And I can say, it was never my personal choice.

Before I got into my first and only relationship thus far—
I’ve always wondered if I’m just never meant for love.
If I am really just meant to grow old alone.
If I will always just be a girl friend but never the girlfriend.

It’s my graduation day from kindergarten and my mom asked someone to help prepare my look. I’m the class salutatorian, so I am to give my little speech that was clearly written by mom. While getting prepped, Meteor Garden was playing on the TV. Classic and a favorite. I told my mom I have a huge crush on Vaness of the F4. I’ve no idea why I said that, but if I remember it correctly, I think it was simply because I liked his face. Chinito looking, long hair, clean and seemed to be someone who smells really good, like fresh detergent! It was my first rejection to the idea of liking a boy because I was met with a smug from my mom saying something along the lines of—you’re too young for crushes. Okay, maybe because I was 5.

But, I’m just a girl.

I’d crush on boys every year in school. They’re fascinating and really silly. Or maybe just simply because they’re absolute eye candies. Like dragging my feet to school suddenly becomes ten times worth it after crossing paths with one of my ten million crushes.

At 29… god I miss having a crush. And I say that with yearning.

When I was in sixth grade, I remember knocking on my mom’s bathroom door, hands put together and head slightly lowered… I was being polite—that, while she’s busy doing her business. I mustered all the courage to say: “Mommy, I have a crush on this guy from my class.” You can say it was getting serious because why did I become brave enough to tell my mom again? But it wasn’t because I have something going on with this guy, more so, I just felt so jealous of my friends getting to talk about their crushes with their moms. So I had to give it another try. But, just like the first time, I was dejected. On the other side of the wall she said, “Why are you telling me? Ask your dad for permission.”

I was in total disbelief. In my head I’m like: Bro, ask permission for what? Having a crush? There’s barely going on.

Since then I stopped trying to tell my mom anything about crushes, or love. She knows everything else about my life and I love getting to tell her about my day but the one thing I would want to talk about was never brought onto the table. Ever.

It was the first exhibit. I thought, because my parents were never open to the idea of me liking a boy, then maybe I can’t get caught up in any romantic links while I’m in school. That part was true, but that was just half truth because even when I never got the support from them—I kept confessing to my crushes anyway.

YOLO. And, live with no regrets. Yeah?

I always told the boys I liked, I liked them. And mind you I had a million people on my list. Lara Jean can never; with only 5 boys she loved.

When I entered college, I had three goals: To graduate, to get a boyfriend and to become the student council president. I only achieved 1 out of 3. No spoilers.

So, did any of that convert into anything? —yeah, 99% became really good friends.
Most of the time I was rejected. Friendzoned. Only 1 turned into what kids call these days, a ‘situationship’. It was confusing, he was confused about himself. But hey, at least I got to experience something, right?

Offhand, I always envied girls that were physically put together. Pretty. Attractive. Campus crush. Girls that are the talk of the boys at the back. Girls that men plot things for because they want her.

I was never her.

I’m either befitting to be just a friend. Or something else. Like the class president, class clown, the intimidating one, the one who can command the room, the smarty pants. I was many things but never her. Sure I was liked for my personality, I had many friends. But never liked the way I wanted to be liked.

My mom always told me I’m beautiful. And I believed that growing up. I had to. I held onto that so tightly to appease my insecurities about never being liked. I had to believe it every time to shut down the questions in my head: Am I not pretty enough? Am I too fat? Is it because I’m dark skinned? Is it my acne? Is it simply because I’m ugly?

And growing up trying so hard to stay unbothered about this just made the idea of—growing old alone, never experiencing love, never being romantically involved with someone—feel like the most feasible conclusion.

When you’re young and you constantly wonder about this, imagination can make it feel really sad and gray. Because at that age, who would want to imagine being an adult and alone? Kids romanticize a lot of things about adulthood: adult money can buy you anything you want, can even buy you freedom. Being an adult means getting to date, kissing boys. XYZ. All dreamy and ideal.

However, there’s also a piece of truth in that.

Being an adult and having adult money can bring you happiness and freedom—and many more things and experiences you didn’t think you’d desire when you were 8. However, one thing that you can never manipulate to happen to you, no matter how much you try is getting liked, romantically.

This isn’t an essay to bring forth the feelings of being wanted or craving male attention. No.
This is navigating both self worth and beliefs growing up.

I’ve asked a lot of my guy friends about why they think I’m unlikeable—and I got the same answers everytime: you’re intimidating. I honestly don’t get it. I don’t know what about me is intimidating, and how can someone intimidating be a social butterfly at the same time? I still don’t have any explanations, so I’ll settle with: I’m just not attractive enough to men.

To be fair to myself—I did have that one guy from college; a deacon-turning-into-a-priest that once confessed his undying feelings under a moonlit sky literally few days before getting ordained; a lesbian who was so persistent sending me flowers and chocolates to my house every single day (GOD THAT WAS ANNOYINGLY CREEPY because we BARELY know each other, I never agreed, and she was actually dating one of my acquaintances)– and of course, the most memorable and my worst heartbreak, the ex fiance.

Did I ever think any of them liked me for my looks? No. They were attracted to my brains. And I’m not sure how to feel about that.

At this point, we can say my ex fiance was the needle in a haystack. I found him on a dating app. I assumed that if I keep hoping for a friends-to-lovers trope—I’m just never gonna get to the next level because apparently, I’m so good at being friends. The dating app worked. Not sure how he really felt about me given the way it progressed, but I’d like to assume he did like me for real… at some point. This is just to validate me, okay?

It was a broken engagement, sure. And you can call this coping mechanism but I wear it like a badge of honor, because after many years of thinking whether I’m just ugly enough for no one to like or date me, I actually got to the stage where I’m about to be wedded! Except it didn’t actually happen. I know I sound insane and crazy! But also because I survived that. I deserve a badge.

Now it’s been more than two years. Nothing. It’s never really too late. Some people find the love of their lives at 62, get married at 75. Could be me, could be not me. But one thing’s for sure, I’m reframing the thought that maybe the reason why nobody’s attracted to me like that isn’t exactly because I’m ugly. I’ll think of many other reasons, but I need to give it to myself to drop that perception about myself after everything I went through.

And I don’t mean this as some “fuck men, I don’t need them” declaration—because I do and girl do I have needs. It’s really just me validating myself—to believe that I am attractive, desirable, and worthy of love even when no man is there to reflect those things back to me.

If you’ve been hurt multiple times—being alone to protect yourself and your peace somehow becomes the default, in a world that’s bustling and busy; where picking up your phone and heading to instagram means seeing couples, happy families, friend hangouts; where hopping onto spotify meant listening to love songs. Isolation just naturally becomes the default safety space. I’d rather be alone.

Of course you wouldn’t survive growing up in a literal sense if you didn’t have people around you to raise you, however that looked like. Caveat, others had it wonderful, some didn’t; rough and unideal.

At some point you start finding people you identify with—whether it’s through the joys or the sorrows of your individual lives, or your dreams, humor or simply just finding their existence exhilarating enough to keep bearing another waking hour.

Inevitably, we experience lots of different things being with people. Which I’d like to say is an enchanting occurrence that’s distinctly human (I haven’t been any other animal yet, so… I can only rightfully claim so for my own species).

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, it’s both our nature and our need to belong. To find our people. Love and belongingness.

At some point we find ourselves consciously wanting to belong into the families we’re born in—constantly seeking our parents’ approvals, our siblings’ camaraderie. When we’re sent to school, we find circles and people we relate to and then we befriend them, you convince yourself that relation tends to be close to what a family should make you feel like, so you consider them one. The relationships fostered with these supposed-strangers makes you think you actually love them too. Probably in a different light but you’re sure they hold a space in your heart. You’re able to share thoughts you haven’t even talked about with your own family.

Sooner or later, you find yourself searching for a different kind of love. One that’s intimate. Reserved for just one person. The kind that makes you feel heat rising from your foot to your head, like blood rushing through every part of you; as if you’re burning for that one person. It’s that kind of love that you discover and find a different version of yourself. A version willing to destroy herself for someone else, the version that’s willing to give up everything else for that one person. They say it’s romantic love.

More than any roles we’re trying to play on this planet, I think our life mission as humans is to connect and relate to each other. There’s an invisible red string that links all of us or that electric feeling we get from being with each other.

I honestly think it’s one of the best features of being human. To connect.

Not everyone’s our cup of tea, just like how we’re not everyone else’s either. We find people we like, and people that like us. People who’d be willing to spend time with us and listen to our dreary opinions and point of views.

