What It is to the Core

It's 1.48 AM and the night is cool. The window's open and the nighttime...it has a voice. And it speaks to me. Its whisper penetrates the window screen and brushes past me; I can feel it.. on my arms, my nape, against my ear.

I am listening to Caetano Veloso singing, moaning out "Cucurrucucu Paloma".

And though I understand not a word, my soul can't help but sigh in direct response to this person's crooning out for a lost love, perhaps, I don't know; like I said, I don't understand the words as they are in Spanish.

... And the flow of my blood sings along.

And instead of crooning for a lost love, it seems to be crooning instead for lost days. When innocence was pure and unwavering and solid as a mother's love for her kid.

My last affair was a loss of innocence for me in itself.

And sometimes I can't help but think about it. In retrospect it seems so distant and far-off. Fuzzy, like paint drying on the walls of my bedroom. It's tough to say it out loud, even though there is that mixture of apathy and acceptance mingled with it: He used me.

And yet I don't know what it is, ego or pride that keeps me from believing in it totally. At least, all day everyday. Because there are those moments that you just know. You are jolted by reality and accept it: He didn't love me. He wanted to use me because I have beauty and youth and brilliance and I am a novelty to him. But he will still marry her. He wanted me because I was like nothing he's ever seen before.

And to think that I thought God was giving me a sign... "Sasha, this it it, and I have used a bulldozer to knock him into your path. But here. Here he is. Take him or leave him."

I didn't know that God wanted me to pick Leave him.

But I know better now. That's why I don't compromise anymore. Especially when it comes to men. I am still finding my voice when it comes to my writing. I feel I used to be better at articulating what I felt before, I sounded a lot smarter a long time ago. When I was younger. Before I had lost so much innocence along the way, getting by what life was throwing at me.

But I want to believe this all serves a purpose. And I do, when I have my bearings around me. When I'm not injected with the crazies.

But yes.

I love.

I was borne of love. I will die for love. I love my people. I love my country. I love my planet. I love my passions. I love my frivolities. I LOVE MY GOD. I love.

Maybe that's all there is to me:

... I love.

New Directions

So now I'm starting things all over again.
I have worked since I was eighteen years old.
And it's only been these last three months since I've been back in Manila that I have stopped being a work mule and have just started to have fun.
I tell you - that my fun is no longer fun.
That I have been out all night and all day and in my craving for fun, I have forgotten my search for happiness.
I have short term fun and I am doing nothing as yet to work on my long term happiness.
Let's face it - my grandmother isn't getting any younger. And yet I leave her most nights in search of these "fun things". Drinking. Celebrating with friends. Forgetting that I have not yet done anything in these past few months of my life worth celebrating.
I am now in training once more to be a Radio DJ at a local radio station - at last, at least a step in the right direction.
But what about everything else?
In my crusade to prove to everyone in Brunei - not everyone really, but simply the man who is the main reason I have been sent back to Manila - in my crusade to prove that nothing I am is diminished by what I have gone through in the past, I have totally and completely forgotten what matters.
So now I am going to slick my hair back (with these long curly locks, good luck with that!) and I am going to once more begin my search for balance. Go down that road long enough, and I know I will finally find my happiness once more.
All it takes is one small step.
The right one.

Who do you tell?

I have just broken up with Nina.

And she may not yet even know.

I sent out the email yesterday, just a few minutes after leaving Sunday Worship at CCF. Yes, I go to church now. I can even say I'm a Born Again Christian without any qualms or bout of angst-ridden giggles.

But I had to leave the relationship that has been with me for a year. Our time was simply up.

For a year, majority of our time together I felt as if I were lying through my teeth.

I loved her, yes.

But who was I kidding?

I'm not in love with her. And perhaps never was.

I have a problem.

I have difficult saying 'No'.

Why is this?

I know that I'm as straight as a rod and yet my playful carelessness and curiosity is now about to come to be a world of pain for somebody else.

At the Christian center yesterday, I had only begun going there around two months ago, I had asked to speak with a councellor for the first time. Tamila was great to me, she did not tell me what to do. But I gathered by reading her that it was probably not in the rules to do so, anyway. She only told me, or rather reminded me of the essentials.

I felt as if I could no longer hold .. This, ME... inside: my seams were bursting and if I did not let it go then there would be a combustion of madness set newly forth into the world from the portal which was my conscience and my being.

I wanted to tell her: Look, Nina. I just want to love God more.

