Why do we pretend? that something is there when it's not? or its flipside-- when it's staring you down at your face and you choose to look the other way? Maybe pretending makes it easier for us to get by..like function in a daily basis. Or maybe we don't realize how broken we are, really. It could also be fear. Fear of what could be, what had been and avoiding it as a result. Some embellish their world of make believe and fill their lives with things...people that seem to fit. While some run away hoping that what they left behind stay left behind. Only to be blindsided by this truth that couldn't go away. I'd like to get out of my make-believe. It's time. Maybe you should, too. Don't wait. The sky glows. I see it clearly with my eyes closed. we hear their warnings but we both know we're going to look at it again. This is real, we are real, despite ourselves.

Currently listening to: Don't wait--Dashboard Confessional
Minz is: inlove

I did it. I finally did it.
After three months of second-guessing myself and of wondering how to walk away from a previous commitment, I broke my word and accepted the offer to be corporate counsel for one of the country's top ten companies. And I am happy. I have no qualms admitting it. Not because I didn't get the backlash I expected from the former would-be employer or that Coeli, my friend and relative of the former would-be employer, was even too ecstatic that I accepted the job, I am happy because this is what I wanted, afterall.

For awhile I thought I'd take a different path, keep a nine-to-five job, take the bus from the condo to Manila City Hall, eat a packed lunch of rice and ulam in a supot, get a quickie pedicure from a manicurista stationed beside our courthouse, earn thirty thousand pesos a month. An easy and hassle-free government job. I dreamt of a simple, simple, simple day for a change. To hell with the money or the prestige. I wanted to be able to say that my work was noble.

A lot has changed this past few months. Being a bum for this long has certainly put a clamp on the finances, this is probably the first consideration that prodded my change of heart. I've a daughter to think of and I've learned to shun some of the things I wanted eversince I had her. But then again I would be copping out if I make myself believe that my decision would be any less different if I were single and did not have a care in the world. Because it woudn't.

I took this job because I like wearing my suits and not feel overdressed in the workplace, I like my java-chip frappucinno to start my morning and not feel guilty because it is half a day's pay for the rest of my workmates, I like taking my lunch out and having a choice of what and where to eat or not to eat at all, I like to stay forever in the spa because relaxing is something I can't hurry, I like driving myself because this is when I ponder upon my joys and pains. There are so much more that it is humiliating to write it all down.

I took this job so I can just live without money ever having to matter.

So like the many other developments in my life, there was so much more than I thought I wanted. And I can't keep dodging them or apologizing for them anymore.

I'm done.

Minz is: relieved

If there was one thing that my New York soujourn has brought about permanently in my life and changed it, it will be blogging. It started out as quest to chronicle my thoughts, feelings, mishaps and what nots for my daughter, who was then left motherless at 11 months. I figured that the very least her runaway mom could do is attempt to explain what went on in her runaway head that flew her 10,000 miles away. It was a struggle in the beginning (as it still is sometimes) to find the right words, to capture the moment, to describe what eludes description, to reveal or become the revelation. It was tough to share pieces of one's self when one did not necessarily want to share it in the first place. So I took a step back and went from blogging to bloghopping.

Then, very much like how a dear friend described taking the bar exams, 'it was like the sky opened up with all the answers for me". That's how I felt and still feel everytime I discover a connection, albeit invisible, but not any less heartfelt in an entry, in someone's corner of the blogosphere that makes my spirit soar, my faith restored, my tearducts active, my belief that in our many experiences, we are still one despite our differences. That we are all connected somehow.This is how bloggers, through our words, attempt to reach out to each other and touch or be touched.

I bumped into a someone's corner today and realized how small this world has become. I thought her name sounded familiar so I kept on reading her entries. And then I remembered an English class (was it English 12 or 13?) in Ateneo and a rather quiet girl who seemed to know everyone in class. I remembered the name and the face, nothing more. Never spoke to her. Never shared lab work or a table in Manang's. Never really knew her--until today in her blog. I'd like to share a piece of it here, an ode to words touching lives, bringing them together, inspiring, teaching hope, revealing to the world the beauty of blogging.

Enjoy.



You Will Never Hear My Heart Breaking

You will never hear my heart breaking
It shatters into a million pieces
And yet my heart is mute
And you are deaf.

You will not hear my sobs
These cries of anguish that escape
From my soul,
But not from my lips
For my lips smile when you are near
Yet my eyes hide
The tears that will not come out.

My peace is an illusion
As is your love.

But I know
That without my peace
Your world will crumble
And without your love
My world will end.

And so we stand here
Deaf,
Mute,
Blind.

Indeed, love is blind
The heart has gouged its eyes out
For love cannot see
What is truly in the heart of man--
Darkness
An abyss that extends to eternity
A nothingness
That love believes to be serenity,
Peace.

My peace is an illusion
As is your love
But you will never hear my heart breaking

* * *
-------Nina Terol, aspoonfulofsugar.blogspot.com

I'm wondering if we're okay....

Minz is: lonely

"Gil,

You know I love you. I feel I've loved you forever.

Lately I haven't been feeling very well. Truth be told, I'm tired.

Out in the desert, under that car that night, I realised something and I haven't been able to shake it.

Since my father died, I spent almost my entire life with ghosts. We've been like close friends and out there in the desert, it occured to me, that it was time for me to bury them. I can't do that here.

I'm so sorry.

No matter how hard I try to fight it off, I'm left with a feeling that, I have to go. I have no idea where I'm going, but I know I have to do this. If I don't, I'm afraid I'll self-destruct, and worse, you'll be there to see it happen. Be safe.

