Sigh...

gotta love it.

non-permanence

Sunday, April 02, 2006

There is that moment in life when you contemplate on where you are and who you are or on what you have become. Sometimes, when having that special moment to be alone with your thoughts, I mistake it for loneliness. But I guess it is just God’s way of letting me speculate on where my life is right now, who I am to me and to others… for it is easy to get lost and be a stranger, not only to the people you love but to yourself as well.

I find that my thoughts flow more freely after having been touched by a movie. At this moment, Spanglish is the culprit. Sometimes I worry, whether I am becoming dependent on the big screen to translate my emotions for me or let realizations kick in. I haven’t had time to take in the drama or the intrigue going on in my life since high school, where all these things are going on and when everything had to be analyzed. As I grow up, I have come to like that when things are kept simple, life becomes easier. But then, sitting there, seeing all of the imperfections onscreen reflect back to you, I’ve realized, that making life easier just lets me skip obstacles I have to go through. The drama, the hardships…. All of which I had tried to avoid, has let me from experiencing life’s deepest challenge --- living it.

The truth is, I don’t know who I am anymore. I’ve realized that my biggest fear is not settlement for the ordinary, it’s being alone and not being able to handle it. I have to reach that core that everyone’s been trying to get through and be able to find myself within ME. If that makes any sense at all. If all my dreams come true now, I wouldn’t know what to do with it at first because I have no real goals in relation to what I feel. My goals at the moment, is set on what HAS to be done rather than what I FEEL needs to be done. The thought that I have let others dictate my life goals is depressing me. But then, no man or woman, at that, is an island. I am bound to be built by others around me. I am bound to be influenced by external factors…. Those external factors that somehow become part of you ---- your family, your friends.

Sometimes I don’t know how people do it. Or how others live their life solely for another person. Love, in retrospect, for me, is supposed to be this magical thing. MAD. PASSIONATE. Crazy killer and perfectly flawed. Being dazzled by the other’s quality…. Being heightly charmed by a conversation, losing train of thought by just looking at the other person. AWE. Being consumed by your partner’s, how shall I say it, WONDERFULNESS. Having your mind leave rational thought but still be aware of it. I don’t know if I have seen it. For each relationship I see seems to end up flawed in a way that one or the other has to settle for another person’s flawed imperfection. I have not seen flawed perfection yet. And that’s probably the ONLY thing I’m considering settling for. No double negatives. I will settle because of LOVE. Not because of a green card, or because he is gorgeous or great in bed or a millionaire. I will not even settle for the man of my dreams when I see ego drip the moment our eyes meet.

Everyone who has it, seems to want to put on a brave face and let everyone see that everything is just fine and dandy. But you could see the truth in their eyes, hear it in their voice. There is a certain sadness people can’t just fake. And it really saddens ME that they have to. Maybe it’s true. People consistently need to have drama in their life. And settling for another’ person, even if you know one doesn’t love the other as much, even if you know you haven’t reached the height of insane, maybe one needs that thought of not having to settle…. To have that thought that life, as cruel as it maybe now, is not really that cruel, for there is still someone out there waiting to complete it. I can imagine a wife in their mid 30’s looking out the window and thinking these very thoughts. I just hope someday she doesn’t become me.

Tolerance of love is best seen in families. I see that movie and miss my mother. And all her drama of things she doesn’t understand. I realize, all my life, I have been assuring myself that I am smarter, more mature, that I am tolerating her anger because of her stubbornness or her refusal to face reality. What she doesn’t know, well, it doesn’t hurt her, but sure hurts me. This is the drama I had to live with, every time I pick on a fight and my father calls me from overseas and hears my tears. Seeing that movie, makes me realize that, I maybe smarter in some things she refuses to acknowledge and has come to realize. But, she has experienced a lot more that I don’t know about. She has regrets, and young as I am, I don’t sometimes realize that she hides it through her scolds, her taunts and even her need to change helpers every three or four months. Inside, our thoughts are the same. Our feelings are the same. She has her own battles to deal with and I am refusing to acknowledge that she is just human. This humanity in her is what makes me love her.

I have found true love. Mad. Crazy killer and perfectly flawed. That love is my mother. No one makes me crazier than she. I sometimes wonder why my father tolerates her imperfections. Why he sometimes lets her dictate things he knows more about and why he so easily gives up on domestic debates he so easily could win. I thought I was brave to have been fighting his battles for him, every time I give my mother a piece of my mind. Because she just makes me crazy. And I know, the lack of opposition since I’ve left the house in Philippines, is making her crazy as well. Coz only I could get her going as much as she can.

Because unlike any other, I am hers literally.

Crazy, killer and perfectly flawed.

mades [ 3:28 PM ] 2 happy lost cabbages