Because of you, I learned how to be stronger in order to keep things together and keep them from falling apart.

Because of you, I learned to be cautious with how I handle things, how I let them go, and how I balance both.

Because of you, I learned to love myself more and appreciate the smallest things in life.

Because of you, I felt like new again, forgetting that I was ever hurt in the past.

Because of you, I see things differently.

Because of you, life seems lighter, brighter, happier.

Because of you, I learned to let go of the fear of falling, fear of losing myself to someone, fear of loving again.

Because of you, I learned to get rid of the bad things and get a grip of the good ones.

Because of you, I became a better version of myself.

Because of you, because of you…  BECAUSE OF YOU. J

I know I don't say this often but THANK YOU.

• For bearing with my not so normal ways and my ever changing temper.
• For hearing me out even at times I get absurd.
• For being patient even when I get too hard to handle.
• For making me laugh at my own abnormalities. :p
• For seeing me as I am even when I'm too complicated to be understood just like that.
• For making me comfortable in your world and for trying to be comfortable in mine.

Whatever it is that we have right now, THANK YOU because you make me smile more than you know you do. :)

Bipolar

I’m apprehensive.

A part of me is always pensive.

I don’t want to change my mind every so often,

I just need to know I’m standing on solid ground.

I’m apprehensive.

A part of me is always pensive.

I don’t want to change my mind every so often,

I just don’t want my time wasted over something that might not be there.

I’m apprehensive.

A part of me is always pensive.

I don’t want to change my mind every so often,

I just need to safely guard my heart.

I’m apprehensive.

A part of me is always pensive.

I don’t want to change my mind every so often,

I just need to find a reason to be assertive on this,

I’m apprehensive.

A part of me is always pensive.

I don’t want to change my mind every so often, I really don’t.

I just need to know it’s worth the try.

I’m apprehensive.

A part of me is always pensive.

I don’t want to change my mind every so often,

I just need that one person to give me a reason not to.

Foxed

Six days ago, in a car conversation, a good friend told me something that keeps ringing in my ear until now. I’m not sure if she was just foxed up or if she really has been meaning to tell me that for the longest time.

Being like the older sister I never had, she’s been looking after me since day one. And it’s good that I have someone to say the truth to my face at times I need it most.

I can’t recall how the topic started and why we reached that conversation because from what I remember, we were laughing our hearts out from the crazy night we just had. You know what it’s like when you and your friend are both babbling, laughing like crazy, then all of sudden one of you keeps quiet and then the conversation starts to get serious? That’s what happened.

All I remember is that she suddenly asked about some guy I went out with and she started giving me a litany of the things she learned and the things she didn’t want me to experience. She then ended it with an “It sucks when you think you have lots to choose from but when you REALLY think about it, you can’t pick any of them” statement.

Ouch!

It’s been six days since she said that and for some reason, I just can’t get it out of my head. Maybe because I can’t answer her with anything but “I know.” Because, indeed, I do know how that sucks. I do know how frustrating it can be at times when you become an option at some point just because you are too comfortable. Or how annoying it gets when you get to pull yourself out of the situation and then years later, the same guy comes back to tell you how much of a jerk he WAS. Or how frantic it becomes at some point thinking how elusive good relationships have become.

I’m cool with being single. I don’t mind not being in a relationship for as long as jerks on the loose stay away from me as well. I don’t want another summer fling or just another May-December love affair. I want nothing less than what’s worth keeping and worth fighting for.

Okay, so maybe I watched too many wedding videos lately. I can no longer put the blame on Jon Mcluaghlin this time.

My Kind of Guy

In less than a couple of months, I’ll be 25. As much I hate to admit it, but yeah, I’ve been single for a couple of years, dating one jerk to another. And because everybody is pressuring me into having a relationship already, they keep pairing me up with whoever but end up not liking to date any of them at all.

I have high standards, I’ve been told. Well, over the years, I have grown and along with it developed my preferences. I used to alter my penchants so I can meet others’ customs, jeopardizing what I really want and maybe even deserve. So after the last guy I exclusively dated, who, by the way, made me forget about my ideals, I figured it’s time I stick to my proclivities and practice this thing called PATIENCE.

So patience it is! And patience left me single for two years and counting. :)

And because my friends, both old and new, keep compelling me to just get myself a guy already, I have to endure the bantering and the bullying all the time. But as stubborn as I am, it doesn’t really get to me, unless at times they hard sell somebody who isn’t even my type.

