i often look back at conversations and replay the whole scenario in my head and monitor each and every word i’ve said if it may have offended anyone. i look back at certain facial expressions that was made when it was me who spoke and wonder if what caused them to make that face were my words. i replay it over and over and over again and come to the conclusion that they might hate me. the next day, they ask me to hangout after classes and everything is normal. and i’ve realized that there was no problem to begin with and i was just so harsh on myself thinking that i’ve made a mistake. being human sometimes means saying the wrong things and much of it are quite forgivable.

i had this friend of mine who had such a hard time getting over her ex of four years. she would tell me that she felt like she wasted those 4 years because she just realized that he was a bum. she was so hard on herself that she kept going back to him in those 4 years when they would break up. their on-and-off cycle drained her but she was persistent with it because she had believed that he would change every time. well, he didn’t and she thinks she messed up with that whole experience. i would say that to an extent, yes she did mess up, but what i want to focus on is where she becomes so hard on herself. when they broke up, it wasn’t that she was complaining about her ex anymore but now it wasn’t about how stupid she was for never realizing. she would call herself dumb and blind and would feel so ashamed about it. i would often tell her that it was good for what it was and now it no longer serves her but she shouldn’t have talked down on herself like that. she loved and got hurt, that was basically it. she messed up but it was a part of our experience. being humans means to love loudly and maybe sometimes wrongly. but i’d also argue that there is nothing wrong with that.

the very first friend who gave a valentine gift that i truly appreciated was a friend from senior high school. she gave me a crocheted tulip and a chocolate cake that she had baked because she said she had remembered me saying i wanted to receive a crocheted tulip at least once and not to be the one giving out flowers for valentines anymore (for context: i used to sell crocheted flowers in senior high school). i was beyond touched by this gesture of hers because it was my first time having someone really pay attention to what i said and acted upon it as well. i would have really loved to say that we are still friends but unfortunately that isn’t the case. we grew apart after she got her boyfriend and moved to different cities for college and never spoke since. i would have been the one who would have reached out but i found out she did some snarky things to my best friend to which that made me decide to let go of our friendship. being human means drifting a part from people and having to let go of people who no longer share the same values as you.

other humanely things i’ve done: stuttered while giving a speech, yelled the wrong answer confidently, was saying the name of my order wrongly to the waitress, waited for someone in the rain for 2 hours only for them to not show up and the list goes on!

being humans just means messing up, no one is immune to that tragedy. failing means to have tried. saying the wrong things means to have known something. waiting for someone means to have hoped. letting go of someone means to have grown. i think often times we are so hard on ourselves because we want to get things right away, we wish we had acted a certain way instead. we wish we had known better. but you did well with what you knew, isn’t that already so much? you tried something new and failed, isn’t that a lot of courage already? and with courage you even gained knowledge, isn’t that a win? icarus messed up when he flew too close to the sun but do you think he would have preferred to have never flown at all? would that not be a much greater tragedy?

mess up, it’s part of being human.

much appreciated 💌

bye-bye, my first kiss.

i met this lean, blacked haired, and i’d say boy-next-door type of guy in my religion subject. he was seated in front of me while i was seated at the back. i noticed him immediately from a crowd because i thought he was cute. not my usual type, but he was cute. one day, he asked me out to grab a drink with him to which i agreed to as i had no plans after that subject. we would only spend an hour together because he had classes by the next hour but i would say we had a good conversation. we talked about our subjects and how we were in high school and just the most random things we could think of. i didn’t consider that a date.

after a few days, he sent me a text on instagram. we talked for a good 30 minutes until we finally had to stop talking because his mom had called him out to eat dinner (maybe this was a lie and he just needed to give me a reason to end the conversation).

fast forward to our first date: i’d say it was a good first date. he was gentle, soft spoken and talkative — everything i liked in a guy. we stayed at the cafe, that he let me pick, until it was sunset and we walked home together. i usually take a bus going home but because i had enjoyed his company i decided to walk home with him.

