We used to come and go in each other's lives, and we used to just pick up from where we left off whenever we see each other again. But now weeks and months just zip by, and I no longer wonder how you are, and I can now easily ignore your invites. Every minute spent with you was a minute taken away from the cases and pleadings you had to work on, and I used to cherish every minute. But now I can hardly remember the sound of your voice, or how my hand felt on your chest, or the way you smell when I hug you after weeks of not seeing you. All I can remember is how eating ice cream makes you happy, like a little kid, and how I never have to finish sentences when I'm taking to you, and your quiet stillness when I secretly watch you pray whenever we hear mass, and how I felt whenever we kissed while waiting for the red stoplight to turn green. All I can remember is that you changed such a big part of me, and I'm absolutely sure that I will be in a totally different place right now if I had never met you. But the image of you is slowly fading away, one memory at a time....

Of Happiness

Happiness is ever fleeting. You get what you want, you get a hit of endorphins, and you get confronted with a void again. Your idea of what's fun and exciting escalates. You seek for things that will feed all of your senses all at the same time. And when the feeling fades, your mood comes down crashing again. You make yourself busy, you pack your days with a dozen activities, and it doesn't help. Everything you do is just an interruption of the feeling of boredom and being lost.
I would take inner peace over happiness any given day.

On Beauty

John Keats said that a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Not that I'm questioning Keats, whose poem Endymion has been around for two hundred years, but beauty is not really known for just bringing joy. Prettiness brings joy. Prettiness brings a smile on your face. But prettiness is the opposite of beauty.

Beauty is vague and puzzling. It haunts and lingers. Beauty surprises. It makes you question the world. It inspires you to action. It stirs up half a dozen different emotions. It turns nos into yeses. It can push you to your limits if it wants to. You can't take your eyes off it when it's there, yet you can't seem to properly describe it when it's gone.

To-do List for 2010

- To remember that true generosity has a very poor memory.
- To be kind, for everyone I meet is fighting a hard battle. - Plato
- To always remember the paradoxical truth: everything in this earth is precious but at the same time insignificant.
- To never harbor anger, hatred and bitterness: it is inward and selfish to do so.
- To remember that keeping myself from expressing appreciation and love is also inward and selfish.
- To find out everything about something or somebody first before deciding that I don't like it/him/her.
- To remember that the only way happiness will not be fleeting is if I acquired it because I helped others.

Everything and Nothing

We are much too old to still be playing games
yet much too young to stop
We are too carefree to remember
yet too connected to forget
We are much too wise to seal the deal
yet too stupid to just walk out and leave

You are the past and the future
but never the present
You are constant and static
and at the same time very unstable
You are everything and nothing
But maybe there's no difference between the two

But You Asked For It

Here we are joking about things that really mean something to us, and telling each other things that don't mean anything at all. You and I are just another dopamine fix. Ten years ago, we could have thought we were soulmates who can rule the world as long as were together. Now we're just too busy, too jaded, too worldy, too cynical, or too hopeful that something much much better will come along. 

I ponder on everything I have missed, everything that passed me by, and everything that I never saw at all. Will I regret my choices one day? Will I wake up decades from now with nothing but a few vague and hazy memories? What if I’m investing on the wrong things? What if the things that are important to me don’t really matter to him? Or them? Whoever said the person I’m waiting for takes the shape of just a single person?
There are days when I no longer feel the rush from the anticipation of the many mysterious tomorrows to come. There are days when I wonder that maybe there is something indeed wrong with me. 
What if I’m looking at the wrong direction? Or what if we’re both looking at the same direction, making it impossible for us to see each other? Or what if—God forbid—what if I am NEVER meant to meet him? And that I should just really forget about it and focus on other things?

Restlessness

Our attention span is unsettling. We start to watch a movie, hit the pause button for a few minutes, have a cigarette break, then realize we’d like to have a steaming mug of coffee to enjoy with the cigarette, so we make ourselves one. We try to go back to watching the movie, but of course we have to check our mobile phone first for any text messages. We find out from our friend that so-and-so broke up with her longtime boyfriend, so we go online, check people’s Multiply pages, then find out that indeed, their pictures in their trip to Boracay, Macau and Puerto Galera are deleted. Then we have another cigarette…while taking a dump and shuffling through the pages of the daily paper.

