Watching SCARFACE for the nth Time

You a bunch of fuckin’ assholes. You know why? You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say “That’s the bad guy.’”

So? What do I make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide at a lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth, even when I lie.”

-Tony Montana, SCARFACE

The Blaire in Me

Only a masochist can love such a narcissist.

-Blaire Waldorf, Gossip Girl

 PAIN truly is addictive. Love…well, that’s part of the entire hallucination.

-G Bravo, Signing Off

Smoking, perhaps, is my favorite thing in the world.

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure.  It is exquisite and it leaves one unsatisfied.  What more can one want? 

- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

QUIT? Give me another decade to think about it.

Before Sunrised.

 

You know what’s the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? It’s  when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they’re thinking of you.

You know, you’d like to think you’re both in all this pain but they’re just like “Hey, I’m glad you’re gone”.

-JESSE, Before Sunrise (1995) 

 

I rest my case.

He who is silent when conscience requires him to speak shall be debarred from speaking when conscience  requires him to be silent.

[Tobias vs. Morris; Rothechild vs. Tile]

From this moment on, whenever I think of you, I shall fantasize about rejecting the apologies I know will never come.

Remembering Elizabeth’s Words

 

Sometimes, the truth is ambiguous. Lies are more absolute.

I uncovered the truth today and the labyrinth of lies is still sealed with passionate kisses.

Bewitched. Bothered. Bewildered. 

The very thing that is unequivocal though is this: I still can’t quit her.

On Addiction

In the hospital, we see addiction every day. It’s shocking, how many kinds of addiction exist. It would be too easy if it was just drugs and booze and cigarettes. I think the hardest part of kicking a habit is wanting to kick it. I mean, we get addicted for a reason, right? Often, too often, things that start out as just a normal part of your life at some point cross the line to obsessive, compulsive, out of control. It’s the high we’re chasing, the high that makes everything else fade away.

The thing about addiction is: it never ends well. Because eventually, whatever it is that was getting us high, stops feeling good, and starts to hurt. Still, they say you don’t kick the habit until you hit rock bottom. But how do you know when you are there? Because no matter how badly a thing is hurting us, sometimes, letting it go hurts even worse.

Meredith Grey, GREY’S ANATOMY

 So if Edward Cullen has Bella Swan for his personal brand of heroine, then what are you? My own suicide note? Perhaps…perhaps…perhaps.
 

Is Elizabeth right?

You keep who you love just to lose who you are.

What she said spun my head in three-sixties paving a way to an epiphany.

For a while, I let myself drown in a million of my thoughts, precautious, pensive, with certain unexplained buoyancy from within me.

I thought about the past 10 years of my life, categorized the relationships I had, assessed the ardor and disenchantment of each like I was shoving books into 4 significant pigeonholes—each etched in the little corners of my enduring heart. Then I marveled at how much of myself I had lost each time I had chosen to love…how much of them I had stolen from the moment they chose to love me.

I wondered, like the countless time I have so often wondered, if love truly is a choice. And if it is, is losing oneself a mindless surrender?

And Elizabeth says…

“Well if I’m a sin, I was fuckin’ delicious!”

 *bow* 

Maria’s Diary

“Now, though, I am convinced that no one loses anyone because no one owns anyone. That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.“

Maria’s Diary, Eleven Minutes, Paolo Coelho

Once again, my heart broke because of something that was just in my head. But I want you to know that I meant every word I should have left unsaid.

Shame on me for kissing you with my eyes closed so tight.

Diplomacy

…is the art of telling a man to go to hell in such a manner that he actually looks forward to the trip.

For Lia, the Pretty Girl

Bakit ka magpaparamdam sa taong hindi marunong makaramdam? Wag kang magpakatanga sa taong hindi marunong magpahalaga. Matuto kang sumuko at mang-iwan kung lagi ka na namang sinasaktan.
Imbis na magtanong ka ng “Hindi pa ba sapat?”, bakit hindi mo na lang kalimutan ang lahat?
Kung alam mong binabale wala ka na, tanggapin mong nagsasawa na siya.
Wag kang magpadala sa salitang “sorry” at “ayokong mawala ka”.
Kung totoo yun, patunayan niya.

-BOB ONG

You see, hanging out with someone you really really like even if you know it’s better to avoid them is like standing under the rain. It feels so damn good even if you know it’ll make you sick.