On a bigger scale, we find people outside of our league we come to admire. We are consumed by their art—whether it’s music, their media, paintings, performance or filmography. We find ourselves in between the lines of the stories they put out. In the gray areas of their masterpieces.

If you think about it carefully, it’s such a beautiful and wonderful adventure. For every human on this planet, that accounts for a quest and a story that’s waiting to be told and experienced.

But relationships aren’t always pretty.
They’re not always peaceful.
Not every encounter is successful.
Some take something from you, others drain you.
Many will leave you.
A few will make you question you and your self worth.

These ordeals will make you want to just survive on your own. Grow old alone. Die alone. Heck do I need nobody. Everybody else at arm’s length. As if creating that energy shield will protect you from any intruder—from any more painful connections. Carefully curating your life, like how you curate your instagram feed.

I’m at starbucks. I visit this place when I feel like I want to experience having humans around me. People watching. Looking at people entering the store, some with their families and kids, some with their partners, some alone like me.

I sit here and wonder: how many of them are curating their lives like I do? What stories do each of you hold? From the many people that went in and out, who amongst you could I have a connection with?

And each time, I spend hours alone, my earphones tucked in.
Each time, I go home alone.

I’m unsure whether I convinced myself I’m actually better off alone or I’ve been selling that idea to myself to protect the little child in me from any more painful situations I could’ve avoided had I been a little more careful.

I’m unsure whether I’m actually convinced that I don’t need a man because social media tells me they’re all the same, and that we don’t really need men in this day and age. Not sure if I made myself believe in the idea that all they do is corrupt women. Or maybe because the last man I opened my doors to was a complete asshole? Whatever happened to men who went to war for their women? Whatever happened to those days where phones were nonexistent and all that held people together was their yearning.

One thing’s for sure—human connection, whether it stays or leaves, is beautiful.

I liked chopping my hair for the same reason: it’s a signal; a start of something new.

After turning 18, chopping my hair meant I’m a rebel against following what my dad always wanted for me—he never liked me having short hair. He always wanted it long. It sounds just that but to me it felt like being cuffed. Chopping my hair off was championing my independence.

I did not immediately chop my hair off after my mom died. It took a few months. I couldn’t. Because chopping my hair off was both acceptance and letting go. I wasn’t ready. Every strand had access to her, heard her and felt her hands combing through them. Eventually I had to chop it off, the grief was too heavy to carry on my crown. It wasn’t like I had let go of her completely and went on with my life, it just meant I was ready to take a step forward. My roots still carried her—every part of me did.

I begged…countless times. Visited his parents and his siblings, visited him in his office, texted him at wee hours—I made a fool of myself. But I quickly chopped my hair off. It carried so much of my pain, as if every strand held every unanswered question. I had to cut it; they were never gonna get the answers anyway. I thought that chop meant the ending; but it was a start to finding out where I truly stand in that relationship. My hair witnessed him come home but it also witnessed the nights he’d sneak while I sleep, texting the woman he eventually impregnated. That hair didn’t belong to me anymore, it needed to be cut off.

Since then, I was undoubtedly having the worst loss streak. But my hair had nothing to do with it, never needed to be touched. For once I decided to grow it out. It was nice to see it grow with me, going longer than shoulder length. I haven’t had that in a while—and just like any hair growth, it picked up every bit of what I was going through.

it started carrying every bit of mistreatment, gaslit, malnourishment, false company—this time it wasn’t what my hair had to witness outside of me, but every little thing I allowed to flow inside of me. Everything I allowed, whether or not I was conscious about them. It carried so much of what I willingly endured and carried.

I chopped it again in April thinking it was a move of cutting ties with my old self.

The one who just allowed it. I chopped my hair thinking I’d look different, looked nothing like the last version that I came to abhor, one I hated. The version I eventually felt extreme hostility towards.

Of all the chops, this one was the shortest. It went right below my earlobe. But I didn’t care enough to cry about it. If I had the courage, I would’ve gone bald instead, to erase every bit of who I used to be.

Now the hair that remained from that cut has been growing, it’s probably near the ends of my hair now. Funnily growing like a reminder that I could never erase the version who went through the most humiliating phase of who I was. It was for me to take with me, to outgrow.

After thought:

Honestly, I thought I’d stop writing about my pains at this point.
I thought my next write up would be nothing about me but more of my surroundings but I just couldn’t… just yet. I’m still here and I’m still trying to figure out how to fully come out of a door that’s willingly open. My write ups are my testament of where I’m at in life, and I hope that brings you comfort in your own journey too :)

All I’ve known is survival.

It could be that, even before I knew how to dream I already lived off the weight of making sure everything’s put together. I had to make sure that at least from the eyes of the people who see me, I am put together.

Nobody had taken away the ability for me to dream.
I just never knew how.
Even until now.

Closing out the chapter of my 20s does not guarantee a dream or a life I want to build—which can sound pretty scary and risky. Because what do I do from here?

If you ask me if I have savings, I’d say: I have things I own I can sell. Or, I do but only until my next bills arrive in my mailbox.

If you ask me where I see myself 10 years from now, I’d say: Probably getting the most recent macbook and still working off of it.

It sounds lame and boring but I’d say it’s that gray area of comfort. I’m comfortable here and I have not known anything riskier that has put me in a good place where I’m living on a different timeline.

Honestly, if it was the 22 year old me you’re talking to—that girl is feisty. A risk taker. An opportunity grabber. I didn’t know it would wear off. That when life actually happens, you find yourself tamed.

When you’re 29 you somehow find yourself in the middle of a crossroad. You find yourself looking back at all the things you’ve done in the past and you somehow forget to celebrate the things that brought you here. Somehow you only see all the other small bad decisions and hesitations that you think might have taken you the longer route.

And in that same crossroad, you also look at where you’re headed—and you see nothing.

On a sunny day, I would be excited to see nothing. I’d think there’s a world waiting for me to find, build and discover. It’s exciting and full of surprises.

On a rainy day, I’d probably just keep standing here in the middle of the roads. Afraid to take the next step. Constantly doubting and asking myself whilst rethinking my decisions over and over again, as if I can make a calculative guess of where exactly I think I should be.

It’s raining today. I’m sitting in front of my laptop. Rendering the last 6minutes to my first shift out of the 5 jobs I need to be doing in a single day for 5x a week. So obviously, I’m stuck.

Because the horrifying truth about my lack and eagerness to dream, and the constant fight of survival for over 29 years is the fact that nothing is guaranteed. My poison is that I lived off the concept of one day at a time; of here and now. That I don’t want to die tomorrow thinking I’m scrubbing my life away for something I never really know would ever happen to me.

Paradoxically, my conscious choice of living for just today versus actually choosing a life I want to live, brought me nowhere out of my own head.

I’m still here. Has always been just here.
And that constant fight over a tomorrow I can’t promise myself? It has been coming anyway.

Next thing I know I’m 30. And it has already been 10,950 days.

In the midst of all these doubts and constant overthinking, I came across a question that could potentially alter my brain and my life today: If I never get the guarantee I’m waiting for, which decision can I live with?

14 words and the writers living inside my head are cramming and scrambling because now they’ve got actual work to do. Now they know we’re not just mindlessly going to live.

And no, this isn’t: be productive 24/7. Or pick another hobby. Or make a curriculum for yourself so your Friday nights aren’t boring. No.

This is the part where I’m ready to cross the road. And did I tell you that it’s a 6-way intersection?

I’m not at all excited, in fact I’m trembling in fear.

Because for the first time, I think I’m ready to let loose of the put together persona I’ve held for so long. Now, I’m actually ready to defy what I’ve spent so long drawing inside the heads of the people who thought I’d always make the obvious choice. Don’t call it courageous. I guess this is the accountability of being a full grown-up. To actually live a life without certainty and consciously trust that in every step—past, present or future: you are meant where you find yourself in.

And maybe it’s not because I never had a dream, maybe I was never built to dream.
I survive so I can keep my eyes and my heart open to the world; be a witness.
Witness more lives, more cities, more feelings, more experiences.

And keep writing about them, the way I see it from my own lens.

Did it come with the apple Eve bit at the secret garden? Is this the downside of human intelligence? My mom and I used to talk about this a lot: Humans are oblivious to contentment; continuously striving for more; Nothing is ever enough.

This capitalistic life shaped by humans themselves are manufactured in that very nature of desire. As if there’s an invisible ladder. That certain feeling of achievement when you get to the next stage—so you desire for the next, and the next, and the next. Reward, success and fulfillment are somehow correlated to a career, a promotion, a title, higher salary, bigger house, cars, luxury bags, stamps in your passport. But hey, if you can afford it, why not?