Know that I tried very hard to stay. Know that you are my one and only. I will miss you with every beat of my heart. Our life together was the only home I've ever really had. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I love you...I always will.

Goodbye."

Currently watching: CSI Las Vegas
Minz is: in tears

I took my buddy of 10 years, G, to one of my recently-discovered bars in the city. I told her I was there a week ago and thought that it was a nice place to chill, grab a couple of beers and listen to long-haired men dish out Lovers'Moon and Dust in the Wind with their fiddles and guitars. I'm feeling a little sentimental lately, I told her. It might be a result of my being a bum for months now, whatever. But I am. All cheese.

So we went down our memory lane to the time when we first met in lawschool. Young, giggly and hungover from college. She was madly inlove with a childhood friend who happened to be a priest. While I never expected I'd know someone who's inlove with a priest. Heck, she could say say the same for herself, she probably never thought she'd be friends with a girl who was going out with another girl. That was us ten years ago.

Fast forward to a few years and another law school later where we lived on the edge, literally. We tripped over how one night's gimmick brought us to a precint bailing out another friend who accidentally busted someone's car enroute to Music 21 in Malate. We somehow managed to get her out, bring her home and still make it to Music 21 where we sang our esophagus out until morning.

Time came when she took the bar and passed. Told her the Ferreros that C and I supplied her did the trick. We left Forbest that day rip roaring drunk only to realize we would be drunker the next day, consoling our friends who failed. Mas nakakalasing pala maki shot sa mga bumagsak.

And then there was one time we fought. No, she was the one doing all the fighting. I was the one left outside her house, crying. She caught me fooling around with a boy one night, in a bar where both the boyfriend and the other guy were there. She left in a huff, my boyfriend at her heels, asking, "What's wrong G?" and she, in her standard M.O.,answered " You woudn't wanna know!". I chased after her, banged on her doors, called her cellphone all night to no avail. She didn't speak to me for a month that left me devastated. I confessed to the boyfriend, didn't care if he broke up with me--all I knew it would be the only way G would talk to me again. She did and everything was allright again.

Fast forward to a few years ago, in one bar exam where we saw the loves of our lives with other women. I saw hers , holding hands with a chic wearing puta shorts in a five-star hotel. She saw mine, with the PAO girl on his bed in the same god-forsaken, five-star hotel. I thought this crap only happened in some korean telenovela or in some Aga Muhlach movie, but no. It happened to us. And it hurt like hell. It broke me. It broke us. We drank the day after--it was a Monday and I never drink on Mondays. That was the only time. And the tears flowed like a it wasn't ever going to stop.

She stayed with him. I left.

And then there is us, now. Reliving what came before, what changed and what did not. And how she will be climbing on that plane in a few weeks, chasing her American dream, so that she wouldn't be left with what ifs and what could've beens. I told her, go because she's got the world in the palm of her hands. And I , I will just be here.

'ala Carole King circa 70's, "You just call out my name, and you know wherever I am, I'll come running."

I guess what I really wanted to say is that G, I miss you already. What we had, I would'nt trade for anything.

So here i am tripping over Jewel's new single (is it still new or i'm just way out of touch?) in you tube and silently commending the girl for coming back to her roots. I'd say it's about time she realized pop wasn't for her, she is meant to do country soul. So there.

Sometimes we need to be boinked in the head to seriously wake up and smell the cappuccino. (no, this post is not about mina's fantasyland yet again) This is as real as it gets, for me at least.

Santi and I have been picking each other's heads lately about some people in our lives and how we feel they are trying so hard to put up a front (only God knows why). He says I get too affected by it when it's really none of my effing business. I guess he is right (again, hubby always is with stuff like these) but me being me, is being stubborn, again. Drat. I'll let it fly anyway.

Cases in point:

Mina goes out to unwind on some random friday night, someone sneaks in a cigarette and puffs it like it's going out of style, lights up again and does the same thing over again while checking the perimeter if the significant other is anywhere near the scene of the crime. I wanted to light all of the darn things up for him, at one point. Poor thing.

Unless you live in a cave or something, there is a revolution going on. One against nicotine by the millions of smokers trying to beat it. I'm all for it. Smoking kills. But quit for yourself, for your own reasons and not for anybody else. Plus if you're smoking when someone is not around, then you haven't really quit, have you?

On another friday night (i swear my friday nights are so eventful), rumor has it that a friend wants another friend back. You know, John lloyd and Bea's One More Chance type of thing. In my most objective, unsolicited opinion, I think the other friend also wants the same thing. So they tapdance around each other, waiting, pining, wasting time. Pride. Ego. And, syempre, the universal excuse I like best.
It's complicated.

It's so friendster.

Of course there are complications, there always is. Sometimes I feel we live just trying to get around it. But when you find the one you want, grab it and run. Don't look back and wonder if it's the right type, make or kind.This is not the Spanish Grand Prix. And you are sure as hell not Schumacher. This is about the state of your heart, you know that organ in your left chest that beats? When you know, you just damn know.

I admit that I might be a little too adamant here. But here is someone who has spent too much time wasting time. I'm smoking again. It's simply not my time to quit, that's all. There are people I can't help loving so what? I'm dealing with it. At least I've stopped running around in a maze, running away from my shadow. I happen to like myself this time which brings me back to Jewel's single.

i think it's dope.


I'm gonna love myself more than anyone else
Believe in me, even if someone can't see
A stronger woman in me

I'm going to be my own best friend
Stick with me till the end
Won't lose myself again, never, no,
'Cause there's a stronger woman,
A stronger woman in me