fast forward, again, to why we stopped talking. it was a pretty direct reason why i had ended things the first time — he left me hanging. i texted him one morning, at around 8:30AM, after our religion subject if he could meet me at the garden on our campus because i was feeling overwhelmed by my emotions that day. He replied to me at 8PM (what). i immediately confronted him about it and his awful excuse was that he didn’t open instagram the entire day. lousy, lame and a lie. i told him we needed to talk. And he told me that he was studying now but what it is. I just directly told him that he doesn’t care and that we should just stop talking. he agreed to which he said he was busy with university as well. i told him sure but i asked how was he since i thought it may have impacted him in some way and i still wanted to make sure he was okay. he never responded. (???)

i cared about him enough to still have checked up on him. but maybe it came out wrong since i was the one who ended things. or maybe he just doesn’t care.

after 7 months he reached out again. i told him i’m not interested in dating anyone right now. so he said we could be friends. i took that damned bait and said yes. nobody is surprised when i’ll say this but he had ulterior motives. we were talking for 3 months, more months than the first time we talked, and at one point i told him i actually in fact did like him. and he told me so did he even at the very start, he just didn’t want to tell me since i didn’t want a relationship at that time. i wish i was better at storytelling but in those 3 months that we were talking, he did not treat me as anything special for him to proclaim that he was interested in me the whole time. so question is why DID i like him then? i liked his company, that’s all. we had no similarities, completely different humor, different interests and everything. the only thing we had in common was that we were young and wanted to meet people. i meet people to understand their depth. he meets people, get his experience, and discards.

to save your time, i ended things for a simple reason again — he left me hanging. he told me he wanted to go somewhere with me and when i told him let’s go, he never replied. sent a text the next day saying it’s over.

you see, i could have just ghosted him but that’s not who i am. despite his personality and awful communication skills, he did become someone i cared for. if you want to know why i cared about him, visit my other article titled ‘i mistake trauma for depth’. it’s all the same guy lol.

fast forward to 3 months again! surprise surprise we are talking again!!

THIS time felt different (i know, i sound stupid). he was being more open with me, more caring, more attentive. NOW i felt like he liked me.

one day, he told me he wanted to cut his hair and jokingly said if i could cut it. i agreed. safe to say he was surprised because that would mean he would come to my apartment for the haircut. i always told him that i didn’t want him in my apartment (because i felt like it would escalate which i did not want to happen). i always told him that i would never get in bed with a person who i wasn’t dating and i was serious about that.

we went to my apartment and he immediately started looking for shows on netflix (bro was not slick AT ALL). i asked him what was he doing and i thought we were going to cut his hair. he laughed shyly and said okay. we searched how to cut his hair and did. it was a cute moment, at least for me. i never let anyone in my apartment because i would say i am quiet a reserved person. i open my personal space to very selective individuals only. again, i did care about him. and you know what, even if things turned out bad, i actually really liked that moment and i’m happy to say that even at least that tiny moment was mine. not ours but mine.

after a few days, i called him over again. he told me that day that he did not sleep well so i invited him to come over for a nap. he mentioned before that i could sleep here as he felt good being here. so i did with the purest of the pure of my pure heart (lol). he came over and bought me food too when i only told him i wanted a drink (sweet). so we ate together and watched true crime. he isn’t fond of it but i was and i felt bad for playing it so i paused it and decided to just chat with him instead. and before you know it, we were cuddling (!!!!) at one point he leaned in closer and i made this face where you suck your lips in so it’s just like your upper lip shown and chin (you can laugh) and he was like ‘no, let’s do a challenge’ then i was like sure. then he kept leaning in closer but i really wasn’t giving in because i never lose (i’m competitive). then after a while he said that ‘i touched your lips’ and i said no you didn’t. then i think he realized that i really wasn’t giving in so we just giggled it away (which i think was cute). but after a few moments he asked again (?!?!) and here’s the line we’ve all been waiting for.

