Rebecca Meets Facebook

My mom went grocery shopping a few days ago and saw her college roommate who has been based in Hong Kong for 30 years. After some catch-up merienda, my mom went home, found me in front of my PC and asked me to make her a Facebook account.

REBECCA: Dab, nakita ko si Tita Brenda sa grocery. Nagkita daw sila ni Ninang Auring mo sa Hong Kong. Kinamusta ako at sinabi mag Facebook ako. Gawa mo nga ako at ilagay mo yung picture ko sa passport ko dati.

The loud and liberated, all-out Facebooker that I am officially switched to panic mode. Hala!!!
Change settings FAST. I taught her the basics. How to send messages, how to add contacts, upload and tag pictures and write messages on walls.

Today, I was online and was just browsing page to page, profile to profile and then I decided to make myself a cup of coffee, smoked a stick outside and took a shower. For how many minutes, my mom took over the PC and logged in Facebook. When I checked my profile, this is what I saw:

Rebecca M. Bravo Dab mag-aral ka nang mabuti. Magsasampung milyon na ang gastos ko sayo. Mahal pa ang bayad mag take ng bar kaya dapat one take lang, ok? nasaan pala ang susi ng gate? hindi ka na naman umuwi lintek ka!

Darn Tita Brenda! Darn Ninang Auring! Darn Facebook!

Fifteenth of April

I woke up yesterday stupefied. The labyrinth of lies is no longer sealed with passionate kisses. It has now simply become a trap snapping you back to your senses. I didn’t cry this time. The tears are just too precious to waste on something, anything, worthless.

After a good wallowing I sent Charo, the girl with the dimples and the red car, an SMS.

“Hey Cha, nakapagpa tattoo na ka kang Bastien? Was thinking of having mine soon and wala koy magalgal ug adto. Let me know.”

[Hey Cha! Have you had your tattoo yet? Was thinking of having mine soon and I don’t have anyone to go with me. Let me know.]

After three minutes, her reply made its way to my inbox.

“Basin unya Chelle. Kuyog ka?”

[Maybe later Chelle. You wanna join me?]

And so before midnight struck, I got inked on both my arms and I still couldn’t get enough of the pain. It’s addictive. But it was perfect. The little tattoo shop, rhum and Red Horse with people I just met, cigarettes on the sidewalk, talking about love, deceit, fireworks and chasing happiness.

SURREAL. The pain, the intoxication, the realization, the conversation, the smiles and the dimpled girl driving a red car. Surreal. Pleasantly surreal.

The Question She Wished She’d Never Asked

F*ckin’ Plastic Thing Found in Shoelaces

AGLETS. AGLETS ANG TAWAG DUN!!!

He was scheduled to leave Cebu on August 31 as he was bound to see his ex in Geneva this week. He changed his mind after he spoke to his mom.
I left for Masbate to see my dad, who has now become a farmer, and to endure my 7-day rehab (no TV, no radio, no alcohol…just the pond). Before I left he sent me and SMS:
“My Sassy Girl will be away when I leave this Sunday. But I could wait for her return and take her to Bohol if she answers this question: what do you call the plastic shit found in shoelaces? Answer before 12midnight.”

NAUBOS ANG LOAD KO KAKATEXT SA MGA TAO!!! Turned out, lahat kami bobo.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to just stop breathing.

At 12 midnight, he sent me another text message: “Hey Sassy Girl, it’s ‘aglets’…the plastic thingies…they’re called ‘aglets’…and no, I’m not leaving on Sunday. Let’s see the tarsiers!”

I cried. I really did. The tears were for the hours of wanting to cry so hard because I felt I was the most stupid person on earth that I don’t know what the f*ckin’ plastic thing is called even if it meant keeping him for another week!!!

Bella’s Words

After sulking last night and missing law school, I met up with Isabelle and some highschool friends for some drinks. I anticipated a night of laughter, gossip and a lot of catching up when all of a sudden, the table was turned on me.

“You’re strong. You’re probably the strongest person I know. What happened? How could you allow someone to knock you over? Moving back home is a mistake. You forfeited and let him win. You let him claim what has become yours too. Staying friends is even a bigger mistake because you will let him believe that it’s alright to forget he was why you almost threw away your future. What happened? What happened to you?”

My answer came in a whisper, “I don’t know.”

She got seriously confused so I tried to expound. “He makes it so hard for me to hate him, that’s why I don’t. I left Manila because I was left with two choices: stay and be eaten alive or leave and gracefully let go. I just don’t know if I did the letting go in a graceful way. There are still questions but I doubt if they’ll be answered so I just decided to stop asking.”

She fell silent. Perhaps trying to answer her own questions she couldn’t dare ask me.

