i guess most, if not all of you, have experienced the feeling of standing on the edge of something you cannot escape from; wherein all you have to do is face it and/or ride it out and hope that somehow you come out of that thing (whatever it is) still breathing, if not barely conscious. it may not necessarily be physical in nature, but, more often than not, those "emotional rollercoasters" almost always leave you in shambles; in bits and pieces in which you yourself won't recognize. and even if you do get out of it alive, you won't be the same person anymore, scarred for life in which the mere mention of that event brings you back to where it all happened again.

i have referenced this before on a previous entry (i'm guessing sometime early last year if i'm not mistaken) wherein if one survives an ordeal as grave as how the results would leave you lying, then that person would be compared to a broken vase that would somehow be put and glued back together. it won't be as strong as it once was and a mere nudge will guarantee renewed breakage, create additional pieces and entail more difficulty putting it back together. imagine a person who goes through several of those events and how he/she is now. an average person would have "nervous breakdown" written all over.

i have survived many a great deal of these "personal storms" that have come my way, whether it directly involved me or i unconsciously happened to be on the path of one at the wrong place and at the wrong time (read: like a deer crossing the road at the middle of the night, caught at the onset of a speeding pair of headlights). and though the saying "what won't kill you makes you stronger" holds to be true for most people, i have to admit, i'm not the same person i was a decade ago. the series of personal and emotional challenges i have been through were supposed to make me a better person. i have come out of them time and again bruised, battered, a bloddy mess, barely standing on my own two feet and on the verge of hearing the flatline sound. yes, it didn't quite kill me and i have learned a lot of things from them, but ironically, the "makes you stronger" part only lasted after the first few episodes. the recent wave of personal setbacks (the latest being before christmas this past year) left me questioning if i should continue treading through the murky and uncertain waters on the way to personal happiness (read: lovelife) or toss the anchor, throw in the towel, raise the white flag, turn off the searchlights, stop attempts at CPR, disconnect from the life-support system and pronounce my lovelife as dead. D-E-D, dead (strangely how i still find humor in all of this).

i thought i finally did that last year. but apparently, through sheer luck (i personally prefer calling it outright stupidity), something brought it back to life. or rather, someone did. and quite ironically, the wave of events that transpired after meeting that person is coming full circle in a couple of weeks, and i'm bracing for the nostalgia and missing the feeling i had during that time. and even though i try hard not to think of it, whenever i wake up, i'm always reminded of it like a shadow that follows me wherever i go. to add further insult to an already aggravated injury, this month was the time my last real relationship ended exactly 10 years ago! single for 10 years….i cringe at the mere thought of it.

i guess that's where two popular words, "fate" and "destiny" come in. no matter how hard i try, no matter how i learn from my previous mistakes, no matter how different my approaches are (i'm beginning to sound like a boyzone song), if it's not meant to be, then it isn't. whoever i take fancy to. and that feeling has already sunk in if i'll be looking at my history. i guess gone were the days when intentions meant for someone are pure and nothing else (worse, pure intentions for someone else are interpreted as malicious), that the basis for finding someone is based on not how simple one is, but how well-off or prominent that person is; and that promises are now made to be really broken. anybody care to disagree with me on that?

"i'm born to be single and to help others realize their happiness with someone meant for them," is what's constantly on my mind these days. and why not? i'm doing a helluva good job at that. i guess that is the path that has been laid for me. in the few times that i may fancy someone new, the mere thing i'm after is the feeling that i can still like someone, but not pursue any real relationship anymore since it'll end up the same as before. it kinda reminds me that i'm in fact still human (at least in some form) by the simplest standards. and in ending this "pre-valentine" entry, i would like to quote a line from a song which i'm constantly playing nowadays. the line clearly reflects what has been the fact in my pursuit of a relationship:

"…there must be an angel with a smile on her face when she thought that i should be with you.
but it's time to face the truth, i will never be with you."

the next couple of months will be rough. i guess i have no choice but to ride it out somehow. i know i'll survive it (again), but in the event that i don't, well, that won't be a bad way to go either.

this is one of the very few and rare times that i arrive home from work with no one to greet me as i go through the front door. wherein the sound of high-pitched silence is only broken by the sound of the clock on the wall ticking time away, the fridge turning on and off, and the occasional wind chimes hitting each other as a gentle breeze passes by. and in those very few and rare times i experience this, i feel a sense of peace. no chattering on the background, no sound of the radio nor footsteps walking about, not even the sound of people actually being physically present (wherein even though the place is quiet, knowing that there are other people in the house, it adds a little sound to it).

this is only possible because the rest of the family attended a wedding of a neighbor held somewhere in the batangas/tagaytay area and won't be back until later this evening. yet inasmuch as i adore and love my family that much, it is a welcome relief from time to time to experience silence around the house. heck, i don't even have my winamp on and set the landline phone ringer to off while i'm writing this (at this point in time i don't care who calls). i guess this is how i long for the silence that i need to somehow get away from all the things i do everyday (even if i enjoy what i am doing) and just sit back, put my feet up and, as the depeche mode song goes, "enjoy the silence." where i could just clear my mind of everything and be one with the nothingness silence brings. although i'll be having the tv on before i go to sleep a little bit later on, these few minutes of me not speaking, and only hearing the clacking of the keyboard as i type this along is a warm and fuzzy feeling for me. many people may find silence deafening, though at times i don't blame them, but it is only in silence where we could get in touch with our real selves and for a few precious minutes, calm the soul and the spirit down and give it a rest from all the turmoil, uneasiness, and confusing chaos of everyday life. some people go to the beach, retreat houses or even hideaway resorts just to get the silence they want to experience, but lucky for me, it found it's natural way over here and i'm not about to waste any single second of it.

