chainsmoking · dreams

What if I told you that these chasms of sadness are too deep for us to mend.
What if I said that I was just biding my time, waiting for the strength to face aloneness yet again.
There are some days when it would be wiser to leave things as they are.
A little more than half broken. A little almost beyond repair.

I wish I could stop being so scared.

Another set of midterms have come and gone. I praise God that the results that have come out so far have treated me well. But after this past set of exams, I find myself reflecting.


You know, I'm not the same girl that entered lawschool that one June day three years ago.

I was so excited. I was fresh out of college and raring to take on all that lawschool had to throw at me. I used to think my four years in college were nothing but an unecessary delay to what I really wanted to do. The day I entered lawschool, I thought, my real life had begun. I was ready for anything. Completely confident. Very cheeky.

I remember it very clearly. There I was, having just hurdled Intro to Law, and taking my very first day in Ateneo. I was delighted. Everyday was a day worth looking forward to--especially the cute upperclassmen who seemed to know so much. hehe.

I remember my very first recit in lawschool. It was for Crim and Atty. Faylona had called me on the fifth meeting. "Ms. Cruz," he said, "What is this case of People vs. Ah Chong?" Haha. Who could forget Ah Chong. It was a case about a man who accidentally hacked his friend with a bolo because he thought he was trying to break into his house. Recite I did, and pretty well I think. Complete with hacking gestures and everything.

Hahaha, role playing while reciting a case isnt very lawyerly I know but it helped me calm down as my freshman brain struggled to remember the case.


Then my first day turned into my first week, my first week into my first month, and before I knew it, my first year was over with--but my love for lawschool held fast. It was my world, and I was positively obsessed.

How cliche. But very true. As I look back I realized how every day was one worth looking forward to. For the most part, I enjoyed every minute of it--the good times and the bad. Oh and when they were bad they were REALLY bad. I remember getting my first midterm grade back, which was Consti I. Dean Bau gave me a 56-- a 56!

But you know, even the bad days were good, because I was doing what I loved the most.

Now, it's roughly three years later and everything has changed.

The cute upperclassmen have moved on, and we've been left behind. The days have become longer, and the moments of "delight" fewer and further in between. I no longer enter that school with anticipation. I no longer get a rush everytime I read about the law and all the people and places and things that make it what it is. The only thing that used to depress me about lawschool was a bad grade. Now, thankful as I am for the good ones I've gotten--I feel that it's gone beyond the grades and the school and the studying.

I am just so tired.

Mentally, physically, emotionally tired. Like I just want to get all of this over with so I can let my real life begin. Ironic how I used to think lawschool WAS the beginning of my real life.

Nobody tells you lawschool would be like this. Nobody tells you just exactly how much it can change you from the inside out.

I envy that girl who talked about Ah Chong with an imaginary bolo in her hand. She loved what she was doing. Her enthusiasm was one that came from ignorance of harder days.


I pray the good Lord sustain me. Because if you ask me, at this point, I am completely and utterly spent.

People bank too much on first impressions.

We miss out on the most wonderful people in the world just because our preconceived notions preclude us from knowing them, even before barely being given a chance to do so.

It's a shame, really. For all of us.

Down by the old coffeebean and tea leaf. Make a right at the corner, and you'd probably find her there.

She was there today. At her usual table, by the opalescent window. She picked up her mug with both hands and made a steady inhale. This was one of the most amusing of her ironies. Some people used these mugs to jolt them into whatever busy things they had lined up for the day. She used them to calm her down. There was something about the bitter sweetness that made everything alright.

She took a sip and laid down the half empty cup into the stain it had made on the polished wood.

"It's funny how you have to make it fit into that little circle everytime," he used to tell her, "I love you for that," he would add. Then he would hold her hand and watch as she sipped and settled her mug into the dark circle repeatedly until there was nothing more to sip. Every afternoon for the past eleven months she would sit at that table, by the opalescent window--and he would tell her that.

Every afternoon except for today.


"I love you. But I'm not in love with you." he said. It wasn't something she didn't know. She knew he had another, a woman he would meet after each afternoon he would sit there holding her hand.

He didn't hold her hand after that.

As she watched him disappear into the din of talking tables and chairs half askew, she picked up her mug and made a steady inhale.

She took a sip and laid down the half empty cup into the stain it had made on the polished wood. Then smiled.

There was something about the bitter sweetness that made everything alright.

I hate confrontation.

Nowadays, I rarely say what I truly truly feel.

I cannot be certain about the exact moment this began, I only know that I didn't used to be this way. I never used to have a problem with saying exactly what I thought when I thought it. I suppose age has tempered the indiscretion of my lips. I know this could have been a lesson in prudence, but this reality saddens me. Because when one learns to refrain from saying anything, the discipline turns into a habit--and the habit turns into a hindrance.