Over the years, I’ve been into several relationships and endured different types of personalities as much as they tried to endure mine. And because of those people I’ve been with, I actually had this list written in my subconscious until now. But rather than settling for what I want in a guy, I realized maybe it’s time I go for what I essentially need. So here goes.

1. I need a guy who can blow my mind. He has to be sharp enough to stimulate my mind and clever enough to counterpart my intellectual cravings.
2. I need a guy who understands that I’m far from the typical. I’m radically irrational. I’m blunt, I know no pretenses. I’m insanely extreme, black or white, never gray. I’m outrageous, never drawn back. I get utterly mad one minute, bubbly the next. I’m complicated and I need someone willing to live with that.
3. I need a guy who wants me for the person that I am and not for the princess he thinks I am. I’m no princess. I sit on corners drinking with my friends. I can endure life’s complexities without needing to be saved by a knight in shining armor. I don’t want my life to be that of a fairy tale. I want the real deal. I hate compliments if it only means winning me over.
4. I need a guy who can endure my persona and everything that goes with it. I’m not an angel, I’m far from being one. I’m brutally honest, I say what I mean out loud, dismissing cover-ups and facades. I’m mad when I’m mad, never keeping it in. I’m the sweetest when I feel like it, not minding the world and what it has to say. I live my life the way I want it, regardless if he’s going to be in it with me or not.
5. I need a guy who can sweep me off my feet and just forget about the rest of the world even without trying. I don’t want a guy to be someone he’s not just to get through me. I hate the “putting the best foot forward” stage. I hate it when a guy does things just to please me or my friends, only for his true colors to be revealed later on. I don’t like it when a guy tries to impress. I want to be swept off my feet without feeling the pressure, without feeling the rush. I want to feel the oblivion effortlessly.
6. I need a guy who is consistent. I don't need another inconsistency in me life right now. Got no space for more. I need someone who says what he means, means what he says, and means it forever. I don't need someone who will sweep me off my feet and blow my mind today, only to resurface weeks, months, or even years after like some guys I know
7. But above all this, I need a guy who won’t complicate my life. Yes. This one I need pretty badly. My life is complicated enough, I don’t have room for any more impediments. Period.

With that said, I know it’s like wishing on a falling star or a box to the moon. I once read somewhere that the best things in life are illegal, fattening, expensive, or married to someone else or something like that. Whatever the case, I won’t settle for less. Not this time, not anymore. And I don’t mind waiting for another year or two just to meet that one person who will make me forget the rest.

I know most of you will no longer wonder why I’m still single. You may think I’m asking for too much. I don’t mind. This is me being patient. This is me waiting for who I deserve: a guy who will make me feel that it’s alright to be real.

I'd rather forget about Mr. Right if his first name's Always or his last name's Now.

Blame it on Jon Mclaughlin

I’m in one of those moments when everything is at its perspective but it just doesn’t feel like it. I don’t know if this is just one of my temporary insanities, yet another down cycle, or if I’m having a quarter-life crisis. Whichever the case doesn’t matter because it all feels the same, anyway.

I guess everybody has been there at some point, waking up every single day to what seems to be routinary. You go to work, you party, you go to work, you party. You have all the fun in the world but you end up asking yourself at the end of the day if that is all there is to it.

Okay, okay… So maybe I had too much of Jon Mclaughlin’s Beautiful Disaster. Or maybe I just got tired of waiting for my happy ever after. It’s that feeling of emptiness when you start and end the day on your own with several people in between. Yes, you have fun. Tons of it. But life isn’t just about having fun, is it?

My life is always on the edge, almost always complicated. Never boring, to say the least. I therefore can’t say that I am just bored. Or maybe I just got used to being on the edge that even the complications bore me now. Alright, so maybe I am bored.

Perhaps I’m past the life-is-but-a-party stage. Perhaps I need to meet new faces, see new places that will amaze me. Perhaps I now need to slow down and see the bigger picture, capture the greater things in life. Perhaps I need answers that don’t start with perhaps. Perhaps…

I’ve been feeling like this for a couple of weeks already and I feel weird not being my usual bubbly self. I hate faking smiles but I sometimes have no choice because if I don't, everything will crumble for no apparent reason at all. That will be worse than just feeling down just because I feel like it.

I’m hoping this is just PMS because I don’t want to feel like this for long. So, NO… I’d rather not think this is a temporary insanity, another down cycle, or a quarter-life crisis because it sucks when even The Script’s For the First Time fails to cheer me up. It normally does on my bubbly days.

So if tomorrow you find me grumpy, cranky, and dull, blame it on Jon Mclaughlin.