Last year, I made the biggest mistake of my life: I risked money. Money that wasn’t mine… just yet.

Credit cards feel like a badge of honor hanging on my shoulders. Then, I would think, nobody can tell I have a million credits. I can buy anything. I can look shit but who cares? Nobody knows the amount I’m carrying. It was a powerful feeling, not gonna lie. And then I risked that.

On the contrary, it bought me experiences and opportunities I would never be able to be in if it weren’t for extra money. That damn desire to be elsewhere. To be someone else. To hopefully become somebody.

Now that badge of honor eventually became a baggage I carry on my neck weighing on me, every single day. It scarred me in ways I never saw coming.
It made me cave in. Like a walking shame.
That loss stripped every ounce of pride I had. Literally and figuratively.

These days, I feel a bit better. A week ago, I actually found myself filled with immense pride—something I never really felt before. I hardly pay attention to my achievements. I don’t like attaching myself too much to things I know can be taken away from me. But it got me feeling proud looking at where all the dreadful nights got me: a car, an apartment, apple ecosystem. I’m a bit surprised my money actually went somewhere; I’m able to afford and live a more than-comfortable life.

And yet somehow, I feel less. Like I don’t belong here.

Is this imposter syndrome? Or am I punishing myself for something I did?
Is it that I can’t forgive myself that I make myself feel like I don’t deserve whatever it is that I have now?

It’s like a lump in my throat. I can’t swallow anything.
I feel less. And undeserving.

What if my punishment isn’t the debt anymore? What if it’s the belief that I need to earn my way back into deservingness? Maybe now that’s my deepest desire to do more, earn more, be more so I can feel deserving of this life I am creating.

September 6, 2019 — I can’t remember the exact time I woke up but to cut it short, this was the very date my mom died on her deathbed. I fell asleep the night before. My dad and my brother were on the night watch tending to my mom. I, on the other hand, slept like a baby the whole night after throwing tantrums for staying up and covering night watches for days now. I needed the sleep. I’m really not the type to stay up until sunrise unless you want to see me dazed and drunk, minus the alcohol; takes me the whole day to recover from a night lost—which is why I slept so soundly. Like my mom wasn’t dying. We were all very hopeful, you know?

Before all went loose that night, almost all of her family was in her hospital suite. And she made sure to show off—she ate, talked and was all energetic and I know it happens to people who are close to entering the gates of heaven: Terminal Lucidity. I know that—but this is my mom we’re talking about. To me it was as if Jesus finally heard my fervent prayers without a miss every single night for the past 8 months since hearing about her cancer metastasizing.

It happened too fast. Too fast for anyone’s liking—actually no, nobody liked any of this.

Some time after I had woken up following a night of tantrums and really just ran out of wits to keep myself awake, my dad and my brother were relentless the whole morning. She was pretty much alive last night but today she looked unavailable, all the while just sitting there, very still and immobile. My dad told me mom has begun bidding her final farewells. I wish I could remember what she told them separately, but one thing’s for sure, both of theirs were meant for them. I couldn’t grasp the situation, the fuck you mean she’s bidding her farewells? She’s not going anywhere!

So I sat close to her and held her hand, caressing it with my thumb and restlessly telling her she’s going to be okay, I can’t live without her, how can I live if she’s not here, I’m gonna die if she dies—amidst all that, she pulled me close to her just enough for me to hear her closely, my ear to hear mouth: Huwag mong pabayaan si Sky.

And then it was a haze. She was sort of palpitating, catching her breath but also telling us she needed to go and kept trying to stand by herself. It was a mix of all of that happening one after the other—you could tell I’m bawling my eyes out and screaming on top of my lungs. The way she looked has gotten so painful that the tug of war ended when I whispered to her ear: I’ll be fine mommy, you know me. You can go now.

And then she grew stiff, slowly getting cold. I rushed out of her room. Her suite was at the end of the hallway while the nurse station was at the other end—I didn’t give a flying fuck of whoever was sick in the other rooms because I was wailing and screaming for help. Doc, buhayin niyo Nanay ko!

She signed a DNR: Do Not Resuscitate a few days prior. Our doctors have been asking us to decide on this since she was admitted at the beginning of the week. Like a premonition of some sort, as if they’ve seen this episode before and they know exactly how it will end so they need to know if she’s signing a DNR or not. That was a long conversation inside the family. Of course I would never want to not have the chance to revive her if we could, but she decided for herself anyway and didn’t want to suffer further than what she has gone through for the last 8 months. I respected that, not until she flatlined. I desperately begged her doctors to revive her, fully knowing that they can’t go against their patient’s wishes. We waited for another hour while the ECG was all latched onto her—there were small tiny signs of life showing in the graphs and that made me unable to process what’s happening right in front of my eyes. I did not stop until I lost all hope. Next thing I know, a cadaver has come to pick her up and at 4PM I found myself walking into St. Peter’s with bloodshot eyes trying to arrange her room, casket and all the arrangements. Genuinely, what the fuck?

If I could etch that memory frame by frame like a shot list and tattoo it on my body, I would. Fuck, I would. Because that day was the beginning of a change I never saw coming in the entirety of my lifetime. I thought we’d grow old together, like we promised.

Aside from the pain of losing her—what really drove me to the wall is that guilt feeling of sleeping through the night when she was last most lucid; sane, if you will. And that the only thing she had for me was to take care of someone else.

Not that my Sky is somebody else, she’s my younger brother’s first born and she’s also my child like how my brother has always been to me, the moment he was born into this cruel world.

My mom’s favorite memory of me was bathing her at 2 years old. She got a viral infection and was in a vegetative state for a whole month, while pregnant with my brother. She was strong enough to somehow get back to normal, but not completely. My dad was working abroad and was home only for 2 weeks, a month utmost, gone for 6–the cycle.

In short, I grew up not in a typical household. I somehow was always part of the core team. I had to know things early even when we always had maids at home—one for me, one for my mom and one for my brother. My yayas never really lasted long, I was too maldita daw said my parents, which threw them off. One resigned after the other.

Don’t worry, I’m nicer now. Way nicer. People pleaser kind of nice—almost the toxic kind.

And that’s exactly it. I carried too many things way too early that I never even questioned if any of this was mine to begin with?

I did it without question because it was the most natural thing—though being too responsible led me to too many attempts that started in 4th grade and it wasn’t exactly because I’m tired of living, or I don’t like my life anymore.. But more so a desperate cry for help.

Look at me.
I too need help.

I can brag about it and say I’m such a good girl growing up. I never said bad words until I was in my fourth year of college (now I just can’t stop lol). I never cut class, never went into the principal or guidance office if not for recognition, never for trouble. I never had any vices, not smoking, not drinking. Never dated until I was 26.

I was never the kid my parents had to worry about, lest, think about. Because I just knew, as if it’s not my first time living.

I can say I made my parents’ life easy—because while I was almost-the most ideal kid on the planet, my brother was my total opposite. I love him nevertheless.

But that was me—always taking care of everything external because it’s the most natural thing to do. To be effortlessly performative for everybody else’s needs that now I’m about to turn 30, I feel my guts gushing out of my body for how long I’ve abandoned my own self.

Even then, and even now I still carry the weight of God knows what.
I’ve convinced myself long enough to say that my parents never pressured me, an eldest daughter, to be a breadwinner but with my mom gone and everything else within my radar how can I think of myself and only myself?

The quiet hush of responsibility creeping on me before I close my eyes at night. The need to decide of what the fuck am I going to do with my life because there are people within my immediate circle that are invisibly dependent on me. I feel leashed but nobody really is chaining me to anything. It’s that endless pang of guilt mixed with the overly responsible persona that just knocks me off my composure.

If it were up to me, only to me, I would be wandering. I wouldn’t be staying in just one place. I’d be everywhere and anywhere all at once. That’s how I imagine to live my life. No strings, no responsibilities—only a life well lived and world well explored.

But when you can’t take a specific hat off no matter how much you try, like a second skin engraved into your body, mind and soul—the ghost will always hunt you and you will always find yourself carrying something you don’t really know if it was yours to begin with. Or maybe you do know that it isn’t for you to bear but you do anyways, because if not you, then who?

And nights like this I just want someone to hold without a question. Someone who knows exactly what I need without saying a word because I’ve been doing that most, if not all my life—know exactly when and what others need without having to say a word.

I, too, need someone like me.

