MRT strangers, random train stops, lost tickets

WARNING: This is full of comeback-post (CbP) drama from me who had been busy NOT blogging for the past few months. 

DISCLAIMER: This is not my real CbP, but I figure less drama for the holiday mood is way way way better. Maybe I'll post my real CbP when there is less of the happy air Christmas season always brings. Yeah, this is "Less" drama. *wink*

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You were on your way to an important meeting, waiting for the next train to come. The station is crowded with people you don't know, it's as normal as it can get. Then in a crowd  full of nobody, you see familiar features, so you focus your eyes to see if it also has a familiar face. It has that thoughtful look you used to love, fresh from a frown that used to make you wonder what makes him worry. In a place with hundreds of strangers, you finally recognized someone. And then you looked harder and realized that no, you don't know this person. Not anymore. It feels awkward to realize that he's more of a stranger now than the others crowding him. He looks exactly the same, except for the new haircut and weird get-up, but deep inside you feel how different he is. He is no longer the man you used to love. He is no longer that someone that can make you cry by merely existing. He looks happy. He looks content. It makes you proud and sad at the same time. It makes you ashamed to feel bad about something that is supposed to be beautiful and great. But you can't blame yourself. You take comfort from the thought that 'hey, I'm just human.'

People start to move again. Frantic. The train has arrived. The familiar rush everyone seems to have does not bother you at all the way it always has. Not today, not at this moment. You forgot about your important meeting. You let people pass so they can get on the train first. You don't even feel the annoyance you always feel when people looks ready to kill just to be able to go in first. You convince yourself that the train is too crowded anyway, and there is always the next train. Few people on the platform remained, he's about fifteen steps away. You don't know if you should smile to him, maybe call out and say hi. It takes a lot of courage to face the very reason you're so afraid to love again. When a person walks away from you without even sparing a glance back, you don't easily forgive them. But then you really miss him... his smile, his smell, his trusting brown eyes... everything. Then he started to walk away before you were able to make up your mind. To go somewhere other than ride the next train. It struck you to realize he doesn't really care. Not anymore. After some time of self-inflicted painful emotions, you were able to make yourself move again. You go with the flow, back to the normal world where you now belong. You still think some of the thoughts. You still feel some of those feelings. Then you close your eyes and you take a deep breath. You turn on your Mp3 player and shut the outside world. You decided to come back to your present and let the rythym of a familiar song and the shake of the moving train knock you out from your reveries.

Until the end of the meeting, over frappes and cakes, with people who are never out of something funny to say, you were still trying to decide what hurts the most... that he can walk away just like that, or that you never really believed he can.

On the way back home, it was not as busy. It doesn't make any difference. Yet you know something has changed. You smile to yourself. It was time to move on again.

Hmmmmmmm.

The worst things in life come free to us

Cause we're just under the upper hand

And go mad for a couple grams

And she don't want to go outside tonight

And in a pipe she flies to the Motherland

Or sells love to another man

It's too cold outside

For angels to fly

Angels to fly...

the untitled story

The hater and the hated. The bestfriend and the lover. The soulmate and the spouse. The ghost and the hunted. The cactus and the dessert. The superhero and the villain-free city. The lemon and the vodka... How does it feel like to be THE irony in an ironic story? It's like choosing just one in every two options I just mentioned. Some of them sounds good (like soulmates and superheroes and lemons and vodka), but they can only be good if they serve the purpose of their existence. Without meaning, they are also just one of those choices people struggled with  each day. Just as without a villain, a superhero is just one of those ordinary guys who takes a bath and eat at least three times a day.

This post is for people like me who sometimes ask a lot of questions because they are afraid that if they stop asking, they would finally get an unpleasant answer. And I admit, I have this mood when I'd rather die wondering than know exactly how bad and painful the answer is. But i try to look anyway; I ask anyway.  Even when I know it will really hurt, I ask anyway. Then it led me to this: If life is as simple as learning to cook pancakes, then we would all be in deep trouble. Because just like life, pancakes looks easy to prepare, but it really is not...not when you want a really tasty and perfectly made pancakes (this is making me hungry).

