is it just me or did summer just pass by like a breeze? i blinked and it was still spring, i blinked again and it’s summer already, i’m afraid another quick shut eye would bring fall in advance. i don’t want the sunny days to be over yet, and yet it’s inevitable, the rain and the gray clouds will come soon, bringing with it the wonderful colors of autumn.
for the past two months, i’ve been at yvr at least 6 times, just whisking people and their baggages to and from the place. being in airports doesn’t evoke the same feelings in me anymore, it doesn’t affect me anymore. this must mean i’m getting better.

have you ever wanted something so much that it physically hurts when you don’t get it? i used to say no, i mean really, what is there in life that’s so precious to hold on to that it would break your heart if you don’t get it? everything here is temporary anyway, what’s the point of holding on? i can be anywhere anytime with anybody doing anything, but do i want to be just that?
as much as i am a traveler, the past year made me appreciate a lot of things missing in my career as a wanderer – growing roots, having residence, family, community. in this ever changing world, it’s a comfort to have something constant to hold on to, and just as everything is being pulled away from me, leaving me back to empty, i realized how much i wanted the stuff i never had. it was torture.

it took me a while to bounce back and finally let go and let God do His work, I have done my best. If I am meant to live here then I will stay, if I should be in this job, then I will keep it. If there is somewhere or something better for me, then so be it. He knows my heart and what I want but He also knows what’s best for me, He makes all things beautiful in His own time. I am tired of fighting time…

it’s that time of the year for meteor showers in the northern hemisphere, the perseids should be visible between 12am to 3am, now if only it’s not foggy and you’re looking away from the moon, then it would really be a sight to behold, otherwise you might miss it, but unlike aurigids that takes decades to reappear, there’s still a chance to catch a glimpse of perseids next summer since it happens every year anyway.

some things in life are like perseids, constant, on the dot, dependable, consistent. they are always there, they always show, year after year at the exact same time and place, with no fail. other stuff are like aurigids, they are rare, they dont have a pattern, they come and go and you never really know when they’ll come back again if they do come back again. so which one of the two would you value more?

i asked that same question before to this person i know from university, i was visiting the city and was leaving the next day so I asked if we could meet to catch up, she had a scheduled dinner with her roommates at that time and i gave her the leonid – augrid analogy when i asked if she could make some room for me since i might not be coming back anymore, she wisely stated her point – if i get turned down, i will be hurt now and then i will be gone and that’s that, if she turns down the people she is constantly with, then she has to live with it for a long time. and so she has to value the ones that are constant, not the ones that come just once and might not come again.

i used to value ephemeral things more – those that visit us for a moment and never really stay but leave lasting impressions – like shooting stars and cherry blossoms and passing friends. i used to say i must make time for these objects, these events, these people, because they might not be here again and i will have lost something rare if i miss them. but in time i have come to realize that i have neglected those that are constant in my life – like the sky above me, and the ground i walk on, and God’s infinite love. it’s time to pay homage to them and acknowledge them. often we take for granted those that are always there, but that won’t be the case anymore.. i’m a work in progress, and i’m doing my best everyday to be the best person that God intends me to be. He knows what’s best for me.

incidentally, totally unrelated to heavenly bodies, today is international left handers day. people are inventing so many things to celebrate about =) i’m not really left handed, i’m more ambidextrous, probably the only thing i can’t do with my left hand is write cursive, sports and my mouse belong to my left, and from yesterday’s art class i just discovered that i can also draw with my left hand, this is great, i have a spare working hand =) maybe i can use both at the same time, write with my right and draw with my left haha, almost like the wisdom of crocodiles. let’s see ^^

there is a sadness tugging at my heart right now as i look at the city lights below me. just finished moving songs between my ipods and reading the word in between thinking too much, i could set a new record for myself – for not being able to sleep. now that the dust has almost settled in, there are so many things left to put in their proper places or put away in boxes to send away. the noise of the skytrain keeps me awake, as a flood of recollection try to pull me down, thoughts of people who rarely speak, but when they do, crush my heart into pieces, still linger at the back of my head when i try to close my eyes.

i need to be rid of myself.

two months and two more moves later, my previous post looks so ancient now. my new place, for the next few months at least, is on the 24th floor, overlooking the mountains, the sea, and the city lights. every day, the sound of the skytrain greets me until 2 am, it rests for two hours, then it starts again – this kept me up on the first few nights but after i finished setting up my sound system, i can now block out the noise with music as i sleep on the couch.

a week after my move, i am almost done unpacking and settling in, i boxed all the useless things i accumulated and tidied the clutter that is my stuff. having my own place again feels different. it brings me back to 5 years ago when i was living on the 22nd floor overlooking makati, 2 minutes walk to greenbelt, and 10 minutes walk to work. i remember the fireworks every week in december which i can see from the rooftop and stargazing by the pool every night.

now, half a decade later, i can’t really say i’m better off. i am more lost and more alone than ever before and the future doesn’t look friendly at all. my family is now physically and emotionally distant, my old friends have moved on to new chapters in their lives, and the new ones i’ve met have their own roots and security blankets here. i feel like a seed that grew on the wrong side of the forest.

