The Blooming with(out) You

So, let me be resigned

With this path of happiness

That does not need

You

Who break my heart

Everytime you can.

It cannot break anymore

For you and with you.

It refuses to.

Take your flowers
with you. Like our love,
it will never bloom, too.

ANO RAW?

Friend: E kayo, kelan kayo magpapakasal ng boyfriend mo?
Girl: Ewan ko ba dun. Sabi nya pag hindi raw nag end of the world ng 2012.
Friend: Paano kung nag-end of the world?
Girl: Edi wala. End of the world na diba?

ANG LABO!

Overheard in Agave, Serendra

SOMETHING BORROWED: A Discussion

"We need to discuss."

That was the definite conclusion that we all came up with after watching the very divisive movie that is Something Borrowed. We can outline it into a number of chapters, in my mind the issues at hand are the following:

1. Is he or is he not into you.
2. Would you REALLY fall for your best friend’s guy?
3. Should a girl tell a guy how she feels at the risk of being too aggressive?
4. Should you fall for a really good friend at the risk of losing the friendship?

Let’s start with issue number one…

CHAPTER ONE

Is he or is he not into you? A.K.A. It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.

“I didn't think someone like you could like someone like me,” -Rachel, Something Borrowed

We’ve seen it happen a million of times before. You spend time with a person, really have fun and spend those precious moments before you sleep, thinking, “Hey, he could really be into me too!” But that only consumes a few minutes, heck, a few seconds of your thinking time. For the rest of the night, you over exhaust yourself rationalizing and keeping your feet, and your heart pretty grounded. You start to think of reasons why he can’t like you. I mean, for a logical and emotionally beaten up person, you can think of an infinitely many reasons why he is only being a friend. Plus, this whole self esteem issue just can’t be shaken off, completely. I mean, for a woman lawyer, it is true that we have such high standards. Although we’d always dismiss this hypothesis by saying that we only want to end up with a decent guy, how we define this decent guy is a totally different story.

So, that’s where the problem starts, for someone who has high standards, we rarely get attracted to regular guys, and these non-regular guys, we feel, may be out of our league.  When we feel a connection, or when we feel that it may be safe to start assuming that there could be mutual attraction, you can depend on the fact that we have already jumped the gun by being our suspicious selves. We work hard to be THE GOOD FRIEND. Yes, we find safety in that not-so-comfortable net that is being in the FRIEND ZONE.

Then, a hot girl comes along, the fun, free-spirited one - she may be a friend, an acquaintance who just happens to be there to constantly remind us geeks that well, our guy can do better. I will let you in on a little secret - we also are easily discouraged. When we feel that the object of our affection has turned his attention to a hot woman, even for a millisecond, we act like it’s absolutely okay, like we never are offended or hurt – but believe you me, hell breaks loose in our hearts and minds. That’s when we start withdrawing ourselves from the conversation and let the hotter woman take center stage. We can be the most competitive bunch in a legal court, but we are such sissies in that court that is ruled by the heart.

Then we let it pass. We move on thinking that it was not worth fighting for in the first place. I mean, really, wouldn’t a guy do everything, and I mean everything to make the woman that he likes know that he likes her? There shouldn’t be any “Are you okay with this?”-like questions. If he really liked me, and even if I let him talk freely with the hotter girl, he should have reached for my hand to at least assure me that it is me whom he’d want to talk with. He should have sat beside me and poured all his attention on me, despite the hotter girl’s persistence.

In the ideal world, I guess. 

This is why you should never, ever get your hopes up. This is why you should see the glass as half empty. So when the whole thing spills, you aren’t as devastated."— Emily Giffin (Something Borrowed)

-To be continued-

The Proposal

And without any word, he knelt with one knee,

Offering what would seem like an engagement

Ring to the one he loves. His eyes, shining

With tears and his lips, quivering

In anticipation of her uncertain reply.

“I love you, please let me love you more.”
She took the ring, looked into the eyes

of the boy who has turned into a man

right before her very eyes and said,

“Ang arte  mo.”

He knew. It

was her answer

to his non-question.

Of Turning Tables, Eleven Minutes and Breakfast at Tiffany's

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it – which of these two attitudes is the least destructive? I don’t know.

-Eleven Minutes

Let me talk about that thin line between being insensitive and careful. When I was younger, I must say that I did not have restraint. I will assume wholeheartedly, fall in love fully, and get my heart broken carelessly. But that’s just it, right? In the end, I realized that you break your heart when you’re careless, when you do not protect yourself above all, and when you allow yourself to freefall, not knowing what lies beneath.

