I think I have become the person I feared I would be, nearly a year ago when I met a particular boy. More liberated, more careless, more screwed up. The worse part is that, I seem to be all right with it. Although blogging about it ironically shows that I’m at least, disconcerted. I don’t know when I started to take these things lightly. A kiss. A touch. When did they not become such huge investments – just another story, another history. I really am becoming a social butterfly. My interest in people makes me want to get to know them, to study them, to learn about their stories and to have that connection that other people are just so afraid of pursuing. Sadly though, this has made me take everything, everyone, like an object of experimentation. The romantic in me has died. Everything has become a learning process. Everyone has been desensitized. To be honest, I really have yet to decide whether this is a good or bad thing. The conformist in me of course says that things shouldn’t be this way. But even so, the radical in my head is saying, fuck what is deemed right and wrong, they are just social constructs anyways.

I’m kind of worried for my own emotional well-being though. I do wanna be in the inside of love – to feel what it’s like to just settle down, to know that there is someone who’ll always be there to laugh with, to jump for joy with, to hold me when I’m scared. I’m just a human after all. But now, more than ever, I get this feeling that somehow, I’m just not destined, not cut out for this. That staying with one person, for a prolonged period, robs me of the opportunity to learn more about the world through people that I will still meet in the future. People who may or may not leave me hurting, but leaving me stronger and more knowledgeable both about myself and the world nonetheless.

Crap. I really need to go now. Maybe I’ll continue rambling some other time.

At ngayong ako’y muling binigo ng lintik na bagay na ito, na tinatawag ng karamihan na ‘pagibig’, muli na namang akong sumulat sa aking munting kwaderno habang luha ay pumapatak sa aking mga mata. Ang tanging kaibahan lamang ay, ngayon, akin nang napagtanto na ang mga bagay na ito ay dumarating at lumilipas. Kahit gaano kasakit, katulad nang ako’y magmahal ng taong hindi man lang ako kilala, alam ko na darating ang araw at mawawala rin ang lahat. Ang lahat ay magiging parte ng nakalipas na atin lamang babalikan upang pagkunan ng leksyon at lakas ng loob. Ang lahat ay magiging bahagi ng isang panaginip na magtuturo sa atin na huwag na muling gawin ang bagay na ito, dahil tayo ay masasaktan lamang.

Ngunit hanggang hindi pa dumarating ang araw na aking babalik-tanawin ang mga pangyayari ng kasalukuyan, mananatili ako sa sitwasyong ito hanggang pagpalain-na-lang-kung-sino-ang-nakakaalam-kung-kailan. Mananatili ang mga gabing walang tulog at puno ng luha’t pasakit. Mananatili ang mga araw ng paglimot sa mga pangyayari sa nagdaang dalawang buwan. At mananatili ang bawat segundo, minuto, oras ng bawat araw at gabi na pilit kong paniniwalain ang sarili ko na hindi ko siya nakilala at hindi ko siya minahal.

September 2006

But I want to feel. I want to. I don’t care if it’ll hurt. Or if it’ll leave me crying for nights, or months. I want to have someone, even for a short time, to be with. To make me feel real. Not virtual. Not mechanical. I know it’s not easy to love someone who’s flawed and not at all beautiful. But I also didn’t say I want someone who likes easy things. I want someone. Someone who’ll give me wings to soar, and is strong enough as wind, to keep me high.

October 2006

I’ve always said that in life, it doesn’t matter what decisions you make. What matters is how you stand up for them when everyone seems to be thinking that you made the wrong choice. It’s also true that sometimes, we have to admit that we are wrong and then we have to turn our backs and undo the damages. But we should never regret. Because during that period when you made that choice, it was your heart that you followed. And during that moment, you chose what you most wanted. So why should you regret when you know from the start that you were just following your heart?

Do not, ever, betray yourselves.

August 2007

It has been surreal from the moment it started. And now that’s exactly where we are, back to the starting line, to zero. I’m not exactly sad. Really, I’m not. Or at least, I don’t want to be sad.
But screw this, big liar. I cried everyday since Tuesday.
But I’m ok now, easy come easy go. Shan’t take it too personally. I love you world.

I’m strong. I’ve got this.

people who only get chances to do bad, always around bad things, like us, when they finally make something good out of it, God’s happy.”

I think tonight something became really clear to me, something that has been actually forming hazily in my head ever since my LTB group decided to have Death Row inmates as our beneficiaries for our project. At that period of time when we thought we could go ahead with our plan, I was thinking about our reasons for doing so. Was it simply because we wanted to be different and set ourselves apart from all the other groups who would typically choose children, the elderly, the disabled, the environment, etc. And in my trying to answer this question I realised that our reason, or at least i know mine for sure, went so much deeper than this. In our research leading to our proposal presentation, we found a website showcasing a photo gallery of death row inmates. The photographer said in her introduction that the point of her exhibition lies not in justifying the crimes that these inmates committed, nor in pointing their guilt or innocence, in fact she said that their guilt or innocence is irrelevant to the message she was trying to put across. This is what she wrote in her website: “Ultimately, the message I wish to convey through my art, is simple. The only way we can truly stop suffering is to love and forgive those who have caused that suffering. I have chosen to photograph both those who are clearly guilty of the crimes for which they have been condemned as well as some who have claims of innocence. Guilt or innocence is irrelevant to the point I wish to make with these photographs. My photography is intended to communicate the idea of forgiveness. I want to share this liberating truth that I have learned” And I felt that this message goes so deep that I really wanted our group to do all we can within our power to pursue this path for our project. Unfortunately, the difficulty of it and the limited time we had forced us to give it up and to follow through with our plan B, that is, prostitutes.

And again we asked ourselves, why do we want to do this? For a while we all had the assumption that these women are probably forced into doing this, left with no choice but this to survive. We figured, who in their right mind and given other options would choose to sell their bodies, get paid for the intimacy that ‘normal’ people will only share with someone they truly loved. And we concluded that our interest in helping them lies in the fact that they do not get a lot of attention and help despite numerous problems that they surely face. But tonight as we walked the streets of geylang and came face to face with many of the sex workers, the haze around the thoughts forming in my head sort of became clear. I realised that personally, I do not care what reasons they have in taking up this job, whether they are forced into doing so or otherwise. The world is so imperfect that we are not in any position to judge anyone’s choice as right or wrong. But the only way to reduce this imperfection is to accept it and to understand that while they may be tainted in that way, we ourselves are tainted in so many other ways, just not in the way that society condemns. And I think, just like the photographer I mentioned above, whether these prostitutes are left with no other option or not, is irrelevant to the point that my group is trying to make. Our project is intended to communicate the idea of acceptance. If we can accept these people whom society looks down on, imagine how much less of an imperfect world we would be living in. We are all human beings born equal in this world, though circumstances fate and personal choice decide how different our futures will be, at the heart of it is still the very basic idea that we are all just human beings flawed in our very own ways.

But i also think that this ‘search’ is something that we believe to be necessary, only because of what we see in movies and people around us who believed it from movies/romance novels. is it a matter of choice, fate or some unknown force that makes us want to have that person, that security, that safety. when i was younger i had that person but i later realised that that’s not what i want. i think i just want to be able to love someone completely with my whole being, perfectly so to speak. i want to be able to say that i love someone even when you take everything away from that person; strip him of all superficial things and leave him in a vacuum and still be able to say that yes, i love him. the perfect love. the unconditional love. requited or unrequited. i think in the end, the selfishness that is innate in human would still make me withdraw that love, but at least i would know, that for one moment there, I was able to love and care for someone other than myself