on times like these, when i miss people who can’t be with me, i have my sailboat and my lava lamp to comfort me.

moving to a new place entails a lot of hard work, it requires not only mental and emotional preparation but tough manual labor as well – packing things into bags or boxes, discarding accumulated junk, cleaning up the old room, saying goodbye to people you will leave behind, saying hi and adjusting to the new people you will be living with, cleaning up the new room, physically carrying the stuff to the new place, unpacking them all again, and setting them up in the new corners you would want to put them in – just listing these steps is already exhausting. in fact, survey says that moving house is of the top 5 most stressful things in life, the others are work, debt, loneliness, relationship problems, and whatever else.

so why do people move in the first place? there could be a lot of different reasons – forced eviction, going to somewhere better, or it’s just the natural progression of things. not that i’ve stopped growing, but i have always remembered my growing up years to be punctuated by endless moving to different houses temporary called home. usually the scenes would be as dramatic as “running on empty” but mostly its just a chore brought about by the school or work we chose. my clothes were always in boxes or suitcases, i never bothered to take them out to put inside drawers and closets, i would never buy things mindlessly, i would always think about disposing the old one first before getting something new. or else they would be a pain to pack or carry when i move again. and so i lived my life without baggage, light, cool and easy.

last year though, i decided to spin in place, i’ve changed too much and assimilated a lot of bad things into my life, falsely believing that everything i was before should be discarded in order to stay here. i accumulated a lot of useless baggage, and now i feel heavy and burdened, but then an epiphany came and whispered a nugget of wisdom into my ears – you don’t need to be as heavy as a rock, swim in the mud or sink deep into the soil to grow roots, i could be an aerial plant instead.

today my room looks like an aftermath of a holocaust, things scattered here and there, i have to sort through everything to find out what to keep and what to throw away. these junk would have stayed hidden in bags, rotting or collecting dust, had i not decided to move to a new place and stir the skeletons in my closet. it will take a while for this place to become habitable again or have some semblance of order, but small steps get you there.

coming, going, leaving, entering, moving, staying in place, uprooting, growing roots, everything is part of what makes life interesting. this might be one small step for a wandrer like me, but it’s a giant leap for all nomads out there =)

boston was a blast, met up with zet whom i haven’t seen in 5 years – has it really been that long? it didn’t feel like it though since there wasn’t really much to catch up on coz we exchange emails almost every other day anyway. we took a stroll along harvard square and mit campus until we felt nostalgic about our own university, so we decided to drive off at 6 in the morning to the city that never sleeps: new york. we visited all the places i missed last time i went there as well as the usual stops – the financial district, ground zero, and times square. it was march and yet still freezing cold at liberty island, which is probably why it was so easy to get ferry tickets this time. snow caught up with us as we tried to jog at central park and on the way back to massachusetts it became a full blown snow storm.

warm and dry back in cambridge, i realized this would be one of the last if not the last trip we’ll ever take together before she turns another chapter in her book. we used to go island hopping in the visayas, and did spur-of-the-moment-escape-the-valentine-crowd roadtrips in luzon with ri and the rest of the gang back when everyone were still unattached. those days seem like a whole other lifetime now and i am awed at how the world and my friends have changed a lot in the span of half a decade.

my cubemates now reside in different continents and have accomplished a lot since those ne tools days of mfc and sourcesafe. it’s amazing how much each of us have grown to be who we are today, esentially the same fresh grads but much more polished and a little less idealistic. i’m excited to see what the future holds and yet at the same time afraid that i might become what i have always hoped not to be..

but there’s no use worrying too much, tomorrow will take care of itself, for now march main event is announcement of bells ringing for my fave cousin kat, and bday celebs for kuya, zet and stellah,. best wishes and maligayang bati are in order ^_^

now that i got my passport back (yey!), the world seems brighter again =) no need to be stuck in place and grieve that i can’t go to the mountains – i’m banned from snowboarding till my fractured vertebrae heals. 6 to 8 weeks, another xray, and soon i will be good as new, almost.. for now my physio says i should do core strength exercises for my back.. still hurts to sit but.. whatever, no pain no gain, hmmm what did i gain from this experience again?

in the meantime, i’m off to boston, somewhere i’ve never been, a place i only know in song, to meet up with zet and check out harvard, hmm what is there to do in this university city? maybe i should go back to school and relearn everything haha

“Boston”
by Augustana

In the light of the sun, is there anyone? Oh it has begun…
Oh dear you look so lost, eyes are red and tears are shed,
This world you must’ve crossed… you said…

You don’t know me, you don’t even care, oh yeah,
She said
You don’t know me, and you don’t wear my chains… oh yeah,

Essential yet appealed, carry all your thoughts across
An open field,
When flowers gaze at you… they’re not the only ones who cry
When they see you
You said…

You don’t know me, you don’t even care, oh yeah,
She said
You don’t know me, and you don’t wear my chains… oh yeah,

