bf ever:a-work-in-progress

we all hear of best buddies and best friends, but oftentimes it is about two men or two women who lived their life in each other's company, through good times and bad, preserving their friendship...ours is a different story: we're bestfriends of opposite sex but we clicked (in my opinion) way better than same-sex buddies. it is still a work-in-progress after 18 long years, but it is beginning to become a masterpiece.

kristoffer (whom i fondly call 'tay', who loved-with d to call me baby) is my bestfriend ever. we started knowing each other in our sophomore year and have loved each others' company since then. we share stories, laughters, concerns and silliness sometimes all in one sitting. but it was not fun all throughout. there were quarrels too, small petty ones to big ones (graduation day feeling glum coz he won't even look at me in anger- for reasons i can't even remember now).

(this space is reserved for the years in my time in a bottle, his words and memories such as...if you really love him, i'd help you guard your heart for him...you're supposed to say it can't be coz im your 'tay'...we were just together yesterday but i miss you already...)

he is working on the other side of the world now, sometimes i feel that he is just around and i feel glad, but sometimes i feel reality biting --- my bf ever is ever-so-far that i can't even remember the feel of the touch of his hand...good thing there's the phone and the email and the messenger to keep in touch with him. he is still single (wink, wink) and enjoying his life, while i am a post graduate student, a mother and a wife to a man he approves of.

there are times i think of him, times that sometimes makes me smile and laugh but mostly making me cry (we love drama). we continue to support each other and love each other and care for each other despite the distance and circumstance. i am blessed with his friendship, and with him, i realized "there is no such thing as far away".

5 things...(samu't sari)

"Wag magmadali sa pag-aasawa. Tatlo, lima , sampung taon sa hinaharap, mag-iiba pa ang pamantayan mo... Totoong mas importante ang kalooban ng tao higit anuman. Sa paglipas ng panahon, maging ang mga crush ng bayan e nagmumukha ring pandesal."

"hindi dahil sa hindi mo naiintindihan ang isang bagay ay kasinungalingan na ito.
at hindi lahat ng kaya mong intindihin ay katotohanan. "

"Sabi nila, sa kahit ano raw problema, isang tao lang ang makakatulong sa'yo - ang sarili mo. Tama sila. Isinuplong ako ng sarili ko. Kaya siguro namigay ng konsyensya ang Diyos, alam niyang hindi sa lahat ng oras e gumagana ang utak ng tao."

"Mas mabuting mabigo sa paggawa ng isang bagay kesa magtagumpay sa paggawa ng wala."

" Para san ba ang cellphone na may camera (at kung anu-ano pa!)? Kung kailangan sa buhay yun, dapat matagal na kong patay."

engaged???..available???

Is it because I am engaged that I have to be available? Is it because I am available that I have to be engaged? What spells engagement? Availability? Do I reach out to grow or do I grow to reach out?

Thesis: The being who is ready for anything is the opposite of him who is occupied or cluttered up with himself. He reaches out …beyond his narrow self, prepared to consecrate his being to a cause which is greater than he is but at the same time he makes his own. (G.Marcel, Engagement and Availability)

In the many aspects and dimensions of man’s struggle, one can not help but question the reasons for his existence. What is the purpose of learning, yearning, earning and unlearning? What makes a person a person? In this juncture, one may realize that life offers more questions rather than answers and somehow the questions are the answers in itself.

The world may come as an exercise book. You can choose to draw yourself as an individual, alone but not lonely. Your aloneness here may not last for vey long since man by nature seeks to learn and grow. What best way to learn and grow but to learn and grow with others in a community. But, just the same, you can choose to express reality or fantasy in your exercise book if you wish to do so. Fantasy or dreams however gives you an escape – the chance to pass events off as nothing and do other things. Responsibility for such is somehow vague and this may be coupled with questionable acceptance that others exist as persons too.

