I almost stopped blogging.

I never really stopped writing.

But we all know there is a world of difference between writing down your thoughts on a Starbucks napkin and publishing your feelings all over the World Wide Web.

Let me straighten some misconceptions.

It wasn’t some guy.

Trust me.

It wasn’t that I got too busy with work.

Heck, I have always been busy with work.

Let’s just say I was in limbo.

Let’s put it this way. I wasn’t in self-imposed exile nor was I in hiatus.

I was in limbo.

I didn’t know what and who I wanted.

I didn’t know where I was or where I was headed.

I’ve always known what I wanted.

I almost always never knew if who I wanted was right for me.

I was afraid to rock the boat.

It was more of go with the flow for me then.

I was just going through the motions.

I’m not saying that altogether I am now great and perfect.

Let me just say that I now know what I want.

I now know who I do not want.

I am no longer rudderless.

I can now go against the tide.

I now live in the moment.

So what happened in the limbo years?

Here goes.

I got myself a job in a snake pit.

Hence, I met and befriended a number of individuals I would never desire for even my worst enemy to encounter.

Funny because I thought at first when I landed that job that I was in paradise. I should have known that was too good to be true and that every paradise has its own serpent.

And serpents there were in that workplace.

And boy did they work, talk, attack.

Venomous individuals and poisonous work environment equals one toxic fellow.

Let me say then that I am in the process of detoxification now. 

Waiting to exhale.

i have lost so-called friends.

i have earned new dear ones.

i have lasted in a job that isn't exactly a bed of roses. 

i have realized my parents didn't register my birth.

i have gotten a passport.

i have traveled abroad.

i came back here.

i left a job that left me winded, tired, stressed, problematic, toxic.

i am a new me.

Have we become so preternaturally obsessed with our lives lately?

I visited a popular website yesterday.

I am convinced Friendster exists on the sole purpose of showing off your life.

I have a new boyfriend or girlfriend. This is us smooching. This is my honey. My baby. My love.

I went to the hottest summer vacation spot with my friends. At the Bora beachfront with my barkada soaking up the afternoon sun in our tiniest bikinis.

I got a new car. It's the latest model and I am the only one within a 200-mile radius that has this in this color. 

I traveled abroad. This is me in the Golden Gate Bridge. This is me riding a gondola on the canals of Venice. This is me with a Buddhist temple in the background on a recent trip to Thailand.

I got a new spanking job. Check out my job title and five-digit salary.

I have a baby. Look how cute he is. This is his first snapshot.

I am married now. Here are our wedding pictures. This is my wedding gown and here's my groom.

I have moved to a new posh flat. Check out the interior design and architecture. This is my bedroom which I did in a color combination of oatmeal and robin's egg blue.

It's nothing but a shallow parade of entries and photographs describe to the minutest detail milestones in our lives.

It's nothing but an endless array of pictures documenting visually the achievements we have garnered for our poor little selves.  

I got envious to a certain point.

Checking out account after account, I started to feel how they have gained so much for themselves and how I have seemingly plateau-ed or perhaps even sunk - life goals in tow.

Well, I can say it and I will say it.

There, I have said it.

I say this as I look up old friends I no longer have contact with, as I peruse accounts of current friends and their friends and what their other friends are doing.   

I ask myself - why am I furtively, in the crack of dawn, surfing through my Friendster account and checking what everyone else is doing with their lives? Shouldn't I have something better to do?

Why do I laboriously vacillate in my decision-making process as to which pictures and images deserve to get posted on my account?

Does it really matter and do I really care?

Is this cyber-peoplewatching for me?