Cant believe i allowed my brain to fool me into guilt tripping myself about performing for relationships when there are actual people who don’t ask for reciprocity. gone, be away and when you’ve knocked sense into your head, they’ll be right at the corner. and it’s not like they stopped for you. life went on for everybody and you’re still welcome any day.

It’s 11PM. I log onto Zoom, and I hop on a call with Steve from Arizona. It’s probably 8:30 or 9AM for him. The usual, our catch up starter pack during our weekly meet. We ask about our days, how our weekend went.

It’s crazy how Western people are like that. They love small talks. Can’t be me. I don’t like small talks. I’d rather be clear if we’re on business or we’re friends.

Like that can’t overlap otherwise, my system will be on error. No overlapping of relationships, fam. Either we’re friends or we’re not.

He told me about his weekend, apparently he had turned 30! Steve and I were born on the same year and so I told him I’m also turning 30 on December. He asked me one question: What do you want to do on your 30th?

It’s a little funny how I already had an answer top of mind but I still tried to dig deeper. Anyway, I thought I wanted to celebrate it alone this year? I thought I had no friends anymore that would want to celebrate with me. For the last 2 years, I have gone all out celebrating big birthdays because I needed to find comfort after being left.

I thought I’d be celebrating my birthdays married 2 years ago, but that didn’t really happen, and so I found solace with friends. I started doing that until things fell apart early this year and I’ve kind of lost my way to them, kind of cut myself out of everybody’s life deliberately. And, I don’t know, sometimes I would rather think it was for my need for time alone or self discovery. Could be true.

Most of the time, it was just hard to admit that, I feel undeserving of attention and love. Because I was a disappointment, and I’ve never been a disappointment to anybody. I’ve always lived to people’s expectations and more. But this time, I was out of light. I was not myself. I got caught up in a bizarre string of events that wasn’t something I will exactly be doing. It was a stupid, embarrassing decision.

But you know what? I’ve constantly convinced myself, time and time again, that failures make people, we should not be afraid of making mistakes because we learn from them. And if anything, they’re the best teachers.

But I took mine to the heart. Like, a crack to my almost perfect personality. Like, allow it to lament the ever-great Angela.

And so I turned my back. From everyone who loved me. from everyone who lent a hand, from everyone who extended help.

I turned my back... and caved into bad habits. Isolated myself and lived under the rock because I thought I was undeserving. I was unworthy of love, care and attention, relationships, friendship and family.

Somewhere along the lines, maybe it’s because I also fear... being pitied on. I don’t want anyone to pity me. I don’t need a pity party.

But I didn’t know exactly what I wanted either.

And... all I know is I’ve been wanting to escape.

I’ve been wanting to get out of here. create a new life, make a new face, have a new body, and just be, overall, different, extraordinary, someone unrecognizable.

Surprisingly, I still found myself here. with the people who wanted to hold me when I was breaking. People who were happy to hold a piece for me until I’m ready to put it all back together.

Life went on for everybody.

It did stop for me.

But I was welcome any day.

Till I’m back and ready.

Now, I’m here.

Try striking a conversation with a kid and ask them, what do you want to be when you grow up? Kids from my generation would either say to become a police or a doctor. It changes every time. Kids these days would say something like, become an influencer or a youtuber—nothing wrong with it. I’m 29 and I want to be that too. None of the usual ones like climbing the ladder or becoming rich. I want to be a person of influence.

When I was in my teens, I used to look at older people like superheroes with freedom as their superpower. In amazement, I think to myself: what do you mean you get to decide for yourself?

I have 2 amazing older cousins, they’re sisters, quite the opposite from each other; one was exceptional in school and easily got into the biggest banks and corporations in the country. Before 30, she was already able to build her own company, even wiser about choosing her partner. The other was the chic one. She had a sun tattoo on her back, she smoked cigar, tall, slim and really pretty—she was a stewardess, a flight attendant and she got into Qatar Airways the first time she attempted to apply. Nobody expected that from her because she flunks school, the problem child, she had permanent bruises and a tatt so it came as a surprise that she actually got in. My mom and my aunt used to talk about how she charmed her interview with the airways which landed her the job. That’s when I realised how charisma can get you to places outside of diploma and school recognitions. She also influenced me to get tattoos. I wanted to be like her smoking cigar but my lungs are just not cut out for it.

Every time I overheard this conversation when I was young, it instilled the idea in my head that I could be absolutely anything. Be it may that my diploma does the talking or I’m just irresistibly charismatic, which I think I am a natural. In born.

I grew up believing I could charm my way to the world.
Become someone great, inspiring and huge.

If there’s one dream I have, it is to live inside history books. Where people learn my name and who I used to be. Remembered for eternity. That’s what I want to be. What I do in this life and how I achieve that, I’ve no idea. I resorted to wanting to become a president. I’d like to believe, still at this age and time, that I am cut for it.

But where am I now? Who am I now? And what am I doing with my life?
Those are valid questions… but I can’t keep stating the obvious.

Let’s reframe it—currently, I’m in the process of collecting experiences so I become a better fit to the person the universe wants me to be—like a job application; before I can get promoted.

What do you think about the word experiences?
When I was younger I used to think of experiences as only the good things, more so related to traveling, getting into my first relationship, landing my first job, living alone—all the goody and the giddy.

Now that I’m 29, I think I quite fear experiences—the infamous: ‘charge to experience’.

Right now, I could only think of the many experiences that broke the kid who used to dream big. The little girl in sixth grade who said she wants to become the first Filipina president after watching another kid on Eat Bulaga say his dream is to become a president.

The 16 year old sophomore college me, who believed she will be on Ted Talks because she’s a natural speaker like that. Believing she could speak about that time she got cyberbullied a year before anti-cyberbullying became a law.

The 23 year old version of myself who was lost, dazed and confused about what she really wants in life. Living for one more day, with a little more hope that she can still become someone inspiring in this lifetime; however slowly losing that as her mom dies the same year. Her most treasured soul in this world.

The 26 year old Angela who got into her first relationship and got engaged the following year but then immediately broken up with because the person she thought was the love of her life was cheating a month before they even got engaged.

The 28 year old businesswoman she had become after engaging with people she knew very briefly believing everyone is kind deep down and she can charm her way through to people- revealing that to her; hoping her authenticity and honesty can win their hearts. Insanely believing she has enough guts to revive a dying business, an already sinking ship.

The 29 year old social butterfly who lost almost all of her friends and is now in constant self-scrutiny thinking her life fell apart because she’s the problem.

All these narratives and constant blaming I built inside my head are holding me back.

I know, it’s me.

This is how I arrive at that conclusion; the world has become a whole lot more restricted now that I’m actually older. And it’s not like the world locked me up, put chains on my hands and feet and put a gun on my head telling me I can’t move.

It feels constrained and I am scrambling to rise above these situations. As if I fell into a deep well. Here it’s dark and cold, the walls are so tall. I can see the light but I don’t know how to climb up. All I know is I want to escape, without thinking it through properly.

The more I try to extricate all these versions of myself, the more I feel compelled to dig deeper just to bury them all. But the deeper I dig, the deeper the well becomes.

I heard a faint voice above the ground, “You need to stack them up so you can climb and escape. Burying them won’t let you out, you’re only creating your own trap.”

I realised I am living in fear thinking of all the versions everyone else had of me. I feel caged.
I think of myself like that one house at the corner of the street where everyone used to gather and have fun, you’d hear laughter all around—but that house is now breaking, walls are tearing apart, there’s barely any light, the stairs are broken and doors are too heavy to let you in. Useless and abandoned.

But what I don’t pay enough attention to is that the foundations are still here. I can still renovate the home to become a version that’s more useful to the person living in it rather than always welcoming other people. A home for the living not for who’s visiting.

But just like any renovations, this one will take a while. Brick by brick.

And maybe, sometime in the future, it’ll still be that house in the corner…

But by then it’s totally different; stronger walls, standing tall, useful and a treat to the eyes and soul.

I think love makes the world go round because it can take you high. Like you’re on top of the world. Like you can champion anything and everything as if nothing can go against you. Whatever it is, you can get past it because you are fueled with love.

I think love makes the world go round because at some point, the wheel needs to turn, most especially when we refuse to believe what’s already served in front of our eyes, we’re taken down by heartbreak. Humbled, grounded and broken. Or sometimes mildly, that love is challenged;

And voila, the wheel will only keep turning.

I think love makes the world go round because it softens our edges. When love prevails, we are naturally humane to others. We treat and interact with each other like proper human beings because of love; and because of love we expand this into compassion and extend a hand to people around us. Privileges like time and availability become second nature for people we hold close to our hearts.