4th of July and The Crazy Girl

It all began with the astrology conversation. Magnus came over yesterday with drinks, chips, barbeque from Larsian’s and a board game. He mentioned that he saw my Friendster account with the copy/pasted Sagittarius profile.

I told him not to believe everything written there because some are just not me. I’m not so much into music and I’m not always polite and soft-spoken. Then I asked him what his zodiac sign is so I could search for his profile. He’s a Cancerian. It took me about half an hour to do the follow-up question, “So when’s your birthday, Tiger?”  Imagine how my eyeballs grew big like saucers and my shriek reached the next town when he said, “Fourth of July, baby!” with a wink and a lopsided smile. In an instant, it dawned to me. Fate sure has a funny and annoying way of creeping behind and grabbing your ass. It reminds you that some snippets of your past are just not meant to be forgotten even if there are certain things you desperately choose to forget, you just can’t.

Here I am, away from yesterday’s emotional mayhem, trying to forge on the great hurdle of life in my hometown. I am picking up the pieces and starting over and I wanted to erase the past four years of my life in order to start the next four in a clean slate. It’s been over three weeks of newness, unfamiliar instances and strange spaces and just when I thought I was doing so good moving on came the slap of the 4^th of July birthday. What’s with Cancer, Fourth of July and guys whose name starts with a letter “M”?!!! Why do I feel I am being haunted down? Choice or curse?

After careful scrutiny I realized that we can only lie to ourselves for so long because the zone of pretense is a prison and not a bubble that bursts any minute. Being scared and exhausted of prior anguish automatically leads to a series of denial and defiance. But denying and defying past events will never change the truth—that I am bruised, broken and bewildered. Erasing my recent past will never change the fact that, today, I am scared as hell of getting intimately close to another.

Yet here comes the brighter side. When you’re down, there is nowhere to go but up. And at times, a knight in shining armor finds you in that hell hole and drops a rope for you to ascend back to the ground just in time to see the sunset. Sometimes, the knight is not always in a shining armor but he’s armed with chicken soup and Paracetamol when you’re sick, a road trip and a beach getaway when you’re bored, a guitar, chips and a board game when you need company. At times, the knight may even be born the same day as the man who drove you out of his world but that doesn’t mean he’s left with a heart to break because there’s nothing more to break.

I know I shocked Magnus with my reaction when he told me his birthday because I now earned a new nickname in his phonebook—My Crazy Girl. As the song goes, “I’m gonna smile cause I deserve to. It’ll all get better in time.”

And believe me when I say, it has gotten way better.

A Surreal Getaway

My first actual official date after my breakup transpired last weekend: Saturday midnight until Tuesday dawn.

It’s been raining in some parts of the archipelago but God bless Cebu! Sunshine is all over the island matching my very mood. One thing that fascinates me about Magnus is his spontaneity. I thought it was just one of those nights when we hang out by my swing or at McDonald’s or at the back of his cousin’s pick-up truck, but last Saturday, he made me sneak out of the house and we headed for Sta. Fe. I feel like I’m back in high school all over again, it was so crazy!

SUNDAY. We talked a lot. We talked the entire day. I don’t know any other guy who could be at par with my prattle dexterity but he handled it pretty well. We talked about the love of his life who left for Geneva after she tore his heart into shreds. We talked about why I came home so suddenly and how I managed to wreck my life into pieces. We talked about my dogs and law school and the plans I had before law school. He talked about Europe. I drank all his European escapades like I was shooting Tequila, his stories were intoxicating I can almost taste Paris. We talked about New York and how we both fell in love with the city and how we found kismets while in the city. He loves Central Park too, especially Strawberry Fields since he’s a Beatles fan.

We ate a lot. Since everything is cheap and barbeque and puso are everywhere, we ate them all. And I don’t know any half-blooded alien who could devour 11 pieces of balot in one sitting. Sheeeeeesh! He made that happen. We shared Red Horse while swathed by the moonlight and he was playing the guitar. It was lovely. Yet no matter how dreamy the mood was, we discovered that our own heartaches made us both cynics when it comes to romanticism.

MONDAY. We stopped talking. Instead, we read Mario Puzo while tanning. In my garbage of a tote bag, I brought The Dark Arena and Omerta by Puzo and a bottle of tanning lotion. He read Omerta and I finished mine first. We only stopped for lunch and read the entire book the entire day. When the sun set, he started strumming that guitar and foolishly sang adlibs of his making, it was so funny.

Then he surprised my scrutinizing head by saying, “I don’t want to take a photograph of you and me together. It will ruin this.” He said it was bad luck, that it might jeopardize our chances of meeting again. I didn’t know what he meant by “this” and later on found myself agreeing with him. When he leaves by the end of the month, a photograph will only generate nostalgia only he could fulfill and I will always be sad knowing that Magnus will only be just another story to tell and nothing more. It would be better to go back to being strangers who hang on to something that is non-existent. But whatever it is that we know we shouldn’t hang on to is the very thing that we both know we cannot infinitely let go.