Brandy…drink brandy. It helps. Hahahaha! See you soon.

The Kismet Ends

Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally comes to realize that nothing belongs to them. And if nothing belongs to me, then there’s no point wasting my time looking after things that aren’t mine. It’s best to live as if today were the first (or last) day of my life.

 -Maria’s diary, ELEVEN MINUTES by Paolo Coelho

Countless words to say but my mind went blank when he held my hand. My vision became blurry, my breath fell short and the tears wanted to fall knowing it was the last time I’m going to see him before he leaves this Saturday. I held on, keeping the mask I had mastered to wear all those years. I’m not giving in. I’m never giving in again to life’s cruelty. Why must I let someone cause me despair when I can keep them from claiming the best of me? It’s time to face the end of this riddle of a kismet. I don’t want a mere fairy tale. I was told I deserve an epic and I’m not settling for less.

Fate, indeed, is painfully funny.

Just when I thought sadness was infinite, he proved me wrong. He verified that fireworks will never lose their promise, that butterflies can still be in dark allies, that there could still be morning kisses and breath-taking moments. But his very presence befell a token that sadness is inevitable yet again. That it could be the very soul of my existence. It doesn’t matter now if he gave me smiles, giggles, songs and a diverse cue of memorable adventures because I have no need for memories. Not anymore. I feel that I only have the present to rage against the onslaught of reservations and fears and the future of uncertainties just to be haunted by the unyielding past.

Once upon a time, I lost someone I thought was mine forever and I thought wrong. So why must I look for someone who I know could never belong to me?

I stayed awake all night contemplating of how I manage to break my already broken heart. I wanted to tell him to stay for the rest of September…stay for the rest of the year…stay for the rest of my life. But I didn’t, afraid of what he might say. So I let my eyes speak the truth. The truth that when his plane takes off, I’d be the saddest girl in the world that very hour. Staring at Magnus for the last time, I wanted so bad to kiss him in wild abandon. But I didn’t. Instead, I gave him a little peck on the cheek and a smile I never thought I could etch on my face again. When he dropped me off, I watched him drove away fading to the realm of the unseen.

Helplessness undeniably is man’s supreme curse, I realized, as I saw myself bid goodbye to the promises of fairy tales. Who am I to question the intentions of the unknown?

To the 2008 BAR Examinees

I’m wounded, perhaps burned by embolismic expectations from my family, friends and other relationships. Perhaps I am tired of trying to be the best. But when I realize I want to be a lawyer, it eliminates my frustrations.

-US Supreme Court Justice Malcolm

ACE THE BAR GUYS!!!

Special shoutout to

Engr. Darleen L. Bravo-Morella

my favorite sister who I miss so much. Make Daddy proud, Da! We love you!

More

“There’s something to be said about a glass half full. About knowing when to say when. I think it’s a floating line—a barometer of need and desire. It’s entirely up to the individual and depends on what’s being poured. Sometimes all we want is a taste. Other times there’s no such thing as enough. The glass is bottomless and all we want is more.”

-DR. MEREDITH GREY, Grey’s Anatomy

Perhaps I am not supposed to be happy. Perhaps being thankful for what I have now doesn’t necessarily equate to joy. Perhaps gratitude is mere recognition of what I have for simply what it is. Perhaps I am thankful for the familiar things and for the things I will never know. But the truth is, at the end of the day, the fact that I am still hanging on is reason enough to believe that one day I will get to that state they all call bliss.

I may not fall in love again just yet, but that doesn’t mean butterflies had stopped flapping their wings in my stomach or fireworks had lost their promise. Just because I may not fall in love again soon doesn’t mean no one could ever take my breath away again. Because someone already has and someone is going to. And just because I may not fall in love again just yet doesn’t mean I had stopped wanting more.

Sometimes, nothing is truly enough because we long for a bottomless pit. We thirst for happy endings and all sorts of fairy tales. Deep down, we just don’t want more but we know we deserve more.