he kept looking at my lips so me being the most honest and straightforward person ever said that ‘i don’t want to kiss you because you have no emotional intelligence’. i wish i could show you how confused he looked. he defended himself saying that he did have but i was like ‘hmmmm’ (you can laugh pls laugh actually). then i had asked him if he found me weird (LOL) and he said yes a little bit. what i said definitely might have ruined the vibe but i’m thankful he didn’t make it feel that way and we stayed like that for a while. he left later on because he had to travel to meet his cousins and we ended on good terms (surprisingly) that day and he even gave me updates and everything on his trip.

fast forward — he ghosted me two days after because we were on call and he was not really comforting me but rather giving me advice on something i was crying about (i needed comfort not advice) so i jokingly said ‘is this is emotional intelligence you said you had’ (pls laugh i’m funny) then he said ‘i don’t want to talk anymore, you just keep teasing me’ then i was like ‘nooo, it was a joke. are you mad’. i had asked him if he was mad THREE times and he said no and he even got a little frustrated and said i was being repetitive and a little while he said he was sleepy and i was too so i said bye and he didn’t respond back (i should known by this time he was about to ghost me) and next day not a word from him :D and then next day i messaged him (lowkey chased … is this a free judgement space) and yeah not a single reply anywhere, not in instagram or imessage NOTHING. so that ends my college romance.

not my usual articles, more like story time for the girlies! all fun and giggles only!

hope you enjoyed !

consider buying me a coffee, maybe? 💌

you sit at a cafe surrounded by people, who you believe are about your age, and everyone seems so polished. by the looks of it, they all looked so well maintained— their hair being soft and kept, their their fingers typing on their macbooks that makes this elegant sound of productivity, their clothes well ironed and jackets gracefully placed behind the seat of their chair and everything just seems so put together. we wish being an adult was as simple as looking like one.

observing everyones certitude only magnifies your own uncertainty. you feel as if the choice you have made in your life are poor. you second guess every decision you have made by far and try to locate where it all went wrong. trying to find what led you to feel so lost after feeling like you had known it all. you spiral into your thoughts until you convince yourself that you are no good and discredit all the hard work you have done merely from the comparison that your shirt had a stain underneath your sleeve while the person across you wears a white polo with no wrinkles.

you’ve probably heard of the saying ‘comparison is the thief of joy’ which is true but i also think it is the cause of insecurity. we often feel like life is a race when in fact none of us really has the same starting point. because we see people in the same point in our lives, we think it all took us the same amount of effort to get there. it’s a fact that we often forget about when our mind is clouded by feeling like we are not doing enough. but in actuality, you have been doing enough— maybe even more.

adulting is weird. you’re doing laundry and all of a sudden you realize you’ll never be 15 again and what you knew in 15 isn’t what is applicable anymore when you’re 20. no one is holding your hand when you go to the doctors anymore. the groceries in your apartment doesn’t magically fill up anymore. and maybe the first few times you forget to buy something on your grocery list and when you’re carrying it back home you wish you had your siblings to help you out and there’s this weird lump in your throat and then it hits you that things are really different now. but things haven’t been the same since 2 years now. and why haven’t you accepted it yet.

change isn’t easy and it will never be. but maybe if you “adult” over and over and over again, one day it might feel like you truly are an adult. one day you’ll notice that you’ve been an adult longer than you’ve been 15.

this essay isn’t anything profound or thought provoking. it’s just the blah blah blah that i needed someone to tell me, maybe.

consider buying me a coffee maybe ! 💌

I am not rebelling against my God. I simply don’t accept His world (Alyosha, The Brothers Karamazov)

Growing up in a religious household is something that I am grateful for as it was the very basis of who I am today. All I’ve ever known about kindness, love and compassion I have learned from my father; a religious man. He who would never waste a grain of rice instead, would tell us to throw it on our rooftop so either the birds or ants may eat. However, one thing I have struggled with, were the rules and restrictions I had to obey.

I grew up following a large set of rules. But one rule that particular strikes my growth was my inability to create male friends. I took this rule to heart and avoided men like a plague. In my early teens, it wasn’t really a problem since I had studied in an all girl school. The problem rose in 11th grade, when I met my best friend.