This is me now. So many times, I have found myself with so much to say without bothering to say it. It is only lately that I feel how much it has worn me down and how much it has worn me out.

A friend once told me, "Your environment affects your ego." I never realized how true this was until now. Lawschool has turned me into an old woman. Lawschool has taught me to be smart about what I say, because people can be cruel. It taught me to be cautious because not everyone can be trusted, not everyone will take it the right way, and not everyone will see things the way you do.

Most of all, people will have something to say against it--and surprisingly, use it against you.

This evolution, of course, has its advantages. It has its truths. But with this, I feel that I have lost the capability to be who I used to be--someone I was proud of because she did not care about other people's thoughts other than her own.

I think I have been traumatized by all the noise around me.

I think the people I've been exposed to and the naivete of my nature have repelled each other so much that it has gotten to a point that I don't seem to care enough not to fade in the background.

I wonder if one should even be feeling this at the age of 24.

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Of course, it's not my environment that is entirely to blame. That is not even half of it.

I blame myself for being weak. I blame myself for not toughening up my skin, for not responding to the negative with resistance. I blame myself for believing too much in the good, and failing to pick myself up after each disappointment. Instead of building endurance, I only feel more vulnerable than I ever have before. Instead of dealing with reality, I go about writing a blog entry. Because I would rather write about it with the hope that things would get better and problems would go away. It is as if God had stripped me of my walls and left me with a skeletal concept of who I am. I feel liked I'm starting from scratch and all I have to show for more than two decades on this earth is a blueprint.

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Almost half a year ago, I spoke to a close friend about this, and was surprised to find myself breaking into tears mid-sentence. In between a preposition and a period. That was the moment I realized I was not fine.

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This has made itself felt most poignantly in my everyday affairs. One particularly significant event still nags at me to this day.

I have a friend whom I used to be very close with. We would practically do everything together and so much of my time was devoted and intermingled with that person's affairs. We both went through the mess of break ups, and the joy of finding new love. And comforted and congratulated each other in between. We even survived a falling out that would have sent most friendships to the grave.

Now, despite our obvious similarities, more and more I realized that we were different. My friend was a highly social being who always sought the security of company and was always most comfortable with friends. To be blunt, the result clung to one with all the resolve of green phlegm. Suffocating. If you weren't the type of person who was used to that.

Sad to say, even if I tried to deny this to myself--I do not enjoy being surrounded by people 24/7. I cannot deal with the thought of having someone around me ALL the time. The only time I needed constant companionship was when I was in the middle of a break-up--which for obvious reasons, is common with most people.

So the difference between my friend and I was fundamental in that aspect. And I didn't realize how much it was taking its toll on me until a couple of months ago. I was told off for not being able to accede to what my friend wanted from me. It was a simple situation, but I think it was my snapping point. Because despite best efforts on my friend's part not to be that way--there were so many things that the person was oblivious to. There were numerous times that I had to be strong for both of us. After a tiring day, or before a stressful day in school, that was never easy for me. I am not that strong. Barely strong enough for myself--much less for two people.

I was again at a point where I couldn't do the simple things I wanted with my time. I couldnt just go take time for myself without feeling guilty for leaving that friend out of the picture. I couldn't even be alone when I wanted to, just because i wanted to.

I couldn't live my life on my own without having to constantly think of an explanation as to why, at that particular day, I just NEEDED to be alone. Everything had to have a valid excuse apart from that. Because I knew that friend would never understand what being alone meant to me. Because I knew I would be judged as a bad person, for someone who "abandoned" the routine we used to have.

Abandoned. I never knew it was obligatory upon me. I took offense, I must admit.

I can be a friend but I am not a handmaid.

And this killed me. More and more, everyday it killed me. It killed me because I let the situation get out of hand without me saying anything. It was the pleaser in me. I was hurting over how things were turning out. I found the whole situation so monumentally unfair. About how our situation brought about vested rights that turned favors into obligations--that turned supposed friendship into a chore.

And it got to a point where just because I finally decided to give MYSELF time to do what I wanted again, a point where just because I couldn't oblige to the favors asked anymore--I know deep down I was perceived as the bad one.

The frustrating thing is, that person thought that by giving me little "allowances" in my time, little breaks in the schedule, I was being afforded an act of charity. It was never understood that it was not "allowances" that I needed, It was ALL of it. MY time. Which I really felt was once more taken from me.

The person understood it as me not having time for my friends anymore just because I had a boyfriend now.

