A walk (out) in the park

Just when I was reminiscing paternal love the past few days, like when one night when my father came to visit us and he sat at the end of my folding bed and I woke up with massive leg cramps, I am reminded today a few of the unpleasant things I've also had to deal with through the years.  I hate to be complaining about these things but I need to let it out ... before I project it on other people and pass on the negative energy.

I remember now that both my parents are avoiders and it makes sense that I've come out an avoider too.  My father is more confrontational, but after huge outbursts and expletives, he's the type who would walk out and leave.  Like my mother, I don't usually get outbursts but I do have my own "quieter" version of a walk out where I try to leave a tense room inconspicuously to avoid unecessary attention.  I discover that this avoidance has since pervaded my life in many other ways, like how I avoid more responsibilities, avoid awkward social situations, avoid driving or moving out, avoid being inconvenienced, avoid pursuing my dreams, avoid my enemies, avoid my friends, avoid myself.

So, where do I go from here?  How do I choose my battles?  What do I deal with first?  Myself?

F*ck.  I am stubborn and I know I will put up a fight.  But if I successfully slay this inner demon, then everything else would be a walk in the park.

What is the meaning of life

I know it doesn't make sense why I do this but somehow I have to follow my gut instinct.  It has not always brought me positive results, but it's the only way I know how to live my life.  I don't exactly have a lot of friends, and alienating myself from even my closest friends of many many years, seems to be a bad idea, but I feel I need to go through this, this sudden death, this need to deal with withdrawal and its effects on me in order for me to find focus and to see other things in my life I have been neglecting.

No I am not okay, but I am not down in the dumps yet either.  I have to do what I have to do to convince myself that I can make it out on my own for the time being.  I need to let go of many things I have been holding on to, but most especially, my need for attention;  to keep myself from thinking that a particular person will save me from this huge tantrum I've created for myself.   I need to stop being so pathetic and immature towards myself because I am and can be a strong person to other people.  I value the advice I give to others, the brutal, tough honesty that I feel they need to hear.  I need this tough dose for myself right now.

I am not well, but I am definitely not sick either.  I have to stop wallowing in this self-imposed drama mode I fall back on every time things don't go my way.  I have to take in more responsibility and start moving.  I cannot continue having the mind of a college student.  I do not need to go back to school to gain skills I need for work (and life in general).  I do not need to be constantly supported by friends and be given their attention.   They do not owe me anything and whatever successes they are enjoying now, are the products of years of hard work.  I believe in having good luck, but without hard work and a thorough knowledge of the status quo, any surreptitious blessings that come my way I would not readily recognize, much more be able to maximize.  The purpose of life is to learn.

I will never find the purpose of life if I refuse to take more responsibilities, make mistakes and be accountable for them. 

Escape artist

I guess it'll never get easy, the sadness I feel when I say goodbye to my father each time he goes home, and how everytime he's here, we experience the spectrum of emotions in a short cycle; of apathy, joy, anger, resignation ...  And how each time the subject of the future will be mentioned, it will always be evaded with such routine precision.

Now I find myself doing the same, avoiding anything I can't deal with at the moment.  I drift into my own little world to try to find the time I need to deal with the matter effectively ... or just wait for it to go away.  They keep coming back to haunt me the more I avoid and I know this cat and mouse chase cannot go on forever. I know that but I don't exactly know what to do.  I have become so dependent on this escape routine that I have learned and it's so far affected almost all my social interactions.

And true to who I am, I feel the way I can deal with this coddling is to escape it, to move out.  Go cold turkey on this dependence.  I need to learn to stand on my own two feet without needing to hold someone's hand all the time.

Somehow I also need to let go of the things that inspire me in order to let go of the clutter it brings in my life. There is no more space for frivolity.  There is no room for dreams I can no longer pursue.

Of face shapes and behavioral patterns

So the past week I had been struggling with my eyesight, specifically my right eye, which has become a bit blurred and had me winking and blinking excessively as I browsed through Facebook and all the other online stuff.  I haven't worn glasses since 2006 when I had astigmatism from looking at the computer screen all day at work.

What luck!  I still have those metal-frame glasses and they still fit uncomfortably on my face like the first day I wore them.  The rubber guard on one its right arm is nearly torn off so I had to tape the flesh back to cover the bone.  I'll get myself a new pair one of these days.

I did a bit of research last night about the shape of my face and it turns out it's diamond.  My face shines bright like a diamond, which explains why it's so difficult for me to find a pair that I like.  Apparently, I need semi-rimless frames.

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And so it used to be that when I had these deep emotional turmoils, I could always call a friend over the phone or meet them in person to try to talk these things out in hopes of finding epiphany or at least a sense of understanding of what is really happening with me (or with them).  But as we grow older, the list of close friends becomes smaller and smaller and I have lost a few people along the way for reasons like migration, artistic differences, or parenthood, which is normal.

I feel somewhat lost, not knowing who I can talk to when I feel the way I do.  When before I would be anti-social with my family, now it's quite the opposite -- I spend most of my time with family, acting out normal and whatnot.  But I've become anti-social with my friends as a weird consequence.  I would not repond to text messages, calls, Facebook messages, Viber, etc.  I've become selective somewhat, of who gets to know how I am and who I feel would not understand or would make me feel judged.