I always struggled with connecting and making friends. It felt like everyone was given a script on how to befriend each other and my script was written in a foreign language. I felt this strange alienation towards people. We spoke the same language but no one understood what I was saying. I finally met someone who spoke my mother tongue in 11th grade. Unfortunately, it was a guy.

For the most part of our conversation, I would just laugh and give him reactions. It had never truly crossed my mind to entertain or engage so openly with him as he was a guy. We were on talking terms was how I would describe it. But despite us always hanging out and inviting each other to go to the canteen with other acquaintances, I never once considered him a friend. It was until I had opened up about myself to him one day.

I’m not sure what had dawned upon me, maybe the frustration was piling up, but I had decided to tell him my struggles at home. It was how I felt like I was always criticized for my wrongs and never appreciated for my rights. Looking back, I’m not sure why I had suddenly decide to be vulnerable to him. I just had this really strong premonition that he was someone I could trust, and that was a lot coming from someone who never had any guy friends and avoided them religiously. Oddly, he said all the right things. Whenever I spoke about my problems to my friends before, I was met with mere reactions. ‘i’m sorry you’re going through that’ or ‘lalagpas din yan (it will pass)’. They never asked anything about how I felt. But he did. I recall how my eyes widened when he asked about me. It was something unusual but pleasant.

Naturally, after that, we became inseparable. We would always talk about everything and anything. If you would ask me what was my favorite moment in high school, I would tell you it was every time he and I were together and we were together every day. He made high school my favorite time of my life. But all this joy, all this bliss, didn’t feel right to me because he was a boy.

Whenever we would go out, I would constantly keep an eye out for a silver colored car thinking it was my father. I would think how much trouble I would be if my father were to see this as if God had not seen it already. Every day, when I would come back from school, I’d pray. Pray for forgiveness, tell God not to lead me astray, pray for my sins to be washed away but, if I think back at it now, how much sins could a child have, anyway? Every second of happiness I had in his presence was accompanied by guilt. I had never known a peace of mind whenever we were together but my heart was at peace and for a while, that was enough.

I was mad at the world

why did my best friend have to be a boy?

I was mad at people

Why couldn’t any of you known me like how he did? Maybe then I wouldn’t have been feeling so ashamed for having him around

I was mad at myself

Out of all the people in the world, why had I decided for him to be my best friend?

But I was never mad at God

God, I’m sorry. I’ll be better.

Such a torment for a child who simply wanted friends, who only wanted company. Why was it that when I was finally learning to be happy, it felt like it was a sin. Why must life taste like the forbidden apple. Why did it feel like the result of my happiness was that the world would flip upside down. Why did it feel like happiness was not even allowed for me anymore. Everything I had learned about love, kindness and compassion I had learned from my father but was epitomized by my best friend. My favorite thing to tell him is that ‘love is an understatement whenever I talk about you’ because it is. So was my fear stronger than my love because of how I felt? Am I really doing something so wrong? Am I so wrong for me for finding comfort in him? Am I so sinful for sharing a laugh with him? Is it something to be ashamed of to call him my best friend? I resented everything and everyone but above all, I resented myself.

I didn’t want to live like that anymore. I didn’t want to keep feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t want to keep feeling remorseful for simply being happy. It felt like such a strange predicament to feel so guilty over something like this. Would God really punish me for being happy? I would like to believe my God would not do that. Not my God.

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‘Beta, the food is hot. Be careful.’

I was surprised but still mouthed to him thank you. I blew my food before putting it into my mouth. The food was warm now and a stranger saved me from a burnt tongue.

I remember these moments not because it rarely comes by but, because it matters.

Everything I am today is because of the people I have met along the way. I cook my favorite soup the way my roommate has taught me to make it and whenever the rainy seasons come, I cook that soup for my family and they love it just as much. I remember how nice it felt to be told ‘it’s okay’ when I was being anxious about a mistake I made. From that I learned how important it is to give space to mistakes and how reassuring a simple ‘it’s okay’ can be. When I didn’t attend my classes once one of my classmate that, I barely spoke to, sent me a text asking how was I because she had remembered the time I told her I wasn’t doing so well with my life at that time. I almost cried that day because I felt very seen at that moment, not even by a friend but by someone who I had little to no interaction with, simply because she cared enough to see how I was. I learned to notice people more and pay attention to things they told me, who knows if one of my simple ‘how are you’ could have also impacted them the way that classmate of mine had left an influence on me.