Along Came Magnus

  Heartily know, when half-gods go, the gods arrive.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson 

It’s been almost three months since my recent breakup and, until now, I still haven’t gone out on an official date. My friends wonder why. I guess I’m just not too eager to be out alone with a stranger and do the usual getting-to-know crap while eating. Or perhaps because I am not in a race to be in another relationship that I don’t really busy myself with dating. Not that I haven’t been around meeting new people, because I have, and quite a handful of them are seemingly nice and smart. It’s just that I feel more comfortable hanging out with a group because the guy, the target, wouldn’t notice if you have been sizing him up for the past hour or so. Being with a group also lessens the expectations and the pressure of being extra-nice, extra-agreeable or extra-attentive. Mind you, I hate the “best foot forward” picture. So when friends ask me out, I go. If they introduce me to someone, it’s fine. If not, it’s equally fine. Sometimes, booze makes better company than a blind date.

All is well in my own version of The Dating Scene. Steady. No hassles, nothing to get so finicky about. Then, along came Magnus.

He came into my life when I thought sadness was infinite. He wasn’t exactly the kind of person you’d fall in love with at the very first sight but certainly, he caught my eye. The night I met him, he wore a white shirt that screams “He’s an ass. Love me instead.” And I was wearing a Cebu novelty shirt that says, “I left my heart in Cebu” which kind of told everyone to just holler on us the entire evening. He’s good-natured, childlike in a sweet thoughtful way, has enthralling eyes and a rockstar element and, like me, he’s fascinated with the mafia culture.

Unknowingly, he effortlessly filled the void within me, bereft of all hope, like a potion finding its way to the deepest recesses of my being. He made me embrace once more what kind of beauty life has yet to offer. He revived one of my favorite things during my childhood, the art of telebabad. We could talk for hours and hours while sipping coffee on both ends, argue about Philippine politics and daydream about putting up a sand bar in the Bahamas. When I came down with the measles, I smiled the goofiest smile despite the recurring fever and the itch and the red spots. He regularly dropped by the house with chicken soup and Paracetamol, although sometimes, he couldn’t see me coz the fever could get really bad I couldn’t get out of bed. When I got better, he comes by for a few hours just to hang out, watch DVD, talk, smoke, listen to reggae.

It’s been two weeks of telebabad, chicken soup, pills and Magnus and still I haven’t gone out on an official date with him. My friends wonder why. I, too, wondered why but lately, after assessing the heart I had lost, I somehow grasped the rationale of why I wasn’t ready to take this to the next step.  Of why I will never take this to the next step. Because it is a whirlwind taste of the cruelty yet basic truth of a world of touch-and-go. He is the dawn that will never venture into sunrise.

He’s leaving in two weeks and I have no more heart to give him. I never saw him as a potential rebound guy I found comfort with but I see him as a half-way house, a place where soldiers rest after a seemingly never-ending battle before returning home. Magnus, is my half-way house. Before entering another relationship, he gave me a place to assess myself, my heart and my will to carry on. He prepared me for the next big thing. Then next best thing. The next love story of my life.

We agreed that we are both journeymen. We cannot stay tied down together. We’re both meant for greater things. And hopefully one day, our different paths will bring us to the same direction.

For the night on the swing, for the blown up tire you let me change and for the songs you sang so beautifully. For the man that you are and for what you are bound to be. Cheers, Tiger!

Someone. That Someone.

I want SOMEONE who is smarter than I am but who would let me be as smart, if not smarter than he is, at chosen times. I want him to let me do my psychobabbles and still be amused at how I sometimes contradict myself. I want him to find my idiosyncrasies cute and my tantrums adorable. I want him to watch me change my car tires without trying to help, know that I can be better than he is at certain things.

I want to be SOMEONE’s greatest fan yet again. To adore, believe and be at awe at a man notwithstanding his minor flaws. I want to be his number one audience at all shows he casts, front row for that matter. I want to depict magic in everything he does and hear music in his words. I just want to stay in that state of awe at SOMEONE.

I want nothing less than mad, passionate and extraordinary love. NOT the mediocre kind.

I want SOMEONE who would shamelessly need me as much as I love him. Someone who would love me the way I wanted you to need me. I want a man who would never let me let him go…not the way that you have.

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.

Reality Does Bite

If The Godfather is for men, Reality Bites is for women. Whoever hasn’t seen the movie had just let their 90s pass them by in a snap. I mean, who hasn’t seen the movie?! It’s like not knowing that Michael Jackson is originally black!

I could start ranting about this quote but I choose not to. I don’t want to rant anymore. I’m tired ranting.