I think love makes the world go round because no matter how much we push it down and avoid it, it is something we all yearn to feel and experience in this lifetime. How beautiful it is to love and be loved.

—we are meant to love and return that love. Like an endless cycle.

I think love makes the world go round because we are meant to love and be loved. It’s a cycle of filling our empty hollow jar of hearts and when it overflows we share them away like free cookies on the streets. To people we meet, people we befriend, people we call our family and people we keep.

More often than not, that love was and maybe still is mostly poured into those people once close to us. Some turned into strangers, some are no longer here on this planet.

I think love makes the world go round because when we experience love, the real kind of love, there is nothing more than deeply ingrained to us humans but to make others experience that too. Love is something we don’t think about keeping to ourselves, we pour them naturally to others sometimes uncautiously too.

But that is exactly why I think love makes the world go round. It is an endless cycle of give and take.

I think love makes the world go round because even love letters from way back are both taking us there and here, making us think about our own version of love. Like how,

Vladimir Nabokov wrote to Véra Nabokov

“My delightful, my love, my life, I don’t understand anything: how can you not be with me? I’m so infinitely used to you that I now feel myself lost and empty: without you, my soul. You turn my life into something light, amazing, rainbowed—you put a glint of happiness on everything—always different: sometimes you can be smoky-pink, downy, sometimes dark, winged—and I don’t know when I love your eyes more—when they are open or shut…Today I can’t write about anything except my longing for you. . . I don’t know how I’ll survive the week. My tenderness, my happiness, what words can I write for you? How strange that although my life’s work is moving a pen over paper, I don’t know how to tell you how I love, how I desire you. Such agitation—and such divine peace: melting clouds immersed in sunshine—mounds of happiness.”

Or how

Olivia Rodrigo wrote it in the stupid song:

You’re a spark in the dark and my clothes all caught aflame
You should feel how I feel when somebody says your name
I’m a car speeding down the boulevard without a brake
And I want you more than any stupid song could ever say
I’m a heart made of wax and I’m melting in the sun
I’m a thread on your shirt that is coming undone
I feel right, I feel wrong, I feel totally insane
And I want you more than any stupid song could ever say

I think love makes the world go round because we all connect to it. Whether it’s the love for our parents, our siblings, our children, our friends, our family, our significant person, or even for the world, for the trees, the pigs, the sharks & the whales, the rocks and soils, the moon and stars- and everything else in between. Love makes us feel and when we talk about it, sing about it, we get taken to specific chapters or people in our lives that either had insufficient amounts or overflowing love.

Love makes the world go round because it is an endless cycle.

We are to love and be loved.

It’s been half a year since I pulled back after hitting what I think was my rock bottom.

Almost 10 years have passed since I left school. Honestly, if you try to think about “10 years” in human age it’s just a 10 year old kid, understandably really young. Universally, we’d allow them to just be kids—load them up with learning, graciously let them play around and make mistakes. However if I think about myself and phrase it as: 10 years since I left school, it somehow implies I’m either almost or well over 30.

And that makes all the difference.

As if there’s this quiet expectation encapsulated inside those 10 years—I should already have built myself into somebody; perhaps a career, maybe a licensure for legitimacy, a car, a house, 10 million in my bank account or a bragging name. But instead, I met my downfall. I made a mistake, I poured so much of me into poisonous people and my brain branded me as a failure. That’s when it all spiraled down, endlessly, to a pithole and then to the earth’s core… even way past it, like a black hole; the never-ending self predicament.

It was drastic and damaging to say the least for everyone around me because while I was visibly drowning and whilst everyone was trying to offer me a hand— I pulled back, I caved in and I completely isolated myself from the world.

I was at my lowest and nobody, not even myself, can pull me out of it. At least not too quickly.

It was a mix of almost everything negative: shame, embarrassment, downfall, failure, a massive wreck ball. Physically, I was bloated, my skin was damaged, my sleep was cooked, I was binge-eating, I didn’t look like myself. I barely bathed and got out of bed. I was retaliating from everything.

It would seem like I didn’t care but it was me scrambling to find myself. Who was I before it all happened? How did I end up here? How come I didn’t see any of this? How did I let this all happen to me?

I constantly rejected the world. Questioned everything. And I thought I’d never get out of it.

In my head, what getting out of it looks like is that I’ve corrected that mistake and erased it from my book of records. It was that one single metric of success. I punished myself for making bad decisions and for what I thought was me constantly making bad decisions still.

But little did I actually realise that all of those times I spent dreading myself and my life was a budding seed of a plant.

Most people would say that if you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere else to go but up.

Cliche, yes but it’s true. And it’s not overnight. At least from my own experience, it definitely was not overnight.

It’s been six months. It was lonely and dark and directionless—that’s what I thought.

But as it turns out, it was exactly what I needed.

I needed to pour it all back into me.

What I didn’t notice was that I gave everything away: my time, my love, my attention & affection, my money—everything flowed out of me. And I was already too drained.

That time of isolation was badly needed and I didn’t recognize right away that I had already built an awkward wall between me and myself. For someone who loved being alone, for the first time it felt unfamiliar. Like an unchartered territory. And even when it was dreadful and I feel forced, I was slowly learning how to be with me again:

How to sit quietly for hours,
How to not talk all day,
How to not let anyone know what goes on in my business every freaking second,
How to get bored,
How to enjoy my own company again,

Like a 10 year old kid that’s learning how to navigate things within my proximity.

Although I’ve always thought of myself as someone extremely extroverted and recharges by interacting with people—there were parts of me that changed too and this allowed me to rediscover myself.

Redefine who I am. Get to know me.

Allowing anger, sadness and disappointment to consume me woke me up from my madness. Little did I know it was my body talking to me and telling me how much I’ve let everyone suck the life out of me.

How I let people decide for me
How I let people talk over me
How I let people win my thoughts
How I made everything and everyone come before me
How I put me at the end of the list; my health, my needs, my boundaries, my own original thoughts
How I did not allow myself to be evil and continuously perform to be that kind, thoughtful, person day and night, like I wasn’t allowed to think bad thoughts

I pushed myself to the extreme that I started becoming my own stranger.

Suddenly one morning I felt better about myself, I think I know myself better now and have learned to allow myself to simply exist.

In all its forms and versions.

And if not for meeting the darkness, I would never know how to reach for the light.

In the most basic sense, as part of the human species, of course there’s only 1.
I entered that on google and the first result told me it varies from Geography & History, Religion & Philosophy, Astronomy & Space—and it claimed the highest number: Over 5,000 worlds according to scientists of exoplanets there exist.

I’m neither any of those, nor am I an authority but let me claim that there are 8.3 Billion worlds, on Earth alone.

I encountered something a while back, it said, “each and everyone of us are the main characters of our own lives”—it stayed with me like a revelation… except it’s not. For one, I do feel like my own popstar and everyone else are just secondary characters. My plot is the most important one, everyone else is just a subplot.

No matter how conceited it may sound—my feelings, my thoughts, my decisions and the developments of my own life is my top most concern. What’s going to happen to me now? What’s going to happen to me next? It’s the same for you and me. Sometimes consciously, most times subconsciously.

In some cases, a ton of us think they live their lives for others; for their kids, their parents, their siblings, their partners— their beneficiaries. That they hardly think about themselves and they forget themselves in the process. Sometimes they feel their lives are not their own.

But these are also choices. Decisions. An exorbitant exercise of free will.

I would argue that latently, we do these things such as living our lives for others or serving people outside of our own realm because it makes us feel something; it scratches a part in our brain; whether it’s dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin or endorphin kick—there is this peculiar sense of fulfillment? Belongingness? Superiority? Or like a ticket to earn deservingness. But regardless if it’s someone buying themselves luxury or someone sending their siblings to school, there is a tad bit of common denominator that demonstrates a certain sensation.

‘

It’s been 8 years since I started remote work.

My MBTI tests used to consistently result in either an ENFP or ENFJ. I had my identity attached to the idea that I am unquestionably extroverted; sociable, outgoing, social butterfly—I love being surrounded with people. It’s easy for me to strike conversations, converse to people of all ages. I took that same test in the big year of 2026, 8 years into remote work and my results showed consistently that I am now officially an INFP. Introvert.

Some people wouldn’t believe mere personality tests but it matters to me who likes to label my thoughts, feelings, behaviours, actions and even my personality. In short, that shook me. I took the test multiple times in different days because this means there were major shifts in my life that I hardly noticed. External variables, or shall I say, subplots that altered who I know I should be.