So we are given a chance to choose who we could be, who would you want to be? I guess the reason why we are given freewill in the first place is because choosing one's fate from a limited list of options is unfair and stupid. We could be anyone, the options are infinite; this is basically what makes the choosing difficult and yet fun. 

If there could be an easy way out of all the illogical situations you get yourself into, but then the payback is that you get to live only within the bounds of all the things that makes life fine but not really great, would you take the bait? We create and live in stories every single day; some we share, some remain forever just that... a story untold. I'd rather have great untold stories than share all those that don't really make any difference to the world. Who cares about bragging rights? It doesn't make one happy and content... not for a long time anyway.

To make a mountain of your life

Is just a choice

But I never learned enough

To listen to the voice that told me

Always love... Hate will get you every time...

Always love... Don't wait til the finish line...

Slow demands come 'round

Squeeze the air and keep the rest out

It helps to write it down

Even when you then cross it out

But always love... Hate will get you every time...

Always love... Even when you wanna fight...

Self-directed lives

I want to know what it'd be like to

Aim so high above

Any card that you've dealt you

Always love... Hate will get you every time...

Always love... Hate will get you...

- Always  Love by Nada Surf

This was the background song when Robin lost her I-love-you-ginity to Ted in How I Met Your Mother...And yeah, it feels right when all along you've just been waiting for is the right person. When finally you find the right person, you would no longer have to choose... you could be who you really are. 

more often than not, experience shapes our beliefs..

One day while my light is glowing

I’ll be in my castle golden

But until the gates are open

I just wanna feel this moment

I just wanna feel this moment

I just wanna feel this moment

As my title says (and my Facebook status early this morning), experience shapes our beliefs as it does shapes us. It has been one month or so now since my life took an unexpected turn. And by unexpected, I mean crazy-highest-and-fastest-roller-coaster-ride-while holding-a-glass-of-water-that-you-just-can't-spill unexpected. But the cool thing is, my decisions since Day 1 felt like the most natural things in the world. Risky decisions, but worth making.

It felt right. Like finding the lost pieces that I have never realized missing until the moment they resurfaced. Like falling in love with an author and reading all his published books, even those with bad reviews and still being their number one fan. It felt right and somehow, I know that even if I know the outcome after a month would be like this (the story of this is reserved for another post), I would still make the same exact choices. Because really, I was not 100% percent thinking, I was more on the feeling side. Call me emotional, but at least I'm happy and content with who I am right now.

Some wonders how can I accept changes this fast. Some asks why is it so easy for me to make the same choices that tore me into pieces and left me broken and almost dead in the past. I don't blame them. Sometimes, I ask myself the same things. 

Again, experience shapes our beliefs. The only one who could sort out our inner dilemmas is ourselves, no one would love us enough to take over the job. And when tough times come, we can't bend with the bad... we have to be tougher than the times. I've experienced a lot, maybe not that much yet, but enough to make me believe that we only live once. And the moments we have now would never be the same as the moment we will have tomorrow. Maybe I've made another big mistake. Maybe I've made another stupid decision that I will regret for another long time. Only Time could tell, and I trust that Time will have a good story to share. 

We only live once. A lot happens each day but not all moments count. We make the best of it because it's how life works. It's a cliché we grew up hearing.

And yeah, I don't have an ending for this. Bye. :D

when you can't think out of the box 'coz YOU are the box.

You can only accept errors to a certain extent. Beyond that, you can say it's senseless, incoherent, meaningless.... Unbloggish. Yeah, naniniwala din ako na walang ganitong salita. Pero gaya nga ng sabi ng nakaimbento ng salitang ito, Nagkakaron lang ng bagong word kapag may nangahas na gamitin siya.

Ang lahat ng paglalakbay ay may dalawa lamang uri ng katapusan... 

1. Finish Line

2. Point of Surrender

Finish Line

When it's all about going in circles, the 'finish line' becomes a decision. When the ultimate purpose becomes  nothing but matter of chances and second best options, the 'finish line' becomes the new starting point. And one decides based on the future he desires... based on what his heart tells him to be the genuine and real. One could decide based on what the past had been, but nothing from the past could serve the purpose of being the ultimate deciding factor. 

This is hard because it comes with a lot of sacrifices and difficult decisions. The future is a solid blur but you hope that it's gonna be better. anyway. It's a trick we learn as a child. You get wounded, your mom kisses the wound and the pain magically turns into painless sting. The pain doesn't really go away, but somehow your mind finds a way to make the rest of you realize that it doesn't really make a difference if it is still painful or not. You move on and believe in non-existent magic. Then at some point the pain would really go away...

Point of Surrender

Giving up on something does not make a person weak, it does not make anyone a lesser man.... well, I take that back... it really depends. There's the good surrender (no pun intended. LOL), there's the bad one. The point of surrender that pisses the gods and goddesses off is that point when one gets greedy and selfish. Since it is just  not humanly possible to have it all, we are obliged to make sacrifices. And no one is always the wiser. We get to choose what we see fit best in the present situation. And since change is the only thing constant in this world, there is no such thing as consistency. The best for now could be our biggest regret tomorrow. The person who always wins is the one who takes the risk and consider the possibility of losing. When one gets greedy and selfish, the battle is already a lost cause even before the fight gets started.

The usual diagnosis for Selfishness and Greediness Syndrome? Too much responsibilities, too much demands, too much of everything that is just not manageable anymore. We thought we are too good to be true that we could handle it all. We fail to see that we can never upset the balance of the universe by trying to make everything work out in our favor. Then we lose important things, or we lose stupid stuff, or we lose from both categories. Then we point fingers when we can no longer handle the heaviness of the guilt... we find our escapes in just about anywhere that seems to fit. We don't recognize our faults because in our own twisted though we say to ourselves, Hey I did my best. If that's not enough, then that's your problem. The thing is, we don't do or give our best just for the sake of emotional investment. We try to make everything the best because it's what we feel like doing... yeah, nothing beats sincerity and thoughtfulness.

So there goes a lost cause. Going in circles. Placing blames. Finding short-cuts that don't really exist. We chase loose ends without realizing that they will always be loose ends. Sometimes, there are just too many questions and few supply of answers. And we just have to be okay with that. We play fire, we don't complain when we get burned. We ignore people, we don't cry when we lose them forever. We throw away things, we don't get mad when we are left with none. We don't love unselfishly, we don't get righteous when we are called selfish and fake.

I know there's nothing to be ashamed of in giving up. I don't have issues with giving up. I've been there and I've done that a million times. But giving-up without putting up a fight? That's what makes it all look wrong.

But then again the Point of Surrender could also be someone's Finish Line. One just have to find the trick on how to turn tables... **wink**

It's a blurry, crazy world.

So what are you really.... the Finish Line, or the Point of Surrender? Or maybe this is the wrong question.

There is a blank sheet of paper in front of you.... how would you write your story?

^_____^ (n__n)

when all else fails... I blog.

Sometimes we are the one happy, sometimes we are the one sad so others could experience that happiness. It is not happiness on our expense, it is just happiness that could not be shared with us... not anymore. The rule is, live by the day so we wont live by the past. Live by the day if the future is too dreadful for us to think about, to plan. Live by the day if we are tired of keeping promises that never really come true. Live by the day if there's so much thoughts and none of them we want to really think about. Live by the day if we don't want to live anymore. 

Live by the day until the routine gets its momentum. And then from that momentum, pick up the broken pieces and build another "lego house."  Once we start to try to make things better for us again, eventually we would find what it is we are looking for. Better things are only better because we make them, not because others give us enough chance to see them as that. No matter how much we hope for an easy way, there will always be difficult days. So we have to welcome bad days as we welcome the good ones. They too, shall pass...

From: Back to Basics (dreamlikehaven.blogspot.com)

- - - - - - - - - -

I only have two things to say... First, no matter how hard you try to live your life based on your truth, it will still remain your truth and yours alone. Don't play around with others' truths because you can always end up as the one getting burned. Second, not because you don't feel the presence does not mean it doesn't exist. Be careful what you wish for because once you get it, it might not at all be what you had expected. Then it is already at the point of no return no exchange zone.

You see, there are lots of blind spots, we can't cover 'em all....

the best thing i never had...

And then time stopped.... not because it's the end of the world, not because something breathtaking took place... it stopped simply because it ran out of battery charge. Which could be a good thing, or a bad one, depends on where you stand. 

yep... i need new batteries for this. it is, after all, my favorite watch... 

