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Showing posts from 2013

The Wedding

After exhausting months of preparation and headaches to endure that started at the beginning of the year, I finally got married on November 28, 2013 to the only woman I've shared my life with and will share for all eternity. November 27 There's a misconception that weddings are women's domain. Much of the event will depend on what the bride wants. While I don't completely disprove of this idea, it is not entirely true, either. Wedding is just as important for grooms to put their imprint on the most special day of their lives. A wedding can be a reflection of your own life captured in a nutshell with your family and friends as witnesses. It is a celebration of your own blood and tears spent to not just build and develop a relationship into something more meaningful, but to also show the person you have become through the years with the help of the people around you who have made everything possible. The choices made for the wedding, from the suppliers down to the themes

Looking for My Real Center

Last year, my then-girlfriend-now-fiancee and I saw Rise of the Guardians . It was a refreshing take on all those childhood figures we've come to know and adore. Despite the fresh characterizations that seamlessly told a tight and cohesive narrative, one part about the film that really struck me is when Santa asked Jack Frost a deceptively simple question: what is your center? Santa, with a thick. Russian accent, went on to discuss how he is viewed as fearless, giving, scary, et. al by way of a Matryoshka doll. Each doll represents a layer of his personality, and as another doll is pried open, another layer is revealed inside it. At the very center of the Matryoshka doll is the smallest and final doll that represents what the person really is. All this time, I thought that kindness is my center. All my life, I believe that I went out of my way to make others happy, to be content playing second fiddle, to simply be part of the background. Because I want the people whom I truly love

Communication Breakthrough

So I got to chat with a psychiatrist this morning. She confirmed my greatest fears - that I've become a spineless windbag and I need to stop saying the opposite of "no" and just. have. some. balls. She didn't say it that way, but I'll elaborate the entire conversation as I traverse the steps that led to this epiphany that's actually been hiding at the back of my mind for so too long. It only took three hours worth of talk for my unfortunate realization to submit to my consciousness. I can already imagine the epiphany raising his hands with a wry smile painted on his face. "Okay, you got me. Now, fix this fucker and make his life better now. Like how he always wanted to live his life." Minutes leading to the consultation, I was having reservations on how I would go about this "problem" of mine when ordering food from a local coffee shop where we met. What if my problem, like 99% of the population, is just make-believe? That I'm merely pu

Strength, Trust, and a Whole Lotta Love

Unconsciously, the past two posts happen to be my "progress report" on my way to self-improvement. It's a conscious effort to make the necessary tweaks to make myself better moving forward, but the commentary featured here serve as windows to the shattered self I'm currently trying in vein to piece myself and make a better whole. So far, it's tough. It's not meant to be easy. Just thinking about how easy life was does not necessarily want to bring back those old memories, but it kinda got me asking myself, "Why?" I never blamed my past for anything. I actually loved  who I was and am - the fact that I make mistakes all the goddamn time is what I really find as my strongest point before. But now, everything's changed. All the mistakes that I commit, I see as a disability to my progress. As much as possible, I want to keep everything level-headed and keep myself within my comfort zones. Going behind enemy lines, something that's actually new an

Why I Write and What I've Written So Far

The act of writing comes from a well of discombobulated ideas, aspirations, and memories in life that are brought to life in the form of words. They are recalled for the purpose of being able to look back and see the steps I've traveled leading to this very point. I write because I wish to retrace the events leading to my becoming, steps that are fundamentally necessary to my being but, at the same time, excruciatingly gut-wrenching. I write because these thoughts running in my head are broken. They represent pieces of what once was whole, but are shattered by a faintest of ideas. Regardless, they're there, scattered and waiting to be cleaned up. Descartes started from brokenness that was preceded by Occam's Razor, the concept that sliced pre-modern philosophy into a loss. Only when Descartes reasserted his own existence in this broken world that everything made sense. That's basically what I'm feeling every time I write notes in this personally impersonal journal -

Looking Forward to the Past

Early this year, I have decided to leave the band that I started to play out of passion and love for heavy metal before the end of 2013. Although we're still in the process of putting the final touches on the album that has been taking so long to finish, there's really nothing more I can offer to the guys. Don't get me wrong - I love playing with them and have had memorable times with them as part of the 2006 Muziklaban Grand Finals and other gigs we've played for, but I honestly feel I've been a dead-weight in the band for so long. I practiced the guitar only hours before we started playing on stage, I never come up with new riffs, no tricks to show to the guys, just nothing to offer new and refreshing. There was this time during the recording process that I was making mistakes everywhere with our songs. Imagine the songs you've been played for more than three years consistently, yet manage to let the notes ring too long, not muting the strings properly, plucki

A Guilty Gamer's Confession

So my fiancee bought me a  Nintendo Wii  this past month. Here's how it happened while passing by an electronics shop at the mall. Me: I'll show you one of my biggest frustrations later (points to the gaming section). Her: Which one do you like best? Me: I've always wanted to buy Wii Her: Then let's buy it then. The first thing that came up my mind was to flat out refuse the offer since having a gaming console isn't really high on my list of needs. But I have really been wanting for one ever since it was released in 2007. My refusal to buy a gaming console can be traced back to 1996. I was bitching to my parents about buying me a Playstation, which cost a cool Php10,000. After much prodding and heckling on my part, my father eventually gave in as we headed to the video store. While I was extremely grateful that they bought me a Playstation,  I won't forget that day was his somewhat sad eyes hiding even those thick and furrowed brows. It was an expensive and need

Two Thoughts about My Proposal

My surprise proposal just came and went in one fell swoop. Just like love, it was exasperating to plan how everything will unfold and get the most important people in our lives involved at the right time. But once she said "yes," all the hard work paid off. It is simply the happiest moment in my life thus far, which will soon be displayed once I see her walk down the church aisle gracefully with her beautiful gown and her sweet "I do." Things would not have gone down smoothly without really good friends. They helped me carry out my grand scheme to perfection and even gave a personal touch of their own during the actual protocol. I'm blessed with having few friends that I can depend on when it counted. Another thing I learned about myself is that I'm always bound to make mistakes in all the things I do. It's not about how I get things right, but it's more about how many mistakes I've committed today. It's a frustrating and painstaking process

Top Five: Boracay 2013

 1. Boracay 2013 is vastly different from the first time I visited the island more than twenty years ago. There were no malls, basically zero commerce. All I remembered were trees, less than cozy resorts, and more trees. Looking back at those times, I appreciated how Boracay was about the beach and the laid-back atmosphere. I'm not hating on Boracay like I always I do in passing (probably because I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation in Bohol years ago, which was reminiscent of what Boracay was - pure and unadulterated beaches and breathtaking sights), but the island has gotten so congested and complicated with the many establishments and foreigners crowding the place. 2. Thankfully, I was with my Beloved and her family to help me focus on what's really important: taking a break from the daily grind to enjoy times off with loved ones and great people. Having Baby Pink during the trip reminded me of having difficult and stressful, but strangely satisfying and fulfilling, it is to hav
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