STATUS: It's UN-Complicated

Those who know me know quite well that I am a magnet of complicated relationships. A good friend once told me it is because my personality is too comfortable, too open that I frequently become a comfort zone to those who have grown uncomfortable with their own relationships. Am I that much of a shock absorber? A catch pad? Or am I just, well, too available? It’s funny how I put an ultra thick barrier between me and the people I don’t like yet it’s easy for the people who affect me to pull those barriers down anytime, without any warning.

I live by my own rules but I’m bound to break them anytime.

I scare myself sometimes because I know how extreme I get, although I manage to tame the wild side now. Still, I can be extreme at some point no matter how tamed the wild side is --- going for things regardless of the situation just because I like it.

A recent conversation with an ex I haven’t spoken with for almost five years made me realize how blatant I was, even at 18. I say what I want not considering who I say it to, notwithstanding the brutality of what I say just to get it off my chest. I always feel better afterwards.

That same ex just didn’t know how hard it was for me to stand up to him and have things my own way with him because he, too, was just as tough as I was, standing firm on what he wants without any regard to what the world thinks. He’s mad when he’s mad, sweetest when he feels like it, and is not afraid to show it. And just like me, he’s brutally honest when the need arises. Until now, we talk about things we no longer need to talk about and enjoy bantering each other with unnecessary debates just because I’m the only person he can talk that way to and vice versa. No matter how heated the arguments become, to a point where we oftentimes get too personal, we still manage to just laugh about it after. Being brutally honest as he is, he told me how difficult it was for him to deal with me because I’m tougher than I ought to be, building fences just because I want to. In his words, I “build strong walls for people I don’t like but is the sweetest to those strong enough to break it”. True enough, he’s the one who knows me inside more than he knows me outside. That’s one reason I don’t want him to look into my eyes because he knows better than just believe the smile I put on. Even my sweetest smiles don’t appeal to him when he’s mad.

Apparently, he was tough on me because I was tough on him.

Scenarios like these don’t normally interest average guys because for one, I don’t go for just the average, being the extreme person that I am. Two, I generally need someone interesting enough to blow my mind and strong enough to soften the tougher side of me. Three, what used to fascinate me are the radical, immoderate type of relationships. Four, it takes a lot for a guy to make me lose my defenses. And lastly, the guy must be crazy enough to put up with me. For these reasons, I draw complicated guys with complicated lives and eventually add up to my own complications.

For the longest time, my relationships have been that way. Complicated is but normal to me. I go for complicated situations, try to make it normal until the complications come back to me later on. But, yeah, I’m used to it. I’m nuts enough to withstand it, dangerous enough to enjoy it. That’s how I have been for the longest time, until this morning.

A madcap early morning conversation with my sound board, Sai, gave me yet another light bulb moment. I suddenly became aware of what I should’ve known and realized back then.

It’s like a crazy pop-up coming out of the monitor, like a ball thrown at you when you have your 3D glasses on. It was right there, spelling out every word for me. It’s time for me to UN-complicate things. Yeah, you read that out right. It’s time for me to un-complicate things.

It sounds easy but for someone as sweeping as I am, it’s like asking a smoker to quit smoking. But, yeah, I’m giving it a try. It’s time for me to choose the simple yet stable over the scarily exciting but fleeting. It may sound boring but it’s worth a try. It’s something I never tried before but it may work.

It’s time. I’m un-complicating my relationship status. =)

1 September 2010

Fix what you still can fix, leave broken what can't be, pick up the pieces that you'd need to make you whole, don't pick up more than what fits both hands and move on from there.

I won't let my ♥ mess up my head. Not again. Not this time. :)

I will stop chasing pavements that lead to nowhere but ♥aches. :D

Life isn't just a piece of cake. It's the whole of it.

Marriage is not everybody's future default. There are those who are happily single just as there are those who are miserably married.

Learn to appreciate what you have while you still have it. You will surely miss it once you lose it.

I won't think about you when I'm older.

You're there, I'm here. Let's keep it that way til we know better than fall wrongly over again.

We both knew something was wrong the moment we walked through the door. We just didn't know what it was.

My hopes are up and I can see all the memories of you gradually going down the drain...

I won't let my ♥ screw up my future. Not again. Not this time.

There will always be that one time

when you think you're perfectly alright

and you suddenly see that one thing

that reminds you of that one person

and you're taken back to that moment in time

where you feel that old feeling

that brings you back

to the first square of the never ending process.

There is no such thing as getting yourself ready to be hurt.

Cuz when it hurts,

it hurts big time no matter how much you have anticipated this thing called DOWNFALL.