But there is nothing further from the truth. There are some days I WOULD like to be with friends--a lot of days when I DO want to spend time with them. In fact, I miss my friends because I don't get to be with them all that much anymore. I always have the choice, of course. And most times I get too lazy to join the usual gimmicks or dinners out. However, there are many other times when I DO want to join, but decide otherwise. Not because I was lazy but because I couldn't. I was just so scared that once this person got used to me being there again all the time--once more it would feel like a vested right. Once more, it would feel obligatory on my part. And this is not an imaginary concern. This, I speak of from experience.

This friend, of course, was used to us being together all the time. So having the nature that this person did, one couldn't be blamed for being aversive to this change. I understand that. But it cannot always be a setting where my friend is the victim and everyone has to give way. I have been doing that for the past couple of years. It got old, and I got tired. Oblivious to the situation, that person does not realize how many times I have just given in or suppressed what I felt just so the world would seem more fair.

I noticed that the closer people were to this person, more was demanded from them. So the little niceties extended to him/her, that normally would be appreciated by other people would turn out to be insufficient.

Of course, I am grateful for everything done for me. But I don't think the person ever realized that I hardly ever asked for any favors. I never chose to impose upon time which was not my own. I never made my friend feel bad for having to attend to other things.

Then the situation stressed me out so much that I would get teary eyed everytime I had to deal with it--- when I couldn't handle the constant pressure that came from having to deal with the incessant demand for company and favors turned obligatory---when I had to play the role of a mother a father and a yaya apart from being a friend----when I felt that all these things had become unappreciated because all the person wanted was more from me---finally, I decided.

I had to take time to understand myself too.

It has gotten much better since I decided to make that choice. But I know I took the easy way out. Things never really got threshed out. I fear, and am saddened by the thought--that if things persist in this manner, they may take a turn for the worst. Especially with me. Because even if i do not want to be this way, I know I have the capability to write people off when too big of a gap has been established between us. When I feel that true friendship cannot be explored because I am not understood and accepted in my entirety.

This is what eats me up sometimes. How we seemed to have dealt with it only from the surface. How even if this friend of mine tells me everything's okay and understood, the opposite is palpable. How I feel that my situation has been written off as a "neglectful friend" issue.

Even if that were the case, all my other friends know I tend to come off this way. I tend to come off as aloof and neglectful. But those who really know me accept this fact. Because it's not me being neglectful. It's me needing my space.

It's me telling you, "I will be here when you need me, but for the meantime, let me take my drives alone and talk to myself a bit. Because this is what I need."

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It is my fault too. I am perceived as such because I never showed or was brave enough to tell that friend of mine that I am not the person I purported myself to be from the beginning. I am not Miss Buddy-Buddy. I am not Miss I-wanna-be-around-people-all-the-time. I cannot be the person to cling to because it is very hard on me. There are other people who welcome that. But not me. I was not built for that. Even if I tried to live otherwise, the intermittent recluse in me would not permit it.

Now, also, I feel like there is very little similarity between us. Aside from the differences that were unbeknownst to that person, I don't think I'm the person I was when we first became friends. I have tried to make changes in me, which I think would not be compatible to the kind of friendship ours was hinged on. I no longer think the same way. I no longer have the same perceptions. If placed in an empty car, I feel we would have very little to talk about now. But that is nobody's fault. And that is a whole other blog entry.

So this is a problem, you see. Because aside from our fundamental differences, the similarities we used to have are starting to fade in the background as well.

And I never got to say or explain that.

This is why I am so saddened. Because I'm scared I will never get to explain this fully. Because I do not want conflict. I do not want to hurt anyone and i do not want to fight. I am scared of it being taken the wrong way. I would rather live with the fact that I am perceived as the bad guy-- even if I do have a whole other side to say. Even if it breaks my heart about not being able to say it.

I would rather be quiet because I feel like I won't be understood anyway. Like it has happened so many times in the past.



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I digressed, as I tend to do. But you get my point.

There are a lot of things I say that need more room for the saying. If I do not talk to you, it doesn't automatically mean I'm a snobby bitch. It may be brought about by my own insecurities. It may be because of something you have done without you knowing that I do know about it. It may be because of cans of worms I would rather not open. I usually mean well--but I'm just horrible at showing it. It cannot be helped, although I am slowly trying to temper this.

So if this would be of any meaning to you, please don't judge me from what is said about what you hear, or from a happenstance encounter, or from my silence. Sometimes, there is a whole other story to my words and actions--or the lack thereof. Unlike others, transparency terrifies me.

Just so you know. You might not even know me until you do.

It's surprising how the little things can give such a sense of satisfaction sometimes.


I have reconnected with a love I had lost long ago. Driving alone. :)


For those who can relate, I may sound a bit cuckoo here, but there's a certain level of peace in driving to and from a place, and having only yourself and your thoughts as company.


Lately, I've been using it as a time of reflection, from all the stress of the day I had (or was about to have).