If my ENFP chapter was a book, I was one with the many people I have in my life that the main plot would have many characters, including the relationships I shared with them, mine and their purpose in my life, our trials and triumphs as individuals and people related to each other. This INFP chapter is just me. The plot changed, whether it was an upgrade or a downgrade, the plot narrowed down to just me, my emotions and my feelings.

My disclaimer is that my metamorphosis and the self I found from these two opposites may not be the same with others. After all, your plot is different from mine. Just like how words can have a universal meaning and yet hold a different significance varying from person to person.

But in both cases there account for senses of fullness and emptiness; they co-exist.

In my extroverted life, I felt more connected externally, then allows me to connect to my inner world; The introverted chapter operates from the connectedness I have internally and that allows me to connect to the world externally.

Each phase held different levels of intentionality.

It wouldn’t be right to just claim that working remotely made me an introvert. A bigger plot that took place is my adulthood or shall I say my frontal lobe developing? The world inside me feels stronger each day. I guess you can imagine i’m like a wild carrot in the wild—someone who doesn’t know what the stalk of a carrot looks like would think I’m just one of the weeds, until they pull me out. The need to grow healthy enough to be of use to others.

Maybe it’s also the mental collapse of being with people most of my life. The realisation of the many worlds there exist; the sudden awareness of how different we can be from each other. How one can change over time. How external variables can shape one’s becoming. How one can be the total opposite of who we thought them to be.

For all that, I deeply deeply crave human relation and connection.

I sit at a coffee shop, 5 minutes to 2pm and I saw more than 20 different people come up to the counter to take their order. I see the same 3 baristas since this morning switching from the cashier, to the coffee machine, to the one calling out names to serve the drinks.

We encounter more than 250 people a day when we’re out in the wild. A remarkable note I read long ago said, for every 200 people we meet, 1 of them is a ghost. And even so, everyone has their own story. Everyone is living in their own worlds.

Everyone is a precious son or daughter to their parents, someone’s partner, someone’s mom or dad, someone’s friend. Both with good and bad natures in them. Each one of us are humans by existence with different plots, secondary leads, sub plots.

Each one of us has a pain to share. A wisdom they learned from their own experience.
A favourite color, favourite food, morning routine, texting habits.

I sit here with my earphones in. At 29 I can confidently say how careful I am now about the relationships and connections I’m making. What a beautiful daily occurrence that you and I can be in the same room but we live in totally different worlds. That there’s so much I can learn from you and you can learn from me. How rich I can become if I learn about you and your life story. I think it’s magical how I can stand next to you in the line, ask for your name, maybe your number, check out your socials, know what your usual coffee order is and still know nothing about the depth of you.

Like a world waiting to be discovered;
Stories waiting to be told;
Sorrows waiting to be heard;
Hearts waiting to be held.

When we finally choose this life, does that mean we’ve given up?
If I somehow reconcile with my reality, does it mean I have given up?
If I decide to stop running after a life I thought was meant for me, does that mean I gave up?

Is there a different way to say settle without it giving a notion that I settled for less?

For some reason I just know I’m meant for greater things. I think a lot of us do think—we’re meant for bigger things. I’m meant for the spotlight, the stage or someone who represents a group of people. Maybe a person of influence, or a key opinion leader—I’m not sure. But what I’m sure of is, this is not where I stop. This isn’t my final destination. There’s a path I have yet to uncover.

That is certainly coming from someone in their late 20s. Full of hope and ambitions. Left and right acclamations of: THIS ISN’T MY LIFE, JUST YET!

Not to mention the many stories we’ve encountered of people who aged beautifully in this life. There’s a tad number of old lads and lasses that have met their peak in their 30s, 40s, 50s, some even built their empires in their 60s or 70s. Hope is just drilled into our very core: It’s never too late.

So we grind, and grind, and grind, and grind some more.
We hustle, and hustle, and hustle, and hustle many more.
And then we miss, and we miss, and we keep missing our very own life.
And then we say: I’ll be sure to make up for everything when I finally hit the goal.

Because—this isn’t my life yet. I know I’m meant for more. It’s never too late.

I imagine myself standing on a hump in the middle of a long road.

On my left was my past, my very curious self, the one who asks so many questions, the one who questions societal norms, ambitious, critical, full of hope, extremely patriotic—the one who’s very certain she’s meant for something more.

On my right is the version I’ve yet to meet. But what if it’s someone who’s just someone? Not a somebody—just someone. Someone who has reconciled with life. Someone who may or may not have given up on the grandeur of her dreams and who she thought she will be, just someone who’s at peace. Calm. Collected. Contented. Satisfied. Someone who somehow found her way to just live between the ridiculousness of this human-led world? Maybe someone who got stuck with a 9-5? Or, lived less of the lifestyle she was used to?

What if.

Because in the middle of this long road, I keep getting carried; not the other way around where I carry life—life carries me. I get taken to phases and places. When I thought I was busy chasing who I’m meant to become, I keep missing out on where I am now.

Somebody has to say it: It’s impossible to be here and constantly prepare for tomorrow. Because while you think you’re preparing for tomorrow, the reality could be that you’re already living that, you’re already there.. Not here. And it’s true, you can’t have the best of both worlds. Not even Hannah Montana survived that long. It’s either A or B, black or white, here or there.

But hey, even in the afterlife, there’s purgatory. A middle ground. Sadly, I don’t have any answers about that… just yet.

When I was way younger, I thought of myself as someone who lives in the moment.

In the present. Here and now. I rarely think about plans, or tomorrow because I don’t like dealing with things that are out of my control.

And I liked that about myself. I was young.

I had little to no responsibilities except for my homework, my exams and my 14 crushes.

There’s a quote from something I recently watched that stuck with me: Our species is called Human Being; not Human Doing. Apparently, as humans we are meant to be, just be. Still. Here. Present. The joy of being. One of the characters said: we now tend to chase one after the other as if life is a race of who gets to accomplish more quests. It defeats the very purpose of Human Beings– to just be.

We get so lost in the many in-betweens. We forget about the mundane. The boring. Always on the go. Always onto something. What’s next? What do I do now? I can’t be doing nothing or else I feel worthless.

Human Being.

I die a little every time I realise that we’re bound to the very norms we created. This roleplay of societal functions— I’d say intentions were good; I think systems are important otherwise we’d all let loose and who knows? We’d probably be extinct by now if it weren’t for norms, rules; but I’d also like to point out that this shaped our understanding of purpose. If we base it from the bible, our purpose as man is to be the stewards of His creations, however, because of how society was shaped throughout the years… our purpose somehow became related to a career. What are you doing for a living?

Oh! We just debunked the most perfect question. Instead of: what are you doing for a living? Perhaps it should be: What are you for a living? Are you actually living?

Well, me? I am a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a smiley face, an energetic ball— quite literally.

I try to always be kind and mindful but like any other, I have thoughts running through my head. I try my best to be real and honest about what I feel and think regardless of how it sounds because that is being kind to me, to my present thoughts. It allows me to arrive at a place of better thinking. I suck at being a friend, almost comparable to a mushroom sprouting now, gone the next. I am a loyal daughter to my parents. A shitass sister to my only younger brother and the best aunt to my only niece.

I say, I try hard not to equate myself to what I do for a living. I try hard not to identify myself according to what I do for work. It’s just a hat, I wear it and then I don’t.

I try my best to live here but it’s not easy. I get carried away by the many lives I get to peak at everytime I scroll through socials. This parasocial world I subconsciously subscribe to that I start to participate in theirs instead of mine. The unconscious pressure and competition brewing at the back of your head comparing where you’re at in life versus someone that’s gone after a swipe.

We get so hooked and acquainted with other people’s ideologies about love that we almost forget how love makes the world go round. Love is literally a lifeline. If not for love, why are we here? We need to remind ourselves that love transcends romantic relationships. We are built with so much love that we are overflowing with it. We build and nurture relationships because there is so much love to share with people around us. We stay for one more day because love keeps us alive. I am here because I love life.

Cherry on top? Laugh. Laugh some more! Humor adds value to our life.

Humor adds quirkiness to the words we say. Humor adds color to our interactions. Humor makes our life journey a tad more lovely.

To be human is to be. Unserious. Fun and filled with love.

If it weren’t for norms and economic ecosystem.

Family is said to be the smallest unit of society. And at least with my first introduction to society, as the eldest daughter, I can confidently claim that I am the annual recipient of the popularity award.

I am the third vote, the treasurer and the accountant; the guidance counselor and the principal; the therapist, the housekeeper and my most hated job description: the shock absorber.

