Where Have All My Friends Gone?

Since I did not organize a birthday lunch this year, I was not able to gather my friends from all those years, mostly from Los Baños, some are Smart:People, a few from way back in elementary and highschool. I do have an idealized perception of our friendships, though in reality, some are deeper than the others. I just would like to quote, like before, from my favorite saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo as he captures perfectly what I feel when I spend time with my friends.

We meet "to talk and laugh together and exchange small acts of kindness; to read well-written books together. Sometimes to tell jokes and sometimes to be serious. To disagree  at times,  but without hard feelings, just as a man does with himself, and the rare occasions of dispute were the very spice to season our usual accord. Each of us had something to learn from the others and something to teach in return. If any were away, we missed them with regret and gladly welcomed them when they came home. Such things as these are heartfelt tokens of affection between friends. They are signs to be read on the face and in the eyes, spoken by the tongue and displayed in countless acts of kindness. They can kindle a blaze to melt our hearts and weld them into one. This is what we cherish in friendship, and we cherish it so dearly that in conscience we feel guilty if we do not return love for love, asking no more of our friends than these expressions of goodwill." (from Confessions as quoted in Saint Augustine, Lover of Truth by Policarpo F. Hernandez, OSA)

Makes Me Wonder

It took a long time before I got to write again in this blog. Judging from the lack of comments, no one is left of my three regular readers. It can only be expected of course, having not posted any tissue-paper-worthy-scribbles here since November last year when I mustered that last of my what passes for my creativity in order to spew out my life-draining rant against my self-imposed hell.

I tried to write one or two posts in the time between that and June this year. There were stories worthy of posting, happy experiences in fact but I just did not have the heart to put everything down into writing. My inkwell was dry. Work had cracked the bottle and it all dripped away.

For a long time, I lacked the desire to get a new one and fill it up again. Something came up which moved me to write again. It's something I had not expected and I had no one else to tell so I just had to write it down. Thankfully, no one's reading.

Nonetheless, I hope to get back to writing senseless stuff. Serious stuff gives me headaches.

Goes Whichever Way

In Braavos they have a saying, "Valar Morghulis!" It translates to the Westerosi "All men must die."

I used to not fear death but I feared dying. The way in which I would pass on into the next life or into the void, whichever you believe, is a very scary prospect for me. I do not wish to die suddenly nor do I wish to die a slow and painful death. I pray that I would die peacefully at a right age when I have done all that needed doing, not yet a shadow of a man but not before I passed my prime. This is a new thing for me. Before, I was ready to die at the age of 25.

After college, I had a five-year plan which included me teaching at the university while I study to earn my Master's degree. I only got to fulfill half of that plan. I got to teach at the university but I fell short of earning my Master's. I guess by the end of the 5th year, I should have gone on ahead and sought a different thing to do but I careless with time and had no real plans so I just deluded myself with the idea that I could still fulfill my plans, if only a little later. It never came. Three years later, I found myself without work at the university but I got in another job in some telco.

It was a bad experience. I had planned to fail. With no safety nets, I was thrust into another job, not a bad job but one that I needed more than they needed me. The change in the working environment was not that difficult to getting used to but I got bored so soon.

It appears that working in a company is purely clockwork. Once you got around knowing what needed doing, it was just that day in and day out. It was worse since I got assigned to business support which meant I just prepared reports generated using some parameter change in some existing script or program. It made me very unhappy. I was doing something a lot easier than what I used to ask my students to work on in class.

So I decided to find a different work and another one came up. Some former colleagues in the university where tapped to be part of this US-based, start-up. It was exciting, they say. We're the pioneers of the company. We're setting the pace and are building the company.

I guess, the word 'pioneers' should have tipped me off. The pioneers, well, they did all the hard work for the future generations and we did all the hard work. The first six months passed like years for me. I wanted out after only half a year.

The pay was good though. For the first time, I was able to build up my savings. I actually had money in the bank that did not get drained down to the maintaining balance before every pay day. So I decided to stay. I sold my time and soul for cash. I can never get the former back and I just pray I have enough strength to get the latter back.

Part of me died everyday I went to work but the people are good and I was not about to leave while there were tasks that needed doing. I was still a dutiful man, if barely. I did what was asked and I did it with as much as I could put in it. However, I no longer cared. I just waited for the payday. Sure I got up everyday and did what I needed to do but I no longer put in my heart or what's left of it. I had nothing more to give. I am burning out. I am a dying ember.

I wanted out but I let myself be remain until now because I do not know where to go next. I no longer know what I want to do with my life. All my dreams have faded away. I have allowed myself to die before my prime. I have become a shadow of a man. It does not matter whether I die at any moment. The world will never know, it will not care.

I made wrong turns along the way and somehow decided that I should just let life drag me along instead of trying to find my way again. I guess I died six years ago.

Looking back, I believe I died at just the right time.

I hope one day I get to live again, though.

Puppy Sick Infatuation

I am infatuated like I'm in highschool, staring dreamily at the object of my desire. I wander off in bouts of lengthy daydreaming, remembering stories of pure fiction with me and my crush in it. It's intoxicating and most of the time, I feel heady, drunk with my own passion, swayed by my own desires.

A friend spoke truth when she said that love begins with a decision, a act of the logical mind to allow one to feel something for another person. From there, the flood gates are opened. You will have to wrestle with the raging emotions in order to regain a semblance of order, to get a foothold and take stock and remember who you were before all the disaster.

I must admit that I was smitten when I got a first look but I let it pass and months later, I got a second look, and a third, and well, shit. I kept looking. Then, one day, I decided to let myself feel, the same way I felt before. The feeling I swore I would not allow myself to feel again. I took a chance. I made an effort.  I spoke first and we talked.

At first, it was small talk but later we were sharing personal things. A little superficial of course: brands of clothes, toiletries and the like. Later came the safe family stories then the embarrassing personal stories. Still later some secrets. I wonder still, why I felt I could share those things that day but I guess I kind of figured it was not a big deal. At least, not when I am sharing it with this person, the one I decided I would like.

Well, we shared stuff. Openly speaking of things I would prefer to tell my confessor.

It was through this sharing that I realized that we were traveling on the same path but are on different parts. Several miles apart with only our talking as the means of connection. It would be next to impossible for us to walk together. Perhaps in another quantum universe, we are together, happy, content. Here, though, we're happy and content in our separate ways and I am made less so with my foolish decision to feel something.

So I decide every night to move on tomorrow but I cannot. I wake up convince I have moved on but I have not. I look forward to Fridays when we could meet and hate every other day especially the weekends since we cannot talk. At least I don't have any excuse to send a message but I make things up and I guess out of courtesy I get a reply.

I know I should not assume anything of the times I got words of encouragement when I complained about work. Kindness is more common than we are led to believe. I know that even though that time, when I was the only one who needed to work late, we both stayed online and chatted until I got offline. I really felt down that time and I know that it was a sign of friendship.

What am I saying? Nothing. Just rambling really. I just needed to get this one out.