What do they expect? Having chosen adventure, shouldn’t they be prepared to go the whole way? Or do they think that the intelligent thing to do would be to avoid the ups and downs and spend all their time on a carousel, going round and round on the spot?

-Eleven Minutes

Through the years, I have learned the art of being suspicious, of finding the security of friendship and companionship more logical to seek over wild and no holds barred love, and have mastered the game of not giving meaning to things that in the past might happily make me jump into the conclusion that someone is into me. I have, at present, acquired the label of being insensitive, or more appropriately, of being “manhid.” I don’t mind, really. It’s more peaceful this way. Yet, there is a catch. Look where it got me. It may be summed up with one statement that has been a constant running joke in our wee hour conversations, and drinking sprees, “Sinong mag-isa ngayon?”

You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.  -Breakfast at Tiffany’s

So now, I am at a crossroad. I don’t think I can ever go back to being careless, especially since at this point in my life, I cannot commit as many mistakes as I could when what was at stake was at a minimum. On the other hand, it sometimes makes me wonder if this path of “kamanhidan” (insensitivity) suits me well, or has just created more problems instead of resolving past issues. The only wonderful thing is that I don’t get hurt anymore.

Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just a part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back where I came from because I didn’t have the courage to say “yes” to life?

-Eleven Minutes

It could be why I like Adele’s Turning Tables, the first time I heard it. I can relate. I don’t let anyone close enough to hurt me anymore. And in the process, I don’t let anyone close enough to love me too. So, the questions remain…

Is it really time to say goodbye to turning tables? Or should we just go ahead and make the most out of them?

Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other. Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction.

-Eleven Minutes

Life's a Beach.

"Waves are selfish entities, they push and pull you,without thought or regard. You are my wave. Carry me away."


“Miss is a funny word, one moment it can mean longing when in the next it can mean never.”

What would you do when you run out of things to give?

Excerpt from Jessica Zafra's "Aunt Janey’s Old-Fashioned Agony Column # 10: A return on your emotional investment"

"If you wish to win someone’s affections, never give that person gifts for the purpose of making him grateful to you. Gratitude can become a very heavy obligation and often leads to resentment. Whoever employs such a tactic immediately becomes transparent and will be prone to abuse. You can also be perceived as manipulative and you will definitely be detested and your gifts, no matter how grand, will be viewed with distaste, unless your beneficiary is as callous as I am. Generosity is finding joy in giving without expecting anything in return. Generosity begets friendship and even love. In romance, spreading your arms and legs and baking the man’s bread in your oven will not bind that man to you. Marriage will not help. He must want to be with you because of who you are and not because you give him nice things. What would you do when you run out of things to give?"

The Cycle

“I am absolutely certain that despite the odds, I love her.”

She looks at him, with pursed lips and a raised eyebrow while signaling to the obviously eavesdropping waiter to give them an ashtray. “Well, I know exactly how you feel. Although, I still cannot grasp your brilliant idea of ‘fessing up to me when you cannot even find it in your heart to reveal the identity of this muse of yours. You suck.” She opens her little purse that houses her pack of Marlboro Lights and gets a stick.

He lights her cigarette up, and pushes the ashtray to her side of the table. “Her identity is immaterial, mainly because you don’t know her and you cannot, in even the slightest way, contribute to how I can lure her into looking my way.”

“First, you should really stop hanging out with me when you are in love, it’s annoying, YOU ARE ANNOYING. Second, didn’t I just say that I know how you feel?”

“You have no idea.”

“Of course I do. I know the drill. There is a non-guy in my life too. I will give everything, and I mean everything, including my last stick of cigarette on a really stressful day, for him to look my way. But all he sees in me is this girl SPACE friend that he can smoke with and confide to. I mean, you’ve seen him with me, right? We are perfect for each other. He’d hold my hand and I’d hold his, and what do I get? Nothing. I listen to him rant on and on and on about this girl whom he claims to be the one, and I just sit there, nodding while I study his face, his lips, his eyes. I know him, more than anyone can and ever will know him. I know that he shuts up when he’s mad, I know that he does that knee-jerking action when he feels stressed or that he is never ever confrontational. I also know that he purposely never replies so he won’t appear too needy. I know that sometimes, he concocts feelings for other women to conceal that he is head over heels in love with this woman that he indirectly tells me stories about. He pretends to like going out, just so it won’t seem like he is lonely. But I know that he is. He’s not the partying type. He loves to write poetry, to read good books, to have coffee on a perfectly peaceful day. He loves conversations, not the drunken ones, his eyes light up when he is in an intellectually stimulating discussion about life. He likes to drink, not to get drunk but to appear as drunk and be free from other people’s expectations of him. I know that when he’s judged, he gets hurt and never forgets. And I am absolutely certain that despite the odds, I love him.”