It was such a pleasant weekend. Surreal. Serene. Divine.

I still haven’t slept a wink. I still cannot stop smiling.

Finally, I slept last night light-hearted.

“In the end, only three things matter: How much we loved, how gently we lived and how gracefully we let go of the things not meant for us.”

-SIDDHARTHA

Before my Cebu-bound flight, I was searching for answers because I needed to believe that I made the right choice. My prayers were answered last night. Apologies were made, misunderstandings were cleared out and a fresh start was established. Despite the emotional torment of the last two months, I am now at peace with my decision of leaving.

The man I have been with for almost-four years promised to be my best friend forever. I am family, he said. The man who I thought clipped my wings has let me fly free on my own. I have stronger wings now, he said. I can soar higher. The man who saved me from the nothing I almost become is now prouder to let me go and take on the world on my own. He said I can be anything and everything even without his guidance or strength. He has faith in me.

Although it is still heartrending to face tomorrow without his constant presence, it is heartening to know that the love we had shared has not withered but has somehow been modified into a different form. I am thankful that we are still in each other’s lives even if wedding bells could never be more than just faded dream.

“Mami-miss kita talaga, Niyaku. Ikaw, mami-miss mo ba ako?” I wiped away the tears and uttered the truth that I only know that moment: “EVERYDAY.”

Acceptance, truly, is a like a bitter pill. But once you realize that you need to swallow it to cure the pain, the pain fades away. Slowly, even at a snail’s pace, but it fades away. It’s time to gracefully let Niyaku go.

Finally, after a thank you prayer, I slept last night light-hearted.

"Until you get there…"

Just when I thought I would leave Manila, my surrogate home, as the saddest girl there is…Jon changed my mind. I just met him during the summer and a few nights ago, over a few bottles of beer, he instantly became one of those few trusted strangers. Those you impulsively pour out your deepest sorrows, joys, grief and hope to thinking that the morning after will reset their memory and they will not give a shit about what you’ve been yakking about when you were drunk.

Yesterday afternoon, while crying over the death of Luis Figo, my 6 year old shih tzu, I got an SMS that goes: “Ei G, it’s Jon, UMG. I just heard the song SAY (ALL I NEED) by One Republic. Bagay sa station mo ung song. Better listen to it.”

SAY (ALL I WANT)

By: One Republic

Do you know where your heart is?Do you think you can find it?
Or did you trade it for something
Somewhere better just to have it?

 Do you know where your love is?
Do you think that you lost it?
You felt it so strong, but
Nothing’s turned out how you wanted

Well, bless my soul
You’re a lonely soul
Cause you won’t let go
Of anything you hold

Well, all I need
Is the air I breathe
And a place to rest
My head

Do you know what your fate is?
And are you trying to shake it?
You’re doing your best and
Your best look
You’re praying that you make it

Well, bless my soul
You’re a lonely soul
Cause you won’t let go
Of anything you hold

Well, all I need
Is the air I breathe
And a place to rest
My head

I said I all I need
Is the air I breathe
And a place to rest
My head

Do you think you can find it?
Do you think you can find it?
Do you think you can find it?
Better than you had it

Do you think you can find it?
Do you think you can find it?
Do you think you can find it?
Yeah, better than you had it (Better than you had it)

I said I all I need
Is the air I breathe
And a place to rest
My head

I said I all I need
Is the air I breathe
And a place to rest
My head

Whenever the end is
Do you think you can see it?
Well, until you get there
Go on, go ahead and scream it
Just say it

When I did, the tears just welled up again and I was deeply moved and truly touched that he shared this song to me. So I sent him an SMS: “Just heard the song, read the lyrics too. You just made me cry like a lil bitch. Damn!”

His reply was, “Bagay no? Crying is part of the process of healing. That’s my song for you.”

Just when I thought I would leave Manila as the saddest girl there, Jon changed my mind. Thank you, Jon. You know you’ll always be my favorite UMG, right? See you when I see you, rockstar!

Rationale of the Momentary Alcoholism

Last Saturday, Isabelle’s friend Cathy introduced me to Angelica over bottles of booze. Fun was the evening and light was atmosphere that I did not truly expect the the same girl would uncover something about my being a seasonal alcoholic.

She said: “You see, party people are actually worth more than they seem to be. They’re not a wild child by any means because on every drop of vodka, dancing on long lively music and endless lighting of cigarettes, there is this vivid sign saying: Make me alive and happy again. I’m deadly broken.“

It stuck for a while and I can’t help but wonder if I fit into that aphorism I initially assumed to have encompassed. Later on, I realized that she was only partially correct because I AM NOT DEADLY BROKEN.

God, I hope I’m making sense.