Month: January 2016
Moment of Silence
“And baby
It’s amazing I’m in this maze with you
I just can’t crack your code
One day you screaming you love me loud
The next day you’re so cold”
-Jay Z featuring Justin Timberlake, Holy Grail
You’ll probably find it ironic, but I, a writer, hate silence and the thoughts it allows my mind to breed. In fact, when I write, I usually have a particular song on loop to set the mood, and it has always worked wonders for me (guess what song I used for this one). And to me, the worst kind of silence, which in turn creates the heaviest of thoughts, is not the lack of sound in my surroundings, but the interruptions of communication between us that are abrupt and happen without explanation.
She needs to tune me out so she can be more in tune with herself and gain clarity. I do too, but in a much rarer occasion than she does. She, however, avails of this necessity in an implied fashion. There are times when we are texting an hour or two previously, and the next five, six, and sometimes even twelve hours I get nothing. One moment I can perfectly picture where she is and what she is wearing and doing, then the next it’s as if it’s either the eye of my imaginations have been blurred, or that she was swallowed by the void of her much-required solitude and introspection. While I achieve the latter through different methods, I completely understand that she needs quiet in order for her to refine her thoughts. But despite that knowledge of mine about her, her silence still fills my mind still with worry and overthinking – electromagnetic pulses that either disable or severely hinder me from performing things I do on a regular day, and the worst ones to suffer are gaming and writing. As much as I don’t want my brain to be flooded with such insidious elements, it is an impossibility…for now. And as much as I want her to give me a heads-up when she’s going into stealth mode, I choose not to.
Maybe her not telling me when she’s coming into her shell is part of her inward-turning process, so I wouldn’t tell her to tell me “shhh…I’m trying to think” even though it makes me want to bang a concrete wall with my fists, as if the flat, beige, insanity-inducing white surface are my thoughts, which are so ridiculous that they are unfunny, and so baseless and far removed from reality that they seem like something that came from a work of fiction. “Maybe she realized that she doesn’t like you anymore”, “maybe she was just deluded in the first place”, “maybe somebody told her that I’m not boyfriend material, which is a completely sensible logic”, and worst of them all: “maybe some handsome, normal-ass guy who has a lucrative job is whisking her away from me”. These unnecessary and untrue ideas attempt to pervade my mind and destroy the part where the security I have towards Berna’s love for me is held. They never succeed, but they ravage my trust in myself, as I beat myself up for having such thoughts, which in turn stem from not having enough faith in Berna’s love for me. Damn it, I want to have so much faith in her love so that these ugly thoughts cannot have a foothold in my psyche. Through time and continuous love with her, that faith will be perfected.
But for now, as of this moment until the time I have that faith mastered, I want to have these thoughts whenever the lines that connect us lose their vibrations. For me, they are proof that I really do love Berna, that I don’t want her to go, because I never had the same thoughts I have with Berna’s silence with the girls I dated before. I can go for many hours or even a day without them talking to me, and I really didn’t wonder what ill wind blew on them that caused it. With Berna, however, I get plunged into a sea of fear, and hidden away at its bottom is the submerged artifact causes the sea to exist: the love I have for her.
There will be many more moments of silence between us. And as much as I don’t like them, I know that they are and will be there to make us better versions of ourselves and in turn better lovers, as well as to make us appreciate and give meaning to the times when we’re sending each other colorful and joyous noises.
I love you honey, regardless of how loud or silent you get.
Our Red String of Fate, Spun With Time’s Fabric
Note: even though this post is inspired by The Time Traveler’s Wife, I didn’t post any image of the movie because I have neither watched it nor plan to do so, and any image from the movie would affect the way I imagine the book. And I imagine Henry as Clive Owen, not Eric Bana.
I have a love-hate relationship with stories that involve time travel. Love because the concept of visiting the future or going back to the past in order to change the course of history never seems to lose its novelty, and hate because it can always sometimes get confusing. Nevertheless, the love always prevails over the hate, especially if the time travel tale is entwined with themes of romance. That’s why I’ve taken a liking to Time Traveler’s Wife. In fact, I’ve never been this invested in a book after quite some time. I’m not just saying this because Berna lent it to me; it really has an interesting remise: Clare’s husband, Henry, travels to different random time periods, and thankfully including Clare’s past. And to me, the idea of traveling back in time and seeing how a person is like, especially the one you love, would be heaps awesome.
I have this firm belief that people who we fall for and fall for us come into our lives at the perfect time, and meeting the person at any other time in our lives, be it earlier or later, would’ve caused the romance to not begin or not work. Nevertheless, I believe that a lot of people, including me, are curious with what the life of the one they love before they met him or her was like. Because even though they tell us about their past, it’s a completely different thing to be told of who they were before and to see, hear, and feel the person they once had been for yourself.
I remember when Berna got drunk with soju during my former company’s Christmas party. I told her that she’s like a six-year old during that time. And when I said that, I wondered what single-digit aged Berna was like. Was she playful? Did the cat that is her figuratively got killed by curiosity? Did she engage in roughhousing? A yes, as she told me that she even got sent to the guidance office. What if I was there? What if I was her playmate/classmate? Who’d be the faster runner? Would she let me hitch a bike ride with her? Would she tease me until the point of annoyance, of tears? Well, whatever the answers may be, I wish I could go back in time to her childhood as a grown-up, so I can bully her until she cries home to her mother, and then I’ll tell the most important woman in Berna’s life that I want her daughter to hopefully be my wife someday.
High school was a dark time for me, as I had no deep friendships, bullies, and repeated failures with subjects that involve algebra – a far cry from that of Berna’s, as she was able to keep high school friends, and there were (and probably are) boys who had (and probably still have) a crush on her. I wonder what would be like as her classmate. Would she stop the bullying I am receiving because of my last name, social ineptness, and uncool, childish tastes? And if so, why? Out of pity, or something more? Or maybe she’d join them, although I doubt that she would. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t hold it against her if she did. I’d be sad though if that were the case, because my crush joined the bad guys –an unusual high school manga plot. Or maybe I wouldn’t even notice her, as I’d be too preoccupied with my weaboo dream and chase chinitas, like I did in this timeline, in this reality, until I met the Berna I met and have come to know. But nah, because I’d notice and fall for a soul as unique as hers regardless of the circumstances of our first meeting. So if we were high school classmates, she’d be nice. She’d help me in the subjects I’m struggling with. She’d stand up for me – something I would later on realize as my job. And because she’d do those things, it’d be impossible for me to not have a crush on her.
But just like the past of this timeline, I won’t be the only one who will fall for her in that alternate one. Just like in this reality, she’d have a boyfriend, and I’d be second, third, or even fourth fiddle. The high school me doesn’t know how to properly interact with others and say stupid crap, so even though we’d be friends, she’d never see me as a thief whom she’d let her heart be stolen by. Nevertheless, boyfriend or not, and whether he’s a jerkass, goody two-shoes, or anything in between. I’d wait in the wings for an amazing, one-of-a-kind girl like her – the same thing I did back in college.
And speaking of that rather bittersweet four years of my life, of that first sip of reality, I wonder how much it would’ve changed if I met her. What if we were traveling in the same commute route and I realized how much of a looker she is? What if there was or I was able to make an opportunity for us to talk? Would she give this awkward stranger her number? Would there be enough magic to rival that of my major college crush/seatmate/the girl whom I owe my college diploma to? Or maybe I’d still be too damn smitten by someone else’s angel and fail to realize that I’m in the presence of my then-future goddess. Maybe that had already happened. Maybe our paths have already coincided, it’s just that my senior Thomasian self was either too into foolish and hopeless chinita-chasing or too drowned by the sadness of his not-so-tragic friendzone story to notice a CEU freshman girl’s deep-set brown eyes, soft and silky brown hair, beautiful and even morena skin, and what could’ve been a budding connection between us. Well, what if I did? What if there’s no way for me to not notice her? Us exchanging digits and Facebook accounts and constantly chatting each other after – or even during – classes, hanging out in the different spots in U-Belt, staying at a cheap-ass eatery for hours because we’re already content with each other’s company – same thing we’re already doing now, cutting classes and me traveling to her campus so I can give her gifts and spend time with her, ditching our friends so we can watch fireworks at Paskuhan.