Or really have I just become too shallow already?        

the concept of last weekend was nonexistent for me.
i was at work.
so you could just imagine what this weekend was like for me.
aside from the stress that had been building up, my favorite bar was closing for close to two months for some much-needed renovation and redecoration.
at exactly 1 am i was awake. i dressed up, did my hair and was off with my best party pals.
the party wasn't swinging for me until around 3 am.
that was when i called him.
there was the requisite awkwardness which is perfectly predictable.
but what was bothering was the cool distance that had seemed to establish its presence between us.
small talk and that was it.
he promised to text later that day. he never did.
i called him again. his phone was off.
i never really got around to thinking why i called him.
maybe i missed him.
maybe because i was downright rude to him the last time we bumped into each other.
maybe i was sorry for him.
it wasn't until my friend from another island dropped it on me that i realized it.
i called him for closure.
maybe i called him because a part of me felt i ought to tell him that i was ok already.  
no wonder i was never really upset that our plans to have coffee later that morning seemed to hang in mid-air.
normally, i would have been fuming mad and cursing him to the high heavens.
so i guess it really was goodbye that night.
to my favorite bar and to him.
it really was goodbye that night.
one temporary, the other permanent.
same old, lonesome, anguished, bittersweet, poignant goodbye.
the only difference is my favorite bar will be reopening soon.
and i will be back.
with him, i highly doubt if there will be a comeback courtesy of moi.
even after i said goodbye to him, it was clear that he never really had learned to keep his promises to me.
so goodbye.
now it seems we can't even have coffee together.             

Kirk:

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

Resist it, and your soul grows sick

With longing for the thing it has forbidden to itself,

With desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful."

-Oscar Wilde

Kirk:

Thy presence astounds me with interest

Felt like a kid before a butterfly for the first time

Why should I let you fly off?

Perhaps hoping that when time again life would be a bore,

I'll come across the same butterfly who gave me bliss

Moi:

What enchanting creature is this that has come

To ensnare me with his charms?

What magical being is this that has entered

The gossamer of my consciousness

With his words, his voice?

What indescribable entity are you

That has flooded my universe

With ecstasy at your mere presence

Even if you are distant?

What is it in you that leaves me

Floating on silken bowers of tremulousness?

Who is this enticing stranger

That I blindly welcome into my guarded cocoon?

What kind of hypnotic power are you

That I am left wanting for more and awaiting?

How do I know you?

Kirk:

The answer is simple

Fate has mocked me,

And probably you also

For far too long

Enslaved by the search for he who could commensurate

What we are capable of giving.

As this may come as a reward, I hope it is not the end.

For the possibility of friendship sought and found

Could possibly be friendship lost with time.

Kirk:

Alas! It is 10 preceding 2!

My morrow maketh no commands but thou hath duties that await.

Let sleep visit thee maketh me thou sweetest dream.

And when the conscious world brings thy feet to reality,

The assurance is yours that my presence,

Though marred by distance will continue to haunt thee.

Hermes will deliver my most amicable kiss,

To be received by either thy cheek

... or thy lips.

Kirk:

I am sad that my well wishes may have been tardy.

My kiss delivered in thy sleep.

O, how I wish I could have acted fast

for my words will be thy last before thou have drifted

Into oblivious state of either dreams

Or an encore performance of thy life.

Nevertheless, when you part your eyes,

With the rain long gone

And the moon peeps in a starless night, I am here,

Somewhere beyond thy knowledge,

Awaiting for thee to maketh this modern instrument to beep,

Bringing forth thy words of how wonderful thine sleep was.

Not for anything else, but because in thy dream thou hath sensed my presence,

Faceless in form yet it glows with sincerity for a newly found friend.    

Kirk:

I'm glad that at least I'm assured that somewhere out there,

Somebody gets to think about me.

Don't worry, you linger in my mind, too.

Kirk:

I have no intention to break the comfort of your routine

Though I feel flattered that I have that effect on you

In a mood for celebration for I felt exactly the same way

Kirk:

"I asked the question with the best reason possible,

The only possible reason.

Indeed, exactly the reason why one can

ask any question,

simple curiosity."

-Oscar Wilde

an unfinished entry that i found myself completing just now.

i decided to flee the hurly burly of my city life. this dizzying routine of work, home, socializing with friends. noise and traffic. cell phone calls and alarm clocks. deadlines and schedules.  this metropolis that has become despite its urbane suaveness and modernity nothing but a rat race.
this city that is riddled with stress and neuroses. back pains and migraine. asthma and burnout. this place that has brought me, as i'd like to romanticize, so many problems and worries, so much pain and heartbreak.

i longed for quiet and peace, solitude and serenity. christmas has never been my favorite time of the year and it has never been one family affair, so it wasn't exactly a difficult decision to make.