We can’t do anything for a long time anymore. There is so much information available, so many choices of activities that we can’t even just sit back. Too many online personality tests have told me that I constantly seek for momentum and stimulation, intellectually and otherwise. Life is composed of short bursts of flavors, scents, sounds and sights that overwhelm the senses. Full of stories about people satiated with intrigue, fame, prestige and brilliance. Full of conversations and witty repartees and one-liners from books and films.

We start to listen/watch/eat/read something, and if it doesn’t astonish or delight us within ten minutes, we do something else, or we do something else while we continue to do it. We know we are never satisfied, never contented. Yet we can’t imagine doing things any other way.

Beauty and Brains

I remember a beauty pageant I once watched when I was a young girl. The host asked the contestant which she would prefer: beauty, brains or money. The contestant, of course, answered she would pick brains, “because if you’re smart, you can easily be both smart and rich as well.” 
Women who are both smart and beautiful will never cease to beguile. They arrest you first with their winning smile, perfect hair, long lashes and statuesque figure. Then they keep you captivated with witty conversation and insightful opinions. But consider the upkeep required for a woman to stay both beautiful and smart. The mani-pedis, the eyebrow-tweezing, the leg-waxing, the thirty minutes of daily exercise. And don’t get me started on how expensive and time-consuming it is to look for clothes to fit her body shape, and the accessories that will go well with the clothes. And of course she has to: brush up on current events and pop culture (who’s dating who, who’s getting kicked out of American Idol); know what a Pastitsio is and how to make it; know everybody from Sarah Palin to Niccolò Machiavelli to Dwayne Wayde to Perez Hilton; distinguish a princess diamond from a pear-shaped one; know what ingredients are needed to make a Screwdriver, and also know what the different types of screwdrivers are. 
Honestly speaking, I’d rather choose to be effortlessly beautiful that effortlessly smart. And when I say effortlessly, I mean, no matter what you do, you are always beautiful. An hour of primping will just make you look and feel good for eight hours max. An hour of reading the newspaper or browsing Wikipedia will go a long long way. 

When We Were Younger

When we were younger, we did silly things like wait for a phone call all day, take things personally, try to please everybody, think everyone is watching and let our emotions get the best of us. But then we realize there are things we can and should not waste time and energy worrying and thinking about, that sometimes you have to hurt people for their own good, and that no one really spends more than ten minutes gossiping about you, no matter what you do.

Every once in a while we meet people who complement us. You finish each other’s sentences when you’re together, you laugh all day, and you can comfortably share secrets and fantasies.
But rarely do we meet someone who will push us to our limits. Who will make us question ourselves and our capabilities. Who will make us seek for perfection. Who will challenge the way we think and view the world and other people. They make us uncomfortable, but they’re the ones who will leave not just footprints, but they start a trail that we can follow until our own footprints are indelible enough.

So you start a conversation with someone who projects himself as smart. And you talk about literature, art, politics, history, metaphysics, epistemology and all that crap. You go at it for hours, or even days. Then you both sort of admit you’re just pretending to LIKE talking about those things. Then you just start talking about the mundane things. What you did, where you went, what you ate. Don’t be intimidated by people. No matter how lofty what they’re talking about is, just think, you’ll soon be talking about just how hot the weather is.

And it’s true that when the Lord takes away, he gives something back, tenfold. New friends (the people I got close to this past month and a half beat the number of people I got close to the prior year). A confidence in myself that I never knew could exist. A zest to live life to the fullest and savor each passing second. He also made me appreciate the things I’ve always had but didn’t pay that much attention to. A loving, caring family. Friends who will always be there to support you (and let you hear the things you want to hear haha!) A neglected gift for writing (no matter how many times you abandon it, when you go back to it, it somehow always manages to be there).
I feel really grateful to God, my friends and my family for helping me find happiness and inner peace again. And I now believe that this part of my life is a gift. I just never felt so excited.