READING IS LIFE

I visited one of the nearest bookstores to my dormitory this afternoon. It has been ages since I last went to a bookstore in hope that I'll find something worthwhile to read. I admit that my work as a nurse kept me from reading for a year now. I was mostly exhausted from all the physical strain it brought me and whatever little time I have, I use so I could sleep.

But today, visiting that bookstore had brought me back to where I came from. And I came from between the pages of the books I used to love as a child. I came from all the characters I accompany as they set off in their adventures. I felt ashamed that I forgotten what it feels like to go sit beside my favorite authors while listening to their stories. I took them for granted. I might be reading then, but I am not listening. I have forgotten who I really am. I have forgotten how beautiful and heartbreaking words are.

I understand now why journals are important. One day,  I might forget what I felt and realized today. That's human nature, we change. We forget. But not if I write down this very moment. This very feelings I am feeling now. It wouldn't fade or go to waste. That is the beauty of words and stories.

Thank you for reminding me to write. Thank you for teaching me to read.

THE ENVIOUS DENIAL

I might deny it some other time but for once, I feel like admitting it.

Yes. I envy people.

I envy my friends for having friends that last. Mine doesn't. Its either we lost touch or have grown apart. Who wouldn't want someone they could count as years go by? While they keep realizing how lucky they are to have one another, I am here, decided that I couldn't trust anyone. I want to, but I've received far many reasons that proves there is no one left to rely on but myself.

I envy the complete family picture my friends in social media post every now and then. Those smiles. Those small difference everyone notices as years been added in each frame. The frozen photo of laughters and embraces. How happy it might be if I have a selfie of my family just like the one my childhood friend has... Special occasions every year only reminds of what I lost before. Never will my family be complete again. Not in this lifetime. I wish there will be social medias and cameras in afterlife too. Maybe there, I wouldn't have to envy anyone again.

While I spent my days in fulfilling my lifelong dream of being a writer, my friends are either getting married or having their first born child. I envy them for finding their partners. I envy them for experiencing love in that kind of way. I doubt someone on their right mind will ever like someone like me.I knew it. I knew I'll end up alone. Maybe I'll start saving so I can afford a good nursing home when I grow old.

I know that the world isn't fair. How can others have all while here I am, never getting any. I wish that the world will show me a little kindness out of all that I have given out for it. But I'm reminded that "the world isn't a wish granting factory" (John Green) Maybe the fairness it knows is how it gives more to some and denies even the little to others. I just happened to be in the denied part.

THE SILENCE

The most memorable Dan Brown's quote for me came from his Digital Fortress; "They say that all things became clear in the face of death," and ironically in my profession, I have witness quite many deaths this past days than I ever had while watching the evening news.

I have been there, face to face with a person whose heart beats for the last time. It was like they've gone from being someone to... I'm not sure. It's as if they become someone else when they die. This reminds me of my sister back to the moment the operating nurses brought her out, wrapped in a green blanket from head to toe. I remember tearing a part of it away, because... I'm not sure why either. All I know during that moment is if her face is wrapped with a blanket, how the hell will she breathe through that. And I saw her face. With bloody nose, eyelids close for forever, pupils that won't dilate... (Ughh. This is hard for me to write down, you know) Then, I remember the distant feeling I have while looking down on "that" lifeless body. I remember asking myself who the hell is that because it couldn't possibly be my sister. My sister was warm, alive, cunning and laughing days ago but "that" thing, "THAT" THING, doesn't have its chest rise up and down. It's like she became someone else. Someone who looks like my sister but isn't really my sister.

I wonder what are the things that became clear in the face of death? Who are we when we die? What become of us?

Will we still be able to be who we know ourselves to be on the other side? Who we become in there? I wonder now.

But no one knows.

I don't even know.

What happens when we die is one of life's greatest mystery. We are not allowed to have a glimpse of it. The dead stay silent... and all we could do is wait.

TWENTY THREE

"The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die."
-Juliette Lewis

I turned twenty three years old today.

While everyone around my age were having the best times of their life, here I am, alone in my room, contemplating the things that makes me who I am at this moment.

And what did I become after all these years?

Well, let's start by sayng that I become a registered professional, working in one of the most recognized institution in the Philippines. People say that I'm the lucky one. After all, not everyone on my age gets to earn as much as I do.  I'm getting to blend in the society. I guess, people are starting to recognized my existence. I've got to make new friends... those of benefits and those who can only smile at me. I'm not boasting or anything because I don't think this is something I could boast... actually, this is something my parents could boast. They worked hard to make a person out of me. It's their sacrifices that makes me what they want their child to be.

But as being me... who wants to have their life planned out for them?

I know what I can boast.

I'm already twenty three and the previous year had been my year. I found myself and decided to live in it. I wrote and wrote and I find my own infinity. I want to become a writer and all of me shouts of it. Writing and creating worlds and characters makes me alive and breathing. That was the "me" I am searching all my life. And I knew that I was born for it.

I've been through a lot. There are times when I would ask myself if I can keep standing through the storms. But at the end of the day, the storms always calm down, leaving me fiercer and firmer on my ground. I quit the game of making people like me. Somehow, what they say about me doesn't bother me anymore. I've learned to own myself.

Like what I'm always saying, I don't know what tomorrow brings me. But I do know that I will always be that girl from a long time ago. I will always believe in magic. I will always believe that despite everything, the world isn't really an awful place. I've learned to accept that I will grow old, but I don't have to grow up.

I guess it's a happy birthday to me then :)

GAZING GAME

I had my eyes focused on him for quite some time now.

He was tall and lean and handsome.

