vehicular accidents in the course of the series; thought of almost all the best schemes with Blaire; the boy who's been fed with gold when he only asked for parental love; playboy turned one-woman-man.

5. Dan

Started out as the Brooklyn-raised boy who wanted to be accepted in the elite society because he is so deeply in love with Serena; got into wrong relationships; for a while, thought that he was the father of Milo, Gerorgina's son; published two books about Manhattan's elites; gained friends, lost friends, and then gained them back; the lonely boy who ended up marrying his dream girl; the original Gossip Girl.

So all those stories, along with parties, glamorous clothes, sex, and drugs, made GG a pretty messed up show in general. But we all learned to love the dramatic and chaotic life of the Upper East Side too much that we relied on Gossip Girl for the past five years to stay on the loop. It still would've been better if they never revealed who Gossip Girl was. That was supposed to be the one secret she'll never tell.

Thank you for being New York's magazine show and thank you for being Project Runway's drama equivalent. I guess it's time to bid you a fine farewell.

You know we love you.

XOXO, Gossip Girl.

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Photo taken from this page.

What you don't see and what you get

Hundreds of miles settle in between us, but that was never really a problem. A simple text, a short email, or a brief phone call always bridged that gap. We made good use of technology. 

However, what of this moment? What have I to do to fill the emptiness, this cavity? I'm falling deeper and deeper into a black pit and I see no light nor ground ahead. I've been fighting this infinite darkness and the pull of gravity, and I have yet to prevail. 

On the surface and in the shallow, you see my strength and grace. Things seem clear; my waters look calm. But what of the whirlpool of emotions in the depths of me? What of the invisible elements--both great and small--that nibble my very skin or what's left of it? 

My survival? It hasn't been a walk along the shore under the pale moonlight. It hasn't been a stroll along the meadow with the cool breeze gushing through my sundress. It's a sinking ship wrestling helplessly against the wild tides. It's an ongoing barefoot walk along a road of flaming coals.

My heart? It's not similar to that piece of glass being shattered into a million bits and pieces that others commonly describe. It's not even the sting from the stab of a poisonous dagger. No. Far worse. It's a taking of one's own life, a self-sacrifice so rarely done for saving. The great pain of knowing you're very own hands would shoot a bullet through your chest. 

No amount of preparation ever gets a person ready for this. No extensive training could assure one's continued normal existence after a heart broken my oneself.

There is no known cure, but we must endure. 

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Photo taken from this page.

To the Rorouni Kenshin Live Action producers

To the producers of Rurouni Kenshin Live Action, thank you! 

Thank you for not letting this epic anime series get in the hands of Hollywood. Hollywood is great and all, but this is not something they could've pulled off. I mean, look at what they did to Dragon Ball and Street Fighter! I'm not taking anything away from the magnificent job they've done to a lot of movies, like their Marvel movies and Avatar. Those were (still are) great. And Hollywood must stick to those.

Thank you also for not dubbing the movie into different languages. The film is so legit in Jap, like the anime stepped outside my TV set, magically turned into humans, and jumped into the big screen. Cool. 

Who enjoys war, violence, blood, and killing? No one. But I did enjoy this movie. Got nothing else to say about the movie except that it's AWESOME. 

Childhood complete!

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The photo is taken from this site. 

What adults can learn from Wreck-It Ralph

Wreck It Ralph may be a kiddie movie but it delivers a lot of underlying messages that we grown-ups can learn from. Here are some of the lessons I picked up from the film:

1. Just because you're the "good guy" doesn't mean you're the hero. This isn't just true in the movies we've seen. Take Lord of the Rings for example. Frodo may be the main character but he definitely wasn't the hero. If it weren't for his friends, the ring would've taken over him entirely. In the same manner, Fix-it Felix wasn't the hero. He didn't save the day. He didn't save the gaming kingdom!

2. Be sure you're ready to face anything if you move to a different world. And I don't mean move from Earth to Mars because that is impossible. I mean changing from one lifestyle, or one location, or one job to another. It won't be the same as the last one you were in. It may give off a similar feel but it is will not be the same. Unless you're ready to face the consequences and challenges of moving, don't.

3. Your imperfections make you beautiful. Penelope was a glitch in the system. She blurs, disappears and reappears like a flickering light. But it made her unique. It made her special. And best of all, it made her the damn best racer in the game!

4. You sometimes have to break things to make way for better opportunities. While in the prison, Fix-it Felix was helpless. Every time he tried to hammer his way out, he ended up fixing the deformities of the cell. It took Ralph's wrecking power to save him. Also, it was Ralph's ability to wreck that gave Penelope her training tracks.

5. Fixing and breaking co-exist. If nothing's broken, there's nothing to fix, and vise versa. There is a way to break anything. But there is also always a way to fix them.

6. Getting the gold isn't always the goal. Sometimes, when you try too hard to win, you wouldn't notice how much damage you've done or how many people you've let down. Wanting to win is a good thing because you're challenging yourself in the process of achieving what you want. But learn where to stop.

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Photo taken from this page.

The Crush

The first boy I have ever liked was my childhood playmate. Looking back at our younger, innocent days makes me feel nostalgic. The memory paints a smile on my lips.

His physical features pretty much broadcasts his half-American descent. Skin, ivory white. Nose, long and pointed. Lips, almost blood red. Cheeks, full and rosy. He was the tall and cute mestizo kid who lived two blocks away from our old house. He was every girl's ultimate first crush material.

The memory of a first crush is a reminder of how simple life used to be. He made me happy because he would always let me decide which game to play or which toy to play with. I liked him because he made me happy. I looked forward to his family's visits over to our house because I liked him. Nothing too complicated, except for the part where I didn't know how to react whenever the older people teased us. I didn't even know that what they were doing was teasing. All I knew was that I would always turn tomato red whenever it happened. Awkward.

My first crush will always have a special place in my heart. He was the first to make me realize that I am capable of feeling certain things toward people. I just didn't know then that when I grew up, I would be this mushy hopeless-romantic piece.

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Photo taken from this page.