I would like to put emphasis on the importance of small acts of kindness. It really is not as small as you think it is. It lingers, it is remembered and it is treasured. How nice would it be to live in a world where we are concerned for one another. Not in a way of being nosy or meddlesome but in a way that we each understand that life can get difficult sometimes and that a companionship can be solution. Someone out there in world who you have told that what their dress is pretty still looks at the mirror feeling more confident every time they wear that dress. Someone out there in the world remembers the compliment you gave them when they showed you something they were really proud of. If you ever gave a letter to someone, maybe for their birthday or anniversary, I promise you that whenever they visit that letter again, the warmth of the love is still there. You may not know it, but your kindness may have taught someone how to be kind as well. And even if for a moment, you have reminded someone of the good this world has to offer. I recall the term ‘random acts of kindness.’ However, I believe no act of kindness is random; every act is intentional and purposeful. The intention is to care, show love and make others feel they matter.

💌

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People talk. We talk all the time. Language, communication, interpretation and dissection are very vital aspects of our being. It’s what makes us thrive, heal, grow, come together and build communities. Sometimes, it really only takes one good conversation to save a life. Words hold so much power, we are aware of this, that is why we abuse it.

When someone told me that I meant something to them, I believed it wholeheartedly. I held on to the speech given to me despite dirt being kicked into my mouth. When a government promises its people a better life, civilians listens to their words as a symbol of hope. Only to be aided with a kilo of rice, one can of sardines and two packs of noodles in times of crisis. When a parent tells their child that they will no longer continue with their bad habits, the child holds on to those words. Until it becomes empty promises.

People use words to create a false reality. To show others that they know how to treat them right, only for them to do them wrong. Self-awareness is weak when it can’t be put into work to make that knowledge a reality. People say that talk is cheap. But, I beg to differ. It is not the talk that is cheap, but the ones who use it to their advantage which is. Manipulation, lies, scams, exploitations - these are cheap. A true conversation is a moment, an experience and a good memory.

To share, one of my favorite words that were said to me was by my best friend. We were talking about my high school crush at the time. I was giving so much of myself to someone who just didn’t see me that way (nothing new lol). As we were conversing, he told ‘why do you sell yourself so short?’. Those words struck a cord in me. It made me reflect on all of my relationships with people: romantic, platonic and even familial. I always DID sell myself so short, I realized. I always gave more of myself than I could, just to feel that ounce of validation. I always gave myself so easily to people because I felt like I was not worth much, anyway. Five years have passed yet, I never forgot those words he told me - that conversation we had. It changed my perspective on how I saw myself. It made me reflect on how I treated myself all those years. That talk we had changed me forever. I still hold that moment, those words, so close to my heart.

There is passion in conversations, there is weight in words. You are cruel to abuse that power. You are kind to use that power.

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I was a shy, quiet and won’t-talk-unless-spoken-to kind of kid. I never really shared much about myself growing up because I always thought that whatever I had going on in my life was insignificant. Not even to my own family. This attribute of mine wasn’t really a problem until I realized I wanted people to see me. I yearned for company. I sought for community.

Ironic how I craved to be seen, to be noticed yet what I despised most in the world, at the time, was eye contact. I had a difficult time seeing others, how could I expect others to see me?

How I learned to build relationships with others was by listening to them. I realized not a lot of people listened, most of them talked. So, when I became the listener, I felt like I was needed. I was finally seen. People wanted to talk to me, yes! I was thrilled to have finally found good company, right?

Wrong.

People wanted me to listen to them, not to talk to me. They didn’t care about my life, my thoughts. They only cared about their life and what they had to say. Unfortunately, I noticed this a little late in my relationships with others. Until this day, people still only approach me to talk about themselves. But that part is okay. At least I don’t have to worry about them seeing who I was for they were so caught up in their own world, right?