My so-called emotional intelligence, which by the way my ex-fiance said I didn’t have, I thought was innate and because I was smart. My capacity to ask and keep asking so I can understand layer after layer of human complexity was both because I am and am not just an eldest daughter.

How do I feel about it? I don’t know. I can’t say I hated it neither do I like it but I’d say it makes me ask: what would I have become if I wasn’t an eldest daughter?

I read somewhere that writers hold onto their grief and their pains because it’s the fuel and the source to keep scribbling; to keep debunking life and existence; to keep telling stories— and if a writer lets go of their pain— the writer identity is lost.

Back when I was a student, I loved taking leadership roles. I loved being in control and I love having a voice. In my senior year, our english class finals was to perform a musical. Ours was wicked and I was the director, screenplay and Elphaba (spoiler alert: I lip synced Defying Gravity).

I was also a social butterfly. I’m popular in a sense that I’m friends with everyone. I belonged to many different friend circles.

2 years after graduating college, I lost my mom. and as years go by, friends started decreasing and I succumbed myself to capitalism that I work most of my life ever since I knew how to make money. And so eventually, what used to be a hectic, in demand, extremely sociable life became quiet. And quieter. That sometimes I’d hope my walls could talk.

My grief and pain lessened. There was almost nothing to attend to. The colors of my life slowly got sucked away. Peaceful!? Yes. But in that quietness is also a sense of loss: Who am I now that I’m no longer constantly needed?

The time of quietness and loss was a walk into the vast darkness. A tediously eventful walk to meeting myself except there was no audience but me. The introduction to who I am outside everybody else was a sacred experience that I can’t bring anyone in it.

When the world didn’t need me, I came to realise I needed myself. I constantly need me. And you know as they say: people can only meet you as deep as they met themselves

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If someone told me I was born already knowing things like the back of my hand, a part of me would believe them. It’s honestly kind of astonishing how I sometimes just know how to do things without any proper training, or how the right words seem to find me when I need them—even though I’ve always thought my vocabulary was pretty basic. It’s like there’s this quiet intuition that connects the dots before I even realize I’m doing it.

Does that make sense?

Some characters in the family dynamics are just expected to be the most expert— in using the phone, creating a facebook post, connecting to a wifi, setting up an account with your banking app, even knowing how to legally fight for a land sometimes is expected of you without a law degree.

It’s kinda crazy to think about. It fumes me, to be transparent.

How do I just know these things? Automatically? Or better yet, how are we all just arriving to the understanding that for the sake of everyone in the team, I am cherry picked to learn about it?

And then you carry that—through school, friendships, relationships, and work.

They preach: “Always say yes because you never know when the opportunity comes—you definitely wouldn’t want to miss that!”

Well, hell no. Hell naw.

I’ve said yes all my life.

Even when I don’t blatantly say yes, I was just expected. No brainer.

It had to be me and I had to.

Or else, the world will fall apart.

News flash—still pretty intact despite countless corruptions, wars, stupid people leading the government, rising poverty, more expensive cost of living… still pretty intact.

So, why do I have to keep taking it all in?

Why do I have to keep saying yes?

Growing up being praised for simply knowing things—and, maybe this is a little far-fetched, for being seen as “almost the expert”—makes you want to keep becoming that person. It pleases the people around you, and in return, you feel rewarded but it’s actually gaslit disguised. Unconsciously, this is killing you. In the long run, it puts out the fire in you. As if you’re a volcano with magmatic unrest. Boiling. Fuming. Waiting to erupt.

So what happens when you decide to stop?

You’re no longer just nodding. Saying yes. Agreeing. Taking it all in.

YES I CAN DO IT!—Not anymore.

You decide you’re not some superhero with limitless superpowers; you have your limits and capacity and you hit them sometimes, and that it’s okay because after all: you can’t and you shouldn’t be doing it all.

When you finally decide to stop it feels really iffy;

Feeling like you constantly want to puke;

Like you hate yourself for drawing the line;

For enforcing your boundaries.

Second-guessing yourself all the time: can’t I just let it go?

Can I just let it be?

Can I just say yes to it too like what I’ve been doing for the longest time?

This is so uncomfortable.

I feel rude. I think I’m rude. What if they think I’m being rude?

People who have little to no boundaries and little to no space held for themselves will constantly feel bad and selfish for deciding to do it for themselves. Even when their body is fighting them over it. There are signs, there will be signs; whether it be bloating, acne, fever, irritation, annoyance—it shows up. Your body will tell you and scream at your face: YOU’RE DOING SO MUCH THAN YOU ACTUALLY CAN!
YOU’RE KILLING ME!

And when you actually finally decide to stop—it’s when you’ve put yourself past your limit. At this point, you snap faster than you can think.

Sometimes it’s really all we need.

If we keep holding ourselves back, it’ll do us no good.

It manifests in other ways—and you have to keep an eye out.

When we finally choose this life, does that mean we’ve given up?
If I somehow reconcile with my reality, does it mean I have given up?
If I decide to stop running after a life I thought was meant for me, does that mean I gave up?

Is there a different way to say settle without it giving a notion that I settled for less?

For some reason I just know I’m meant for greater things. I think a lot of us do think—we’re meant for bigger things. I’m meant for the spotlight, the stage or someone who represents a group of people. Maybe a person of influence, or a key opinion leader—I’m not sure. But what I’m sure of is, this is not where I stop. This isn’t my final destination. There’s a path I have yet to uncover.

That is certainly coming from someone in their late 20s. Full of hope and ambitions. Left and right acclamations of: THIS ISN’T MY LIFE, JUST YET!

Not to mention the many stories we’ve encountered of people who aged beautifully in this life. There’s a tad number of old lads and lasses that have met their peak in their 30s, 40s, 50s, some even built their empires in their 60s or 70s. Hope is just drilled into our very core: It’s never too late.

So we grind, and grind, and grind, and grind some more.
We hustle, and hustle, and hustle, and hustle many more.
And then we miss, and we miss, and we keep missing our very own life.
And then we say: I’ll be sure to make up for everything when I finally hit the goal.

Because—this isn’t my life yet. I know I’m meant for more. It’s never too late.

I imagine myself standing on a hump in the middle of a long road.

On my left was my past, my very curious self, the one who asks so many questions, the one who questions societal norms, ambitious, critical, full of hope, extremely patriotic—the one who’s very certain she’s meant for something more.

On my right is the version I’ve yet to meet. But what if it’s someone who’s just someone? Not a somebody—just someone. Someone who has reconciled with life. Someone who may or may not have given up on the grandeur of her dreams and who she thought she will be, just someone who’s at peace. Calm. Collected. Contented. Satisfied. Someone who somehow found her way to just live between the ridiculousness of this human-led world? Maybe someone who got stuck with a 9-5? Or, lived less of the lifestyle she was used to?

What if.

Because in the middle of this long road, I keep getting carried; not the other way around where I carry life—life carries me. I get taken to phases and places. When I thought I was busy chasing who I’m meant to become, I keep missing out on where I am now.

Somebody has to say it: It’s impossible to be here and constantly prepare for tomorrow. Because while you think you’re preparing for tomorrow, the reality could be that you’re already living that, you’re already there.. Not here. And it’s true, you can’t have the best of both worlds. Not even Hannah Montana survived that long. It’s either A or B, black or white, here or there.

But hey, even in the afterlife, there’s purgatory. A middle ground. Sadly, I don’t have any answers about that… just yet.

I’ve told this story a million times in the past and im telling it again.

it was in fifth grade when i had enough— one of my teachers told the class that i have a very strong personality.

IN FIFTH GRADE. I WAS WHAT... 10? 11? YEARS OLD?

Bet i heard it more times even before that. i had it in my class cards feedback section. heard it in family gatherings. from friends. even strangers.

A year before, so vivid in my memory, I made a friend, now a long time girl friend, whom I confided and texted one afternoon — i think I want to die. that, after getting scolded by my parents.

The ideations went on as if it was the most natural thing to say. I don’t know where I learned it and why I thought that way.

Now, I honestly think it was my attention seeking personality. and because I wanted to breakaway from being the strong girl.

I am a first born daughter to a seafarer dad and a beautiful mom who eventually fell ill and then disabled when I was two years old.

my mom loves to tell the story of how I started bathing her at 2 years old.

I am never oblivious to the fact that I am living a very different family life from most people i know.

and I also realised very early on, how early I became resilient and mature.

That made me not want to keep going like that. but it went on.

Being the first born daughter meant being the third parent, involved in family issues, finances and everything else in between.

I had to learn independence at a young age because my mom can’t walk to my classroom to get my card and my dad was never around to attend any of that.