I either spend it listening to random songs on the radio and singing my lungs out (not something I can do in public! hehe), or end up just praying a bit, talking to God over what needed to be talked about.

Either that or I spend it observing the people and things around me. Have any of you ever seen Manila Bay at night? It's beautiful. Specially at sunset though, where the waters mingle with the sky and all the colors in between. It's breathtaking. :)


Just another random thought for those who would like to try it. If traffic stresses you out or you regard driving as a burden, I suggest embracing the moment.

You'd be surprised what great company yourself can actually be. :)

I have always thought my life was intoxicating--and honestly, for the most part, I enjoyed it.


Call it a characteristically delayed new year's resolution. But I think this year I would like to be sober for a change.

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I do not claim that I will no longer perceive my life to be a source of the highs I used to revel in...but I think that this time, I would like to find my points of inebriation elsewhere.


In retrospect, there are some parts of my behavior that I truly regret. These random actions, I believe have put many pinpricks in my character. So much of my life as of late has been devoted to ill will. To bad judgment. To misplaced trust.

Or, at the very least, to the excruciatingly superficial.

I regret so many paths of action I chose to take. Whether they be from a sense of vindication, spite, ignorance or lack of depth.

I used to think some actions could be justified by pain. I thought by filling the wrongness of these acts with a sense of right, I could purify them.

But these justifications are no longer good enough. I want to be so much more than a walking justification.


I pray that, for a change, this could be different from so many resolutions unwittingly squandered in the past.


I pray that this year be one of reparation, restoration, and hopefully, construction.



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Well.


I figure, maybe if I put it all in writing then I could breathe a sense of reality into it somehow.


Or at the very least, it could be used in evidence against me. ;)

and then i suddenly realized.
that despite these volatile thoughts that force me to push you away, force you to cut these ties between us, force you to give up on my sorry self. despite everything i put you through.
despite the doubts, the uncertainty, the harshness of my blunt confusion;

it is you. it has always been you.

finally, i can put my sorrows to rest. finally, regret has become unfamiliar.

it is about time. finally, i look for no one but you.

This is all I can say.

In this world, privacy is an illusion. Secrets are nominal.
They burrow their way through holes and cracks and crevices, even if you find yourself unsurrounded by walls.

Trust is equally so.
Never ever think people around you are worthy of your innermost thoughts.
People, by their nature, cannot be trusted. If you decide to choose whom to trust, be wise. It's a sad thing to have your soul wasted on folly.

Disillusionment is brought about by the trusting.
By those naive enough to think that people actually value your right to have your life remain your own.

Those gullible enough to believe that people can be trusted deserve to have their confidences betrayed.
Life has necessary lessons that make us none the wiser until they are taught to us firsthand.

People talk. People will always always talk.
And they will wound you without you knowing, simply because it amuses them.


I have learned to keep silent. About the things that must be left so.

I will talk. And talk. And talk.

But you will never hear me say anything again.

My car's name is Tagpi. I spend a lot of money on him. I ride him whenever I want. This is why I love Tagpi. He was the only one I could ever count on. Or so I thought.

Tagpi broke down today. I was baffled.

It's relatively new. It's never done that to me before. A small part of me feels betrayed. But that's silly of course. Cars, like most people don't have a heart.

But if they were similar to most people than what would make them any different? Maybe I DO have a right to feel betrayed.

Doesn't matter though. I'm having him fixed tomorrow. You know if people could be more like cars this world would be much shinier, happier.

Imagine a world quick-fixable by screws and axle grease.

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In retrospect, that wouldn't be any better though.

Perhaps it would be better to have things break down some days, in order for us to get them fixed the next.

Lawschool is simply a place for all the know it alls in the world to get together and shove sticks up their asses.

It perplexes me sometimes when I think about how much I can love the dream yet hate the components that surround it in equal fervor.

Now I know why people hate lawyers.

Most of them are just a bunch of artificial slimeballs waiting to stab you in the back when you've barely even turned the other way. (By using the stick that they just finished shoving up their ass).

Oh, and I'm studying to be one. Fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic.

Lawschool is one big exercise in faith.
I want to thank God for again following through, for bringing me one step closer to my dreams.
This, I want the whole world to know--because without Him, I am nothing. :)

i am a complicated person, i know.
it will always be a frustrating mix of vacillating from one end to the next, in equal extremity.

the only thing consistent in all the crazy weirdness in my head is the peace of knowing you will always be there to condone it.

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today i said a prayer of thanksgiving.
for the love in my heart and the happiness in my soul.

and for the almosts and the in betweens that in the hurting made everything better than before.

you will forever be my happytime buddy and nappytime pillow.
smile when you read this.
i love you. :)