Wrong, again.

Just like everyone else, I did still yearn to be seen. To be understood. Despite my self-loathing behavior, I did want someone to see me for who I was and still see that I was a good person and that I was worth getting to know. So when I realized that they didn’t actually like me for who I was, they only liked me for what I had to offer, I got sad.

Basically, I am a walking contradiction!

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I met this boy in college that I thought was cute. We went out a few times and eventually started talking. He was soft spoken and polite. At first, he seemed interested in my interest as well and that meant a lot to me. He was never someone who opened up about himself which actually made me even more curious to know him. I was really curious about who he was because he would only talk to me on a surface level about himself but seemed like he wanted to know me on a deeper level. So, I tried my best to enter his tiny world in which he could be vulnerable and talk to me about things he’s never told anyone. And I was lucky, he let me in. We shared moments that I believe mattered to him a lot and memories that was important in his life. At that moment, to me, it felt special. I liked being leaned on. I liked being relied upon. And I was happy to know that he could finally see that he could rely on me. Here is where my flawed understanding came in.

Ever since he had opened up to me, I started to like him even more. I started to perceive him as this soft spoken guy with an emotional intelligence that wouldn’t ever want to hurt me because he knows what it feels like to be hurt. To put things simply, I was very wrong about that. We were on and off, he always left me hanging, he never tried to communicate with me, he stopped being curious about me, but the worst part of all of this was the realization that I didn’t mean as much to him as he meant to me. That we were nothing special in his eyes.

I was aware of his confusing personality but I always gave him the benefit of the doubt with the idea in mind that he never meant to hurt me and that I still meant something to him otherwise, why did he even came back. That sounds like disaster waiting to happen, right? What made me completely take off my rose tinted glasses of him was when I found out that he has a girlfriend and they’ve been together for a month and our last conversation was 2 months ago. I’m not jealous nor do I feel any animosity towards the girl. I feel so insignificant to have been replaced at such a short period of time. I honestly won’t be surprised if the timelines overlapped between her and I. But, I mostly feel pathetic to have given someone so much importance only for me to have meant nothing to them at all.

I thought he was hurt, he knew how it felt like to be hurt, therefore he would have never wanted to hurt me. I seriously wish I could get mad at him but I’m not. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I understand what phase in his life he is going through right now. How could I be mad at someone who is simply still trying to figure out who they really are? Even after all of this, I can’t seem to hate him. Not because I still like him, but because someone who genuinely mattered to me will always matter to me. I care about him, still. However, I no longer want him in my life. I am still learning that I am so much more than what he made me feel. I have built my confidence for years and I refuse for it to be broken down by someone who contributed so little to my growth and becoming.

I am glad to have known you. But, I am much better off without you.

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One may love their career to the point of burnout - this is not me glorifying burnout. But to be burned out means to have loved enough to the point of a spark — a flame. Give yourself some grace and rest. One may have loved someone enough to the point of heartbreak. To have a broken heart meant to have loved fully. One may have loved the idea of creating a life for themselves and their family filled with convenience and comfortability therefore, found a discipline in themselves to be consistent with what is a must. To have something to keep going for, what can be greater than that? But passion comes hindrances. To be put in uncomfortable situations, unforeseen circumstances and be challenged beyond expectations.

In moments like those, it is reasonable that one may question whether the passion is even worth it. The struggles starts to outweigh the enthusiasm. Days seem like a mirror of yesterday and an exact blueprint of tomorrow. Our vision is narrowed down to the heavy weights of what lies ahead, instead of what is at the end of the tunnel. And, in moments like these, my favorite advice is to give yourself some grace and rest. Realize that you have done a lot; you have done enough. The same empathy you have for others, you also should give it to yourself. Pausing the journey does not meaning stoping it. Going a little slower is still moving forward. The destination is just as important as enjoying the view a long the way.

Resiliency our superpower. We don’t give enough credit to ourselves for making it this far. Despite the odds, heartbreaks, physical and mental strain the world throws at us, we are still here. Our greatest strength is being human.

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