After a long search for what has been going on with me, through the help of a friend I've realized that I've come to temporarily avoid the people who I feel do not understand me or would not understand why I am acting the way I do.  Actually, it's not even that;  it's the avoidance of people who make me feel inadequate.  It's not their fault if they're successful and I am not bitter about their successes.  I just feel like somewhere along the busyness of corporate life and Facebooking without depth, the friendships have suffered.  I've lost that sense of depth when communicating with them.  It's all about work, travel, fashion, food ...

As your friend I want to learn more about you.  Your fears, your secrets, your anxieties.  I also want to know that you would be available for me the way I am for you, that you would hear me out and not judge because I would do the same for you.

Perhaps this is just a phase in the cycle of friendships.  Maybe at this point in time, it's not at its best and it's in its astigmatic haze.  Yes I do like to throw tantrums, but if you were a real friend you would deal with my shit and not ignore the behavior until it goes away.  The behavior is there for a reason.

Trend of Thought

I have entered into another a-social mood swing but unlike the previous three episodes of my depressive demeanor, this one seems to have evolved differently, semi-permeable like protoplasm.  Notice the term "a-social" and not "anti-social" for in this new case, it is not that I am devoid of interpersonal communicativeness, it's perhaps the lack of communicative depth from those familiar to me.  I do speak to people, mostly the people I live with, and maybe a few times electronically or over social networking platforms.  However, this episode seems to have me become randomly selective with my responses, as if I willingly choose to not reply at times, feeling like a compulsion not to, as if I gave up on the idea of connection because like everything else, I find no purpose nor desire to find purpose.

It is not a heavy emotion and there is no weighing down or heaving of my chest.  There is no spike in the graph; it lingers on and drones my ears like a long flat line.  But I can still smile, I can still laugh, I can still feel sexy or frustrated or exuberant.  A part of me wants to close off totally, and yet the other half mirrors an equivalent and opposite desire to keep hanging on, to keep browsing through news and new posts.  There is no longer that want to comment or to be heard; so this happens as a result, a visitation to an old friend, a past record of my journey that I dare not read anymore.  I want to feel happy for them, and yet I also want to feel sorrow for some, but the expression just doesn't come out.  My fingers tap through the screen, wi-fi on, wi-fi off, location on, location off, home, home, home ... keypad locked.

I think I cannot run from it, this greyness that permeates the sky that fills my thoughts with feelings of peace.  I cannot seem to take a nice picture of it, nice enough to post in this entry.  I cannot even imagine why I would keep checking my portable phone for messages when I know everybody else is busy being online and living their own lives.  Like those friendswho live across the sea, who after exchanging messages with you just stop replying.  Ahh ... perhaps they already got what they wanted.  And they feel peace knowing I am still breathing, I am still checking; I am capable of formulating a plan B and plan C.  So after that brief encounter, like a business meeting, I am expected to pursue these letters and not be so disjuncted or be loserly in isolation.  No, I am too busy cancelling appointments and ruining friendships.

It would be immature of me to blame people because that is something you see on TV and you absolutely hate those persons who don't want to be accountable for their actions, and those contestants who provoke them you call cunts.  I understand that, after all I am slow but not stupid.  And I would like to say that there are problems we are aware of, such as the need to have a haircut or to figure out how to convince those guys you are what they're looking for.  Click, click, click.  Whatever happened to the long curly cords?  Everything is wireless, everything comes in waves.  Maybe I can ride this wave like I did the other three.

How do I convince the person on the other line that my plan will work?  How do I convince them that I am not a mistake?  How do I stop myself from comparing myself to my friends and family, from hurting myself with my own harmful self-image, with my paranoia that the people I care most about think less of me each day that passes?  What reasons can I say to them to avoid seeing them, to avoid being asked how I am, of disappointing them when I reply to "why" instead of "how"?  How do I stop caring about what you had for breakfast, what new thing you acquired, what new service you're hating, or how you're taking on your own demons in stride.  

I don't know if I need help because I should not be needing it.  I was given more than the basics and consider myself luckier than most.  I don't know.  I don't know how to respond to that.

fever

feverish. these red eyes need not stare

apart from what is already seen.

brooding. thou art more lovely

and more temperate.

it is not affection, a toilsome task.

not love, which even blood

embarrasses. the heart, traipsing

on what perhaps could be illegal.

turbulence. it is magnetic, and sharp

like a knife, with its obsession with idiosyncrasy.

only here i bare

for i will not be caught.

The Wolves

A pack of wolves, they had said affronting the demise of attractiveness. She pursued, determined and deaf to the advice she didn't seek to find that beyond the sulking forest life hid the death of her curious ills. She had nothing to protect herself with except her nagging persistence, a red riding hood that made her invisible to her own wounds. With each little step, the forest grew darker, the bark and skins became hardened amber, the leaves became green and jaded. There was a frightening howl from the inside she heard this from across the path like ghosts circumventing the heart of graveyards. Her way forked into not just two paths, but four, each way representing the call to elements -- life, money, career, and love -- split before her like four suits to a deck of cards, where, to pick one card would mean to deal with the whole pack. And on this nook she had been affronted by a pack of wolves. They had said too much to the ill demise of her naivete.