it'll be a very long time before i experience this again. i guess what i'm trying to impart is to not take silence for granted. given, being home alone is quite boring. but if you know how to adjust yourself and even for just a few minutes, just sit down on the couch or on the bed and stay still, silence can be a very good thing. it might be even a form of yoga or self-reflection for some. you'll never know how refreshed you'll feel when you slowly start to go back to reality and the sounds of real life get back to their normal volumes. so, until then….

ssshhh…..

enjoy the silence

happy new year to everyone. it's been weeks since i last written anything here and i still haven't posted the counterpart of my last entry but between being busy with work and looking back at the sad moments in my life during the past year, i have decided to make this first entry of 2006 as a combination of both–a restrospect of last year and a feeling for a sense of hope for a bright and postive one ahead.

so in closing, all i can say is take each day as it comes and bitch about it later. there are 364 days remaining in the year and that's 364 reasons remaining to live life according to how you want it. be it negative or positive. having ended 2005 bloated, drunk and all over the place during new year's eve, i welcome 2006 with bruise-riddened open arms and a battered-beyond-recognition personal and emotional state of mind asking, "what more do you have for me? c'mon, take your best shot!" it's another year. live life to the fullest and how you want it, no matter what others say. have a blessed and prosperous new year to all.

just want to share a line that was mentioned from the movie "king kong" which i got to see yesterday:

"when you try and reach for something you care about, fate comes in and takes it away from you."

that line really hit home. hard. that's all. thought i'd just share it on an overcast monday morning.

just got home from a night out with colleagues/friends. and since it's only a few hours before the start of the dawn mass at 4:30am, i thought it best to skip sleep until later today and just write on my lil' ol' journal to keep me busy. to which, at some point, i also decided that this would also be a good time to do my reflection on the positive things that happened to me this year. just like last year, i decided to write down the positive things first since, among other reasons, i'm not expecting any more major events that would effect me in a very positive way during the remaining days of this year. so, with that being said, here are the events this year that made me say that life is "all good:"

5) i was finally able to get over lisa – for those of you who know the story behind this (posted all over my journal) over the past few years, you would understand what i'm talking about. although there are still things left unsaid between the two of us, i'll leave it to fate whether a final conversation would take place or not. i'd prefer to have it though as i've said before because that would be the only way for that chapter of my life to complete a full circle and i could finally say that that was it. i have moved forward (take note, not "moved on" as i have two separate meanings for those two phrases) and i could safely say that things in my life took a turn and started getting better. all because of another person, which i'll elaborate later on.

4) i finally upgraded my PC – with my mom and brother's help, of course. but if you could only feel what i felt when i started using this PC after years of putting up with my old machine? damn! you would breathe a very big sigh of relief and contentment at the same time as well. i'm now able to transfer pictures from our digicam to the hard drive, store more mp3s, play high-res games (zero hour rules!!) and creating/burning CDs is much, much fun now than ever before. hey, this may be trivial to some, but for a "CD burning freak" like me, hell, this switch is a very big thing. next stop, upgrade the speaker system. =)

3) i won my first ever championship in basketball (and played the best game of my life) – though it was just a small-time summer league over the summer, a championship is still a championship. my surprising performance at that game was due to the same person (or at least frustrations/inspirations about her) who came into my life a couple of months earlier. looking back at it, it was very surreal how my emotions were at an all-time high and was so very mixed up that people who would see my usual game were really surprised about how i did during that one game. of course, the cause for that inspiration also was the cause for the breakdown that happened after the game, which i won't elaborate here. i'm pretty sure that my performance on that game won't repeat itself…well, not unless what i felt during that day will come back in the exact same way. which i'm sure will be one in a million.

2) i was able to get out of that "hellhole" of a company and moved to a much, much better one – and i really mean when i said "hellhole" because it is. the last time i felt this happy about a job was during my PS days. when i transferred to that company, all i got was lies and an incomprehendable job description. the account sucked (well, it still sucks), management sucked (well to be honest, hearing what happened after i left, they still suck), and the workload was full of shit (i guess so does management in general). some of my former agents and colleagues who also transferred to where i am now welcomed me with open arms and was relieved about my potential growth being wasted over there. one of the last agents i handled before i left also transferred and i'm proud to say that her potential for growth will be realized here. with the transfer, i was able to meet new people who have become very close to me in a short span of time. everyday, i'm looking forward to coming to work, not because of the need to work (like what i felt before), but i finally enjoy the atmosphere, the workload is light, the number of people i'm handling is just right, management is excellent, and of course, pay is very, very good! i can't imagine a better job than what i have now. =)

1) easter sunday 2005 – need i say more? this was where my personal life reached it's peak for the first time in years! this is due to the person i've been describing earlier, and that is donna. she made the majority of this year very memorable for me. although things went the same route as with my other brushes with romance and relationships, i would always look back to that day and reminisce the time i picked her up, how gorgeous she looked that day, the drive up to tagaytay, the playful gestures we made together, the weather that day that forced us to be closer to one another, the conversations we had, the memorable drive back home, her meeting my relatives, and the sweet kisses, the oh-so-sweet kisses we made in between all of those. she was everything to me, and in some cases, she still is. thank you donna for being the reason for me being happy this year.

well, i guess i've said it all, and said enough about the things that made me smile this year. the next entry is of course, the saddest moments of my life this year. can't wait to start writing on that. so i'll just ride on the positive emotions generated by looking back until the time i do sit down and look back again. hope everyone has a good weekend and pleasant christmas ahead….which reminds me, i haven't done any christmas shopping yet….and christmas is next week!! arrrrggghhh!!!