My atheist friends (and in this world we currently live in, there are plenty of those) would snort derisively I'm sure at my expense and my current beliefs and tragedies.

But that's what this is, releasing myself from a relationship that feels and has always been wrong is my Relief, Grace and Tragedy.

I know that I did the right thing. I just feel it in reverberating in my bones. But knowing that Nina would hurt when she reads what I'd written makes my bones feel like ash.

I have difficulty saying No, Tamila observed.

Yes, I answered. Yes, I know that.

So now, that's another thing I am going to have to work on.

I know that God is living in me.

He sees through my actions that I want to live my life for me, and that would in a very direct way once you think about it - be living for Him.

I suppose all I really mean by writing all of this down is:

I wish Nina would not hurt.

If there was someone to blame then it would be me. I would rather she despise me than hurt because of me.

What I pray for today is that God will take care of both of us. That He take care of her and that He would give her everything that she needs.

Dios mio, ayuda me!

Dreaming a dream. Is it over?

So I dreamed that there was an earthquake.

Or rather I dreamt about finding out about an earthquake.

My mom was telling me about it over breakfast.

Surprised, I said, "When did it happen?"

"Just this morning." Then as she was reaching for the blueberry jam, she said, "I think C is dead."

A large pause. Blankness blanketed my mind.

"What?" I exclaimed in disbelief. "He could not be dead! How do you know?"

"I saw him and his father on the news."

"What - " I paused and tried to rack my brain, trying to remember something that I wasn't aware of had just happened.

And a mental picture, sort of like a random "memory" popped up and the small square of toast I was eating was still perched halfway to my lips. Indeed, I "remembered" seeing a newsclip showing C trying to wade his way over a river of rubble, with his dad following a few meters behind.

And sort of like an immediate realization hit me on impact a moment later.

"Mommy, C is dead! I can't live without him. What am I going to do now?" Although in my mind the words came out in a lament not deep enough to fully awaken my heart to any serious pain. The words, instead, as I said it aloud...sounded more like a whine.

'Of course you can!' Mommy said, waving her hand in my direction. She was already busy doing something else.

Then I remember something else happen:

I went to the corner of the room, near the windows where the white curtains were draped and pulled to a close, and I prayed.

My prayer went something like this:

'God, please don't let anything have happened to Joshua and C. Please don't let anything bad happen to Joshua and C......'

And then later I woke up.

I remember the room was still dark. It felt around 4.30 AM in the morning. I sat up in bed, propped myself up with the palm of my hand pressed down on the bed. My hair, as I saw myself later in the mirror, dishevelled and decorated with long curls big enough to give La Union's tidal waves a run for their money.

In those initial moments after the weird dream occured, I was just sitting quiet listening to myself - with grogginess tending to leave the brain blank and addled. It wasn't difficult to recall what I had just dreamed. And also what I had felt during the dream:

Nothing. A distant mourning and regret, at some point. But without any pain that truly pierced me.

In fact, during the dream and afterwards I felt like how a drugged patient in a mental facility must feel: slow, confused, distant, self-contained, floating, mildly ironic.

I write this down simply because two things surprise me:

1. The way I "unconsciously" reacted to the scenario. And my reaction, in particular, to someone named C----------------. I thought that in the least, whichever way I would have felt would have been....uh, Stronger.

2. The vehemence and suddenness with which I included and even centered my prayer to God around Josh.

There really is no appropriate ending for this general diary entry.

This may be because there are still previous dreams concerning the subject (whatever that is - death perhaps? Or the hidden meaning behind death? Or the hidden meaning behind the hidden meaning of death? etc...) or the people I had before this one. Suffice to say, life is but one big puzzle - and one that is yet unsolved! Woohoo! - and dreams are merely fleeting spiritual orgasms that come to you from the culmination of your current mentality, unexpressed emotions and may even come to you by the supreme pity or in utmost confidence of the Universal Deities.

So there is no diagnosis or anaylsis I'd like to scribble down here. If I have any, I think its only proper to keep my lips shut and keep it stored on a mental shelf for any future reference.

All I would like to say is that I had a dream.

And then I woke up.

In case you didn't know.

I suppose people should learn from this.

If you have to hear Madea say it out loud first in order to realize its truth then you have to recite this to yourself every morning right after you dream and before you wake up so that this message becomes a rule engraved in the armour of your chest.

It's an innate knowledge that you're already born with.

But some people refuse to listen.

So I hope that this reminds you why you're here.

It makes Life so much easier.

Everybody has a Theory.

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it.

- from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert