Sudden Surge of Selfishness

I want to have a function in your life. Whatever limited amount there is will end this year. The inevitability of disconnection is scaring me. I have lived through a handful of falling outs. But I guess, threshold was never really my cup of tea. I have none. I am torn between making the most of the little time or using it to ease my way out of this impending separation. When I close my eyes, I imagine a void — and I’m falling endlessly into it.

While most people had their summer love or summer fling or what other permutations in between, I got myself intoxicated.

Drinks, daydreams, drama, dilemmas — they all came in tidal waves. They were so overwhelming that I was left stunned and ready to drown. Then, I drank them all in.

I screwed up on a lot of important stuff in a span of four weeks. None of my plans worked and I am still paying the consequences until now. But when I look back, everything seemed like a hazy picture, a long lingering hallucination. Summer was like a drunken state – when you still know what you are doing but you are too wasted to care.

Now, I see my life washed up on the shore. These past days were like that morning after a drinking marathon – cluttered and confusing. I am staggering to clean up my act.

Good bye, summer. I need to sober up soon.

We canned this conversation the night after the kiss. It was a decision, I think, that was too prematurely closed as it was hastily opened. Now it is bulging inside my head like your average expired can of pineapple.

(21 March 2009)

This day is quite a feat of how much drama I can handle in 24 hours.

In the morning, while attempting to finish my final paper, my mother came up to me with a major family drama– the life changing kind. As usual, I found it really awkward to react and I spoke generic responses only to indicate that I was listening. I gave general suggestions, the same I would give if she were ranting about officemates or about what a loser the Philippine president is. These I said in my nonchalant tone, a pitch lower than my already low voice. It only meant one thing – my brain suddenly shutdown and it gave me the feeling that something else has taken over. My other, more emotionally devoid self, went autopilot.

And as if my breakfast was not a soap opera in the making enough, let me tell you what happened late at lunch. I was waiting for the bus to manila because I want/need to be in Katipunan by around 4 or 5pm. After a couple of buses, the one which I did not intend to ride, passed by, it rained. It was not just any rain – the sun was high like an ordinary noon on a summer day. To add insult to injury, the umbrella I had with me barely served its purpose, as a couple of spines were broken and a part of the textile was already detached. This is not main event though. Like an infomercial – yes, wait, there was more.

At last, that elusive HM bus drove by. But as consistent as the day was, the bus did not stop in front of me. The driver just shook his head – no you cannot ride. I never actually saw if the bus was brimming with people. I just did not want to push my already low mood further downhill. It is during times like these that I was reminded of how much I hate Paolo Coelho: no mister, the universe does not conspire for us to have our heart’s desire. In my case, it was even doing otherwise.

I patiently waited for the bus. Mind you, I have a very long patience for most kinds of waiting. I have mastered it, even the kind in vain. In further debunking Coelho, less and less vehicles drove by as the rain continued to batter my tattered umbrella. I could feel the water soaking the hem of my pants by then. The sun? Oh, it was still searing.

The moment that came next was very reminiscent of the parting of the sea. Come to think of it, Lenten season is near, which only meant of our usual serving of The Ten Commandments movie on television. I cannot exactly remember if there were other cars on the highway, motorcycles even, when this happened.

Everything was in slow motion. The rain and shine were blurring my view. But when I saw your car moving towards me, I did not just autopilot – I autofocused. No peripheral vision, just you behind the windshield, looking at me with those sharp eyes. They are normally sharp, but I was expecting anything more than a neutral reaction– like smile, smirk, or scorn. Anything would have given justice for my character in that scene, but I was beginning to think that darn Coelho was being cryptic and that seminal quote had its fine print: my dear reader, only a fool would believe this; of course I meant the opposite.

Then came the shock, the casting down of eyes, and looking away, pretending to check for a bus that was nowhere near.