My wristwatch stopped functioning... and no one even noticed. When something dies at you, what do you usually do? Do you make efforts to bring back its life... or do you dwell first on whether it really has value or not? When something dies at you, how long do you feel sorry or cry over the loss? Or does it also depends on lots of things? I think that's the point. When we start to think too much, we lose a lot of emotions. Thinking things over and over is not the solution at all times, sometimes you just have to realize what your heart tells you to do. Losing ourselves in the emotion is a risk most of us fear to take--- because we got hurt before, because we were always disappointed, because we were the ones always left behind, because no one ever really stayed around long enough to make us feel loved ---but it is also chance I would not want to miss for anything. And it's scary... how uncertain people could get and how much decisions could change in a snap. It's scary to let yourself feel the same good things knowing how intense the bad feelings they could bring. It's scary to smile for the same reasons that used to make you cry. Things change, people go, things get broken, watches and stuff stop working at some point... the deal is, we adjust at whatever life sets before us. It's either it's meant to be, or we allowed it to be that way. And it's rarely not too late to turn back... and even if it still is, it is hardly ever the same exact thing it used to be.

Then it occurred to me that my watch is not really dead, it just needs new batteries. And yeah, I think I'm gonna go have my watch fixed. 

^___________^

p.s. the title is not really related to the post itself. it was just the song playing at MYX Channel when I started to make this post...no hard feelings!

the imbalance is THE balance...

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/william%20w.%20purkey

It's hard to look for something we are not supposed to find in the first place. No matter how hard we try to look, even if we put all our everything in searching for it, if it is not part of The Big Plan, we'll never find it. But then again, nothing is written in stone. Each of us is given a half-full, half-empty piece of paper -- half-full with stories that we just could not change because they make us who we are, and half-empty with million chances for us to be whoever we want to be. In the end, what matters is that ending we create for ourselves, nobody else is given the opportunity to make it up for us.

People could hurt us, but they make us happy too. Stars could fall, but some hopeful souls make wishes upon them. Lives end, but people who lived them leave legacies that could go on for generations. People die, but they could die out of sacrifice for greater good. Love turns to hate, but hate could turn to learning and maturity. What I'm saying is, bad things happen not to punish us but because they are part of this world. Looking at the brighter side, there is always a benefit or good cause. The pain or trouble they might cause us is just collateral damage. And really, the universe decides for us if it is a bad or a good thing, we do not get to decide for the universe.

The bad things we experience make us who we are, more than the good things does. Not that good things are stereotype, they are great and we should never stop being grateful for them (don't get me wrong). It's just that, if we will look closely, the best lessons are mostly from the most painful. Even after battles, losers learn more than winners do. I read somewhere that (dear author, please forgive me) I could not remember now, that there is no 'evil' and 'good,' there is only 'balance' and 'imbalance.' 

Months from now I'm going to be twen-teen one years old (wish list coming up! JK!). I can't say I've seen it all, but from what I've seen and experienced, I can say it's not always a pleasant world. I got a long long long way to go, even after that long long long way ends, it would not even be half of what the world has to offer. So it's a countless people civilization. So it's a wide universe. I don't deny this: my mind could not decipher it all, I could only make sense of few. But no one blames me, no one sane enough even try to understand it all. Because we  were born knowing we could not know it all. We only experience our share of pain and joy out of our hopes and dreams. We only get our share of others' lives, those they willingly offered and those we took by force. We only obtain our share of knowledge and ignorance by those we accept as truth and lies, those we accept as we understand and we don't, those we accept as we like and we don't. (Yeah, right  now, I'm trying to categorize some events the past few days brought).

When something disturbs the normal order of things, a negative fallback occurs. Commercial break: Wait! I think I remember now where the balance-imbalance quote came from! Not read, but watched! I watched it from Fringe, said by Dr. Walter. LOL. Yee-haw for my short-term memory. Anyway, since there is billion of us residing in this world and beyond, it is safe to say that we don't get the good stuff all at the same time. Just as the sun sets in one place as it is rising in another. So the imbalance in some way becomes the balance that keeps the world go round. And we get only to appreciate it for the universe, not modify it to our advantage.

^_____^

Good morning!