Most people will thrive in it and would take it as a compliment; live their lives proving to people that they are indeed strong.

I navigated away from that. I started showing weakness. I cried, and cried. Tantrums here and there. I acted like a brat.

I navigated from the energy I exude because I don’t want to be predictable. And I like being around people. I liked being the center of attention. And being strong somehow meant intimidating.

People would even tell: I never get a suitor or a boyfriend because i’m scary. of course, that made me not want to be scary.

I wanted to be... liked. and normal. like any other girl.

turns out — we’re all a little crazy lol!

the confession is—

I actually like being strong.

I like being independent af.

I love being intimidating.

I like being reckless.

And I like thinking I’m one lucky bitch, handpicked by the universe where everything and anything can go my way if I really want it.

i like it when people think i’m smart, relentless, knows exactly what she’s doing

and more importantly, is capable to be whoever and whatever.

But now I’m scared.

the real confession:

I’m 28. I WANT TO CHANGE MY LIFE.

But I’m scared to crawl away from the persona I created.

Fun fact: I have a cherubin tattoo on my right arm, right where I can see it. Like a reminder: ding dong deng – you’re acting too adult-y, it’s gross. This to me is a reminder to always be a child at heart. I love expressing myself. I love the highs of happiness and the lows of sadness.

But at 29, it’s pretty challenging to be a kid — for one, the age isn’t really ringing “child” but is almost a loud call for: “Hey! It’s time to mature!” or worse, “Hey! You are expected to act cordially in this pretentious ass society.” Or much even worse — It’s that age to create your own children. Honestly, my kind of horror.

I don’t know about you, and disclaimer, as much as I revel in the serendipity of quietness and silence of my own solitude, enjoying my aloneness (yes, all the superlative there exists) — I do love love love the sound of children laughing (definitely not in a horrific, Annabelle way), but kids playing outside especially when I hear them from inside. It’s so romantic, so joyful, soooo freeing. And every time, I find myself talking to the air, “Ah, those were the really easy days. I don’t have to think of what to eat, what to wear, where to go, how to make money, how to survive today” — and basically everything in between in this cruel cruel reality of the world we live in.

Hah, adulthood — is there a way to like… cancel this subscription? This ain’t fun.

Anyway, I can vividly remember lots of dilemmas I had when I was younger. Those problems where I felt like the world was ending already. And even when I talk to younger people these days, I get a real sense of reality that I’m really no longer young, I’m not a kid anymore. I scoff at their problems, not offensively but in a way that I remember so much of myself when I was their age and like a boomer, I’d respond with “You haven’t gotten to the worst part yet. Enjoy while you’re there. Promise, it’s not life or death… just yet.” Because, news flash — 10 years later, the challenges in this lifetime are accelerating like levels in a game. They get harder each time, and each time you seem to survive.. Sometimes unwillingly.

The world is cruel and tough, bla bla bla — we know that. It’s nothing new. We get slapped in the face, most times caught off guard, left bruised and broken. And just like a kid, we learn how to walk again, how to pick ourselves up.

I believe there should be more times where we need to consciously remind ourselves that no matter the age, no matter the challenges, we’re all kids at heart. We do these things we do at 29, to make our inner child proud.

We buy toys we weren’t able to play with when we were 8 and call it “healing my inner child”.

Because again — we’re all just kids in this grown-up damned world.

I kinda grieve that.

If you observe children, or surround yourself with kids, you will realise they teach you things you won’t get to learn in a room packed with adults. Stuff you will never learn if not with children. The reality is: you learn from them more than they learn from you. Kids humble you.

That’s why I love being amongst kids — not in a pedophile way, yuck! But in a very innocent energy. They cry when they’re hurt, they laugh when something is silly, they roll their eyes when they’re annoyed or when they think something’s stupid.

Spend a few hours with them and you feel moved after being in their own little world; especially after realising they’re growing on you, they like you. And when it’s time to leave, they tell you they love you and they’re sad you’re leaving.

They express themselves so freely.

And you were a kid once yourself, but now you’ve concealed most of that. You refrain and refuse to feel. You avoid watching a melodrama because you’re not ready to sit with your feelings.

You don’t send that long ass paragraph on your friend’s birthday anymore because you assume they know it already.

You conceal yourself from feeling, expressing and playing.

How tainted have we become.

And when you realise, all these recreational whatever is really just a term for adults when it’s time to play and now you actually have to pay for it. Damn, it’s always about that damn money.

I abhor how tainted we’ve come.

We grow old enough only to forget what it’s like to savor and enjoy living.

We grow old enough only to be reminded how precious and valuable child-like characteristics are.

We have grown only to outgrow the traits and values we should have kept in the first place.

We have come so far only to disregard the opinions of the young because we think we know better only to be reminded by children themselves how we should be living in this cruel, evil world.

How disgusting and evil we have become that we terrorize children.

If we strip ourselves from the absurd, nonsensical and man-made guidelines of this world, imagine how free we would be?

Assuming only good things.

Okay I know, rules are made so we can keep our hands to ourselves.

But that’s not the point.

The point is — imagine the countless times we can unapologetically restart our lives?

If we weren’t bound to such timelines. Expectations. Economic obligations.

A girl can imagine.

Honestly, let’s put a break on that.

Because the reality is, we can. I can.

Countlessly. However many times we want. However many times I want.

The battle isn’t anywhere outside; we look at ourselves and play it small when the only thought that matters is yours. The only thought that matters is mine.

The world does not stop for anyone. In the same sense, whether you decide to put a break on yours or hit the accelerator is all up to you; is all up to me.

Now I feel pressured, what do you mean it’s all up to me?

Can also sound like— wow, it’s all up to me?

I’m in this situation most times the last few weeks. Going back and forth about whether I can actually make a fresh start for myself or not.

So, how far am I able to step out of the world I’ve known all my life?

There are far too many external factors I consider all the time when I have 0 control of those, and the very control I have is how I can boldly choose to move forward.

It got me a huge debt, a crashing immune system and isolation to actually ask myself: What is my goal?

Live with no regrets. You only live once.

These phrases gave me the power to recklessly live my life. Boy, i’ve had the best experiences.

I sat with it again, now after going through debilitating situations in my life that made me really think about what I’m doing. And I realised how beautiful words are; suddenly one day they meant differently.

Live with no regrets. You only live once — didn’t really mean to say: never look into the future.

I’ve read something a while back:

If you’ve been suicidal most of your life, every day feels like survival.

That somehow resonates with how I lived so far; with how I didn’t want to regret anything.

With how everything is a moment of now and never in consideration of consequences. Of the future.

Honestly, I don’t blame myself. In fact, I’m thanking it for holding up for the longest time.

Well yes, now I’m reaping the repercussions of my old mindset because my body’s slowly deteriorating at 29. My finances are crashing down that if I were a business, I should be in deep consideration of closing down.

They say bad experiences make up for good stories.

I’d add —and the best lessons too.

So now, having noticed all of these patterns:

What do I do?

Surprisingly, now I find myself planning.

I’m never the planner. I’m the “go-with-the-flow” type. The, whatever happens, happens.

But I realised, there is so much I can do in the many situations I just allowed to unfold right before my eyes and called it a day; concluded it with, “that was fate”.

I’ve always had a hard time filling in the gaps and nuances of:

Planning and I literally don’t know what’s going to happen next. That, if I can’t control the next parts of my life, why waste time planning? If nothing is guaranteed, then must I keep getting anxious about a tomorrow I’m unsure it’ll ever come?

And then I keep waking up.

Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow. The next day.
I assume I’d still be alive at least in the next 100 days.

It’s not a case of right or wrong.

Like it’s wrong to not plan out your life. Or that it’s right to prepare for your future.

And so that’s when I realised the beauty of having a goal. I think this is the part where I started filling in the nuances of my own questions.

With all things considered and nothing is guaranteed; in order for every waking morning to feel worthwhile and purposeful — it does make sense to have a goal.

Paradoxically, it’s never really about the goal.

Think about the goal as a mere reward. The true joy lies in the little amounts of effort poured in daily.

I tell myself, in order to avoid the anxiety of things not going my way is to think that not everything has to be about it. Not every second of my life has to be about hitting that goal and so that allows margins of errors. And those little pockets of time keeping me on track for what it is I’m aiming for is actually a lifeline.

Like how dancers practice for thousands of hours to perform a 3-minute performance.

Like how singers and musicians alike train all the time to hit that one note.

The goal is just a reward. The end point. The period.

The journey is what makes up for it.

The journey is what makes every waking morning purposeful.

The journey is what makes it joyful and fulfilling.