Even before I went back to Laguna, I was wishing with all my might not to bump into you. Yes, I am in no position to blame you about how the whole thing between us did not work out.  I was the one who gave up, so what is my problem then?

When you suggested for us to be friends, I was honestly open to the idea. So maybe I was jealous, when I found out that you found someone else, that Christmas morning I was about to suggest for us to start things over. So maybe I was bitter like hell out of regret. But I thought myself better than that and agreed for us to be friends.

Yes, friends ask about how each other was every now and then. Friends too, ask favors out of the blue. You know very well how nice I am to my friends and how generous I am in terms of favors. What I cannot comprehend was that after segue of how are you’s and I hope you’re doing fine’s, you ask for a little favor. It happened twice, and it was nothing to me. I genuinely wanted to help. But why the need of suddenly shutting down our connection after that? I do not want to think that you did that because you got what you wanted. I would’ve helped you even if was I was murderously mad at you. I was just disappointed that we are not going to be friends; especially it was you who said that you do not want us to end up like the first ex.

But come to think of it now, we have not done any better. At least the other one did not pretend like he cared. I respected him for that.

I am not really sure if I am angry at you or that I am bound to punch you in the face the next time we see each other and the situation permits me to do so.

One thing is for sure: I will stop assessing any kind of feeling I might have towards you – anger, regret, even love. I am pretty sure my other self has taken over. Your presence in my life has been reduced to the one–time encounter with strangers or those batch mates in high school I only knew by name or those who read my blog by chance and I will never know in person.

Then came a bend in the road – you turned left and sped away. No matter how much I was reminded of Lot who was told not to look back or else be a pillar of salt, I was not able to help my self. I looked back and only caught glimpse of the back of your car. That time I was made sure – it was the goodbye without any good.

Of course, you know too that this is only my point of view; that I will make myself look less evil in our short history together. But I like I said, I refuse you to be a part of my life anymore, so I do not care.

After much digression, I went where I was suppose to go. I had a weird but happy dinner/coffee with two friends – whom I am supposed to spend the entire night doing my paper, but went home due to unexpected and highly important circumstances. Now, for midnight snack, I am struggling to finish what I was due tomorrow (or in which case, later).

Thanks for the feast of a lunch – it was high drama enough for theater. Too bad I never had a flair for the spotlight. But before we forget, I meant it when I said: I never want to see you again. I wish you all the best, as these are the last words I am ever going to address to you.

I thought it would be such a breeze not having to wake up everyday just to attend a class, wherein half the time my mind would just go wandering to who knows where.  Besides, not attending the class, being mentally absent in it, and being unemployed after college doesn’t have much of a difference. Or so I thought. But like my mother always tell me, I’m dead wrong.

School means, there will always be something in the schedule. The time and place can change, but there will always be something seemingly definite. Back then, there is some place to go and not to go, some time to wake up or ignore for later.  Now that it’s all over for me,  the house is the only definite place, and the value  of time is replaced by moments — of sleep and of being awake.

Despite the days that dragged along my life of nothing to do, bumhood dropped like a bomb. It wasn’t a gradual feeling from bliss to boredom. It was more of seven stages of grief happening in flash, the moment I woke up from my graduation day. This unfortunate event was turned horrific a month later, when I did not get the teaching position that I wanted so bad. From then on everything turned from grief to hate to monumental mood swings.

Then one day, after I told my story of defeat to a friend, I declared that not getting the said job was a point of no return. Even before I finished my long sigh, he said “If you are in a point of no return now, then move forward.” Yes, I am guilty of  long, lingering self-pity. I never really did thought of it that way. But of course, my prolonged feeling of uselessness cannot be wiped out as easy as it came upon me.

So now, I guess I have to move forward, despite of a crushed dream and daydreams of how much easier it was to review for exams and write academic papers than being in my current state that is playing in my head 24/7.

If only I can figure out in the coming days how to go forward on a road that only seemed to be a long stretch of a path that leads to who knows where.