Reality as drawn brings others into shape. The concept that you are engaged to your own being, engaged to the existence of others, engaged as a part of the community. Here, you may gain or lose your individuality, but only always with your consent.
I used to look at myself as a star of a movie. Everything revolves around me (I am the sun in the solar system!). Whatever happens happens because it has something to do with me, either I may have caused it or it may cause me to somehow improve my character. Scenes function the same way as people in my movie. Either I will bring joy or havoc in their seeming insignificant lives or they’d bring changes in the way I play my part. It may go on like this for a while until a snap pulls me out of the movie in my mind.

The world indeed is bigger. Life can engulf an unprepared being. Gone should be the days of being too caught up with myself. Here comes the ‘me’ saying “I’m ready, I’m ready! Ready to face the world. Ready to meet people and learn. Ready to experience Ready to become an advanced life-form. I’m ready and available to be engaged – to life.”

ever-i miss u.

it's during times like this that i long for your hugs and kisses...i wish you were here- near like before, always there, always near.

be true???

E.Croonenberg in his text about Man and Fellowmen presented that any factor which prevents the persons concerned from being their true selves also detracts from the real nature of love. Hmmmm...

The world as it was created has men, and man as created have other men to live with. One can not separate himself from others as much as he can not live on a vacuum. Man learns to live with others to know himself fully and somehow know the others as well.

Love in all its meaning comes as man lives with other men in this world. Encounters provide experiences for men to experience themselves as well. An individual answers the call to such experience to lead him to perfection as a person achieving self-realization. Encounters between individuals are normal and necessary; longing for presence beyond the usual encounter coupled with dedication and unusual warmth from the unauthentic foundation to authentic level of affection could only mean that love has sealed the encounter.

The real nature of love is selflessness – unselfishness to its highest and permanent level. One in love manifests a great deal of being true to ones self; a great deal of not holding back; a great deal of surrender to the other. Fidelity (to love) if it is to work has to go through and overcome hardships and obstacles which somehow have rooted up from the individual’s selfishness as well as the others.

One would seek answers to questions such as: Is love enough? Is love enough for me to let go? Do I hold on to love? Do I hold on to love despite the distance and physical absence of my beloved? Will love remain after a loved-one's death? How do I maintain true love? Will my being true to myself be an obstacle to the fidelity to love?

Experiences and encounters vary from time and persons, yet lessons have proven to be at least universal (for all). One has to learn to yearn silently and let love grow, to reveal his identity as he learns to appreciate another person’s identity, to slowly appreciate individuality yet accepting wholeness as relationship with the other progresses, to unselfishly learn to know when to hold on or to let go, and most of all, to accept that real love is stronger than any obstacles – even separation, even death.

My experiences and series of encounters with love come in all forms and intensity as I age. I have noticed that it has become simple coming from complicated to simple to complicated and so on. Love as a truth is indeed an obligation to truth to one’s self. Then, all else follow.

never-ending goodbye

Di ba tayo’y narito upang maging malaya at upang palayain ang iba? ako’y walang hinihiling, Ika’y tila ganoon din, sadya’y bigyang-laya ang isa’t-isa...Ang pag-ibig natin ay walang hanggang paalam at habang magkalayo papalapit pa rin ang puso. kahit na magkahiwalay tayo ay magkasama sa magkabilang dulo ng mundo. Ang bawat simula ay siya ring katapusan, may patutunguhan ba ang ating pagsinta? sa biglang tingin kita’y walang kinabukasan subalit di-malupig ang pag-asa. Ang pag-ibig natin ay walang hanggang paalam ---at habang magkalayo papalapit pa rin ang puso. kahit na magkahiwalay tayo ay magkasama sa magkabilang dulo ng mundo. ang pag-ibig natin ay walang hanggang paalam at habang magkalayo papalapit pa rin ang puso kahit na magkahiwalay tayo ay magkasama sa magkabilang dulo ng mundo---sa magkabilang dulo ng mundo. (I did not write this piece...these are the words in the poem-song made by Joey Ayala,truly touching...always makes me wanna cry)

whatever makes you happy

---go for it. life is short.
do you think the world is in chaos?
that's extremely ordinary.
we have only one obligation in this lifetime
---that is to be true to our selves.
thank god for the free will.
(but please, if you can...when you can
choose not to hurt.)