Then I learned that he's writing too. A hobby that was very close to my heart. I'm reading his works for almost a year now.

People don't interest me that much. I have many trust issues and I don't let just anyone in. For me to notice him, is like me watching quantum mechanics in national geographic channel.

I'm excited, thrilled and terrified.

Excited because it's a new experience for me. Love has the power to make the colors of my world more vivid. I imagine myself nourishing this feeling. I'll add him on facebook, chat with him and make it my goal to know him better. I'll talk with him and listen well. I always listen well since I realized that people loved to talk about themselves. Then I'll feel comfortable and allow him to see the broken pieces of me, hoping that he'll be the balm I need to be whole again. I imagine myself loving him in ways I alone can give. I imagine him returning my feelings. Thrilled because maybe the world will be a better place for me if I fall inlove with him. He will make my heart race just by his smile and intense stare. He will be the world for me and I will make sure to love him everyday. Isn't it what everyone of us wants? We want someone with whom we can give our hearts to, hoping that they'll never return it to us. We all been there, lying in bed, wide awake, wondering when and how that someone will come to our lives. Love is such a complicated thing.

But I am terrified.

Terrified to know that if I allow myself to love him... what then? Will he love me back? Will he accept me? The naked and raw me? Me as the weird? as the dreamer? as the skeptic? Can he embrace the fact that I'm a believer of all things wonderful? That I don't do make-ups and flirt? That parties bored me?  That there are days when I just want to be alone? That I'm different?

I don't know. Maybe he wouldn't. He couldn't.

After all, who would pick a daisy in a field of elegant roses.

I had my eyes on him for quite some time now.

A part of me wishes that he'll return my gaze and he'll know that I'm admiring him. The other part prays that he wouldn't. Because I don't want to let him in.

But who knows? Maybe if it's him, I might discover a hidden courage in me. Then I'll be brave and allow myself to love. Maybe if it's him, I'll be willing to take a risk.

CHOOSE BRAVERY

Have you ever faced a seemingly impossible situation when you thought you couldn't get out of it alive and kicking? I mean, have you ever been in the middle of the storm and you really believe that there's no way out and all you have and all that's left to do is be brave?

I have.

I think we all have.

I think we all have our moments in life when we were shoved in the depths of hell with no choices, no help, nothing... And all we are allowed to do is be brave.

Bravery must be the finest virtue of all. You couldn't be kind if you don't have the courage to show kindness in a world that's teaching us that our own happiness should come first. You couldn't be honest if you don't have the courage to speak the truth, likewise all the other virtues would come out of you if you have the courage to embrace them.

We were born with fear, I guess. Fear isn't something we just learned as we grow up but it's inherent in us. We are creatures who fear something one way or another. But bravery withstand fear. When we choose to be brave, we win against it. We conquer our fears. We conquer ourselves. We conquer that which makes us humans. And we became better than we are before. We became more and more who we really are. It takes courage to show who you are, isn't it?

When there's nothing left, my friends... we could still be brave.

IT DIES WITH TIME

A month ago, I was just anticipating a family friend's wedding. I've never attended a wedding before and this event really excites me because me and my sister will be on the entourage.  Everything happened fast.  I've gone from anticipating to preparing,  to being right there to witness two hearts getting weave as one.

The whole day was magical.  Relatives from my mother's hometown came.  I wore that elegant apple green cocktail dress.  The pictures were taken.  The couple exchanged their vows like those romantic ones I thought I will only watched in movies.  I love the place.  The calm breeze brushing on my cheeks and the peacefulness of the woods from afar.  My... if only I could freeze time and live in that moment forever.

And then the night came. Along with it, is the end of the event. The couple was now husband and wife. People who attended went back home. Tomorrow, everything will resume. I have to go back work my ass and try to live my life. Again.

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As each day passed, I am slowly realizing how time changes things--- as in really changes things. I'm old enough to contemplate my own mortality and I know this sounds too weird but... I know and I feel that I amstartkng to die little by little each day. There are things I now couldn't do the way I do them when I was sixteen. I feel tired more often. And my first times are now being used up. There are more white hair in my parents' head than they  have before. Little kids from the neighborhood began going to school. My highschool friends are now either getting married or having a baby and I'm starting to drift away from home. The way adults are supposed to when they become adults. Things are changing. I am becoming how I imagine I will become back to the days when all my worries just consists of how will my crush notice me. I feel old. Things around me starts to age and I'm starting to age. Patients are dying. The time is passing. The hands of the clock ticking.

It hurts. Maybe because I'm noticing things. Maybe because I'm aware that time goes by. Because I know that time is cruel and that it wouldn't wait for anyone and because I know that I wouldn't be able to hold a single thing forever. Not even the ones I love. Nor the things I created. When I think about it, I see that there's really nothing in this world that I could hold to... everything will either get destroyed or forgotten. Everything... at the end of it all, will be eaten up by oblivion.

I wonder if it will be different if I will be able to live forever. What life does immortality offers? How would it be if my body will never grow old and my heart wouldn't stop beating?

Alot of screenwriters tend to convey that there's no meaning in forever. That because we're humans, and that we're doomed, everything becomes beautiful. That the gods envy us because we're not in their position to endure eternity. We appreciate the people we love because we're aware that time changes things, even feelings. We know how to treasure moments because as mortals, we know that each seconds is a gift we could never get back once it passed by. We have meaning because we know we'll eventually die.

But what meaning is there in having everything you have taken away from you. What is there in risking your heart to love someone when you know you couldn't have that person from here beyond? Why should we live in the present when all that we are is everything thay happened to us in the past?

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us..." (Lord of the Ring)

Yeah. Seasons die afer another.