“You are such a drama queen.” He puts his arm around her, “But believe me, inspite of your monologue reminiscent of an asthma attack, you clearly have no idea of what we’re dealing with here.”

She allows her weight to fall towards him and her body to be enveloped in his arm. “Maybe.” She looks up, her expression softened by his post-ranting evaluation of her. “I’m sure, whoever she is… she’ll come around.”

           

“I hope she does.” He slowly pulls away, “I want her to get what she wants.”

On the other side of the room, the eavesdropping waiter told his peers, “Bill daw nun dalawang pa-fall.”

Love Letter No. __.

Dear You,
Last night, in between that unrecognizable silence after the first song and before the next, I would find myself reaching out for your hand, only that I did not see your hand, and more significantly, that you were not there. I did look for you, in the crowd, so exhaustively that it seemed appropriate to shout.

Breaking away from the party, I looked up and watched in awe as colors burst from the sky. While altering smiling with smoking, with resignation I told myself, "It is true. Some things are meant to be shared with you."

Merry Christmas, Darling. Mistletoes suck without you.

Cheers,
Me.

Until Then, Twenty Ten!

So, it’s that time of the year again, when everything is heightened and emotions are exaggerated and what seemed like a clear delineation between what is real and fiction becomes a broken line. It’s time to look back, shake your head in amusement and well, disbelief while counting both your blessings and mistakes.

Say it with me, “It’s been a good year, dammit!”

If people interpret my blogging to be directly proportional to my issues, then my inability to blog about what’s been happening with me as often as I used to may also be interpreted as an indication of how smooth-sailing and stable my life has been this year. In fact, although 2010 had quite a rocky beginning, you know with that “WAITING FOR BAR RESULTS” sign flashing all over the place up until April, it was, hands down, one of the most stable years of my life.

I have quite a number of things to be thankful for, and this blog, above all, is a celebration of people: People who came into my life, people who voluntarily left and those whom, despite seeing what this hullabaloo that is EUNICE is all about, decided, with some humorous twist of fate, to stay. I see myself more like a stopover for those whom I interact with, and the small number of people whom eventually stick it out with me through thick and thin are those whom I am meant to travel with as I crawl and sometimes, sausage roll my way to DESTINY.

But this would not be a Eunice entry without that contemplation on how my life has been scoring in the LOVE DEPARTMENT. I have finally found the perfect sport to describe love, thanks to the Philippine Azkals and well, World Cup (Disclaimer: I still am clueless about the technicalities of football. All I know is that it involves a bunch of hot men, running around and trying to score, for a loooooooooong period of time. SUE ME.) I think, LOVE really is more like football, you work hard in trying to defend your goal, and it takes some time before you can score a point or two, but when you do, everyone who’s been watching you and supporting you from the sidelines celebrate with you. And even if you don’t, you’ll be happy to call it a day, hope for the best and be thankful that you survived the game, with a little muscle pain to remind you of how tough it is to be in THAT field. Most importantly, if you’re lucky, THERE WILL BE HOT SHIRTLESS MEN waiting for you in the locker room. Bright side, people, bright side.

And even if at times, I feel like a loser for basing my mood on how my favorite TV series ended in its last episode, and even if there are quite a number of moments when I still feel like I am lonely and in desperate need of human warmth, generally, 2010 has been a year of celebrations. It didn’t hurt that I have the best group of people one could ever hope for in trying to make it through this battlefield that we call life. And yes, even if my alcohol consumption has been cut into, I’m guessing, half, admittedly, the best moments are not when we sip our ice cold glass of whatever, but when we RAISE OUR GLASSES and acknowledge that what PINK said was true,

So if you're too school for cool,
and you're treated like a fool,
you can choose to let it go
we can always, we can always, 
party on our own.

Until then, Twenty Ten!

"You know that thing that when God closes a door, he opens a window? Well, sometimes out of nowhere he’ll throw you one better. He’ll take a whole wall down... "
-GLEE 2.08 "FURT"