Our love now is quite immature in the best way possible that she calls it “young love”, but the thought of that even younger love is so enchanting. But would such a flame come to fruition, considering I knew nothing about women at that time and had zero self-esteem, self-confidence, and fashion knowledge? I doubt. We’d have been friends and not lovers. And maybe that would’ve also been the case in the more recent pasts, so thank God we never met each other in the past five years, ore else we would’ve probably not have fallen for one another. I needed to work on myself first and learn how to be strong, confident, and happy so that I can make my then-future beloved happy and carry each other through tough times with hope. I had to learn how to begin to love myself, an art that Berna is helping me with now, so that I too could give her love instead of me asking it from her all the damn time. I had to learn how to act around women. I didn’t get to smooth operator level, but at least I figured out what and what not to do and say during a date. Besides, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t learn too much, because I could’ve been tempted to play around and miss out on what I have now because I’m preoccupied meaningless things like the chase and one-night stands/FuBus/friends with benefits. And lastly, I had to learn a lot about love. I had to be repeatedly rejected and occasionally reject until I realize I have to fuck the “the game”, which is about either getting laid or getting a girlfriend, and just keep on loving until I find the girl who loves me back, accepts me, and understands me – Berna. If she came at any time before I learned what I now know – even just for a few months – my love for her would either be insipid, incomplete, or shallow.
There’s no time like the present; the past is history, the future is a mystery, and today is a gift; and last but definitely not least no matter how lame it may be: sa tamang panahon – cliché yet powerful truths about love and time. Maybe that’s the reason why time travel is impossible: because couples who’d attempt it would unravel the very fabric of their love, which has been ripened by time. So Berna, I’m thankful that I met you in the best possible time: now, and neither of us have access to time travel because we might mess up the very tapestry of our love, which was woven by God with His perfect fabric of time and our red string of fate. So from here on out, because we cannot go backward, forward, or stay in the now because time is always in constant motion, let’s make every year, week, day, hour, minute, and second count; let’s fill them with love. Let’s not stop until this universe, which is limited by space-time, finally ends, maybe we can sit in some weird Interstellar Tesseract-like place in space, hovering above space-time, looking down on the split timelines of this universe while we slow-dance to Earth Angel by Marvin Berry & The Starlighters.
Then again, there’s such a thing as time travel. Because when I look into your eyes, I see the future…
P.S.: Maybe we can go to different historical events, as long as not the ones that might cause our relationship to spin into chaos. 😀
Reality, Nightmare, Dream, Love
There is a part of me that hates reality because I’m different. Well, everybody is, except I’m the kind of different that most of the people around me find problematic and therefore don’t like because what sets me apart makes me difficult to understand and deal with. I move so peculiarly that it’s hard to exactly describe how, I speak about even the simplest of things with pauses and stutters, I don’t always maintain eye contact, I’m almost always somewhere else whenever and wherever I’m somewhere, and to follow my own train of thought means to go against almost everyone else’s.
Because of my eccentricity, that I had almost given up on one of my dreams – finding a girl who will understand, accept, and love me for who I am, for in reality women usually never go for awkward and strange men. I had already reconciled with the fact that more likely than not, the women I will date will try to change me, fail, and leave, and then I’ll end up with “the one” – the one who will foolishly feign acceptance of my weirdness, marry me, tolerate me, and end up hating me. Until Berna, that is.
In all honesty, I still find it hard to believe that she finds the things that make me weird and therefore undesirable for a lot of people as adorable. Feels like a dream, and rightfully so, for I have always dreamt of a girl like her. Yet she is as real as she gets, for I talk to her about the things I wouldn’t even dare bring up to my mother, brother, and closest of friends; look at her deep brown eyes; feel her soft, smooth, and even morena skin; run my fingers through her short and silky brown hair; hold her reassuring hands whenever we walk; and do the things people usually think are infantile and wastes of both time and money.
But the thing about dreams is that they are either accompanied by nightmares – or turn into one themselves. And I fear that this dream might become one, that she might wake up one day and find my passions, actions, thoughts, and words as intolerable pains, that she might one day become “the one”. Or worse – maybe I, not her, would be the one to wake up as a completely different person and hurt my dream. I, the one who wanted someone like her to come along, would let her down, neglect her, grow tired of her, have differences and fights with her and resent her for them, and what is perhaps the worst – be tempted by another dream that is nowhere near as wonderful as her.
These fears are real because they are very possible, so I fight these nightmares off, work hard, remind myself, and pray every day so that both of us would stay as understanding, accepting, loving, supporting, and faithful with each other as our first few days. Because more likely than not, I will never chance upon a dream as beautiful, vivid, full of life, and as fitted for me as her. Because more likely than not, I will never find a girl like her again, whose love can make reality feel like a dream and turn dreams into reality.
I put the I in the UNIVERSE. I hope I can put U too. 