She said I think I’ll go to Boston…
I think I’ll start a new life,
I think I’ll start it over, where no one knows my name,
I’ll get out of California, I’m tired of the weather,
I think I’ll get a lover and fly em out to Spain…
I think I’ll go to Boston,
I think that I’m just tired
I think I need a new town, to leave this all behind…
I think I need a sunrise, I’m tired of the sunset,
I hear it’s nice in the Summer, some snow would be nice… oh yeah,

Boston… where no one knows my name… yeah
Where no one knows my name…
Where no one knows my name…
Yeah Boston…
Where no one knows my name.

i used to say that pain is not the worst thing in the world (forgetting is), but i was talking about emotional pain then – those tiny insignificant heartaches that can easily be blotted out by perspective and the right state of mind. physical pain is a totally different matter, i’ve tried using up all the logic in my head to convince myself that i’m not hurting, but it’s not really working, well, maybe sometimes, but not always. i thought i was good at this – tolerating pain, but i just proved myself wrong, i’m good for nothing.

last saturday, as i was getting off the lift at cypress, i felt something hit my back, then everything was a blur, i was lying on the snow facing the blue skies, and all i could think of was how those two birds looked so happy flying by. i couldn’t move, couldn’t feel my toes nor my fingers, all i could hear was people in the background telling me to get out of the way but i was in shock, nothing intelligible was coming out of my mouth, they tried to move me and i tried to get up but only my brain was working, the rest of my body didn’t respond.

there were no flashbacks, no moving pictures of life lessons ran in my mind, i made a mental note that perhaps all those books and movies were wrong, when you die, you just become this brain trapped in a body, and then slowly you will fade away.. your life will not go on instant replay, it will just be gone in the blink of an eye.. one moment you’re here, the next moment you’re gone.

numb from the cold and babbling some nonsense phrases, the first-aid team finally arrived and strapped me to a gurney then rolled me down the hill on a sled. they called for an ambulance and i found myself on my second ER trip in this lifetime. i must say ambulance ride is cool =) except i couldn’t really appreciate it that much because i had this neck brace that stopped me from looking around.

at the hospital, they took me to radiology for xrays while my friends patiently waited by my side. got dismissed by doctor saying everything will go away in a few days, but one day will be more painful than the next. he prescribed some painkillers then i was discharged, i stood up and all the pain in the world collided in my head, i felt faint and i don’t really remember much. i just knew i wanted to get out of the place fast before the world starts spinning.

later that day i got a call from the hospital saying they made a mistake interpreting my x-rays. turned out i have a fractured lumbar vertebrae, fancy name that explains the pain. and it will hurt for several weeks instead of just a few days.

so now i’m living one painful day at a time in slow motion.. it hurts to stand up, sit down, walk, laugh, breathe, digest food. stretch, i feel like an invalid, unable to pick up stuff,, yeah i’m being whiny and grumpy and on full complain mode. can’t focus or think clearly.. stopped taking the pain killers, it’s for whimps, plus it made it hard for me to breathe, the label on the bottle also scared me – habit forming. i don’t need more addictions..

the nights are worse, but tomorrow is gonna be better. pain is not the worst thing in the world after all, not even physical pain, although the mind can’t really block it out completely, it’s still all about attitude. feeling anything, even pain, just reminds us that we’re alive, and with life there is hope..

in some alternate universe, i wish my whole life just flashed before my eyes and then i’d be done with it in a split second, no more unbearable feeling of shooting pain… it’s hard accepting that i have to stay in place now, and be a burden to other people, i can’t even do my work well.. i feel so useless..

in that other life lived from the other window, i would wish myself away.. but somehow i’m somewhere else now.. somewhere i have never travelled, i’m just glad my guardian angel is taking care of me tonight.. i wish i deserved this kindness..

since the skating rink gave up on me last saturday, not without sprains and bruises, i decided to head to 4th and burrard to get some snowboarding gear instead, after all, what’s the point of being in a snow covered country if i’m not going to enjoy its winter sports right? =) can’t sulk around until the sun comes out again, which in vancouver is probably next to never anyway – that would mean i’m gonna be miserable for three quarters of the year if i don’t find any other activity aside from running away to some other sunny city.

wanted to buy board and boots as well but then again what am i gonna do with it if the forces that be suddenly decide to send me home in 19 days? can’t really go pavement boarding in makati, can i? =) content with the rest of my purchase, and relatively poorer, proceeded to bute to enjoy tamako’s home cooked yakisoba and miso plus a game of global domination. risk is a nice game, i tried my best to defend my territories in australila and parts of asia but the mighty army of north america crushed my forts to pieces. it was a merciless bloodbath, which i shall avenge next time ^^

stayed up till 4am thinking too much about things and writing stuff that made sense only in my head. two hours later, hitched a ride to whistler – site of the 2010 winter olympics. probably not the best place for beginners, but hey it’s a great story to tell =) i did all these amazing falls at blackcomb, almost ran over two skiers, almost hit a post, almost hit a tree, almost crashed on the lift, almost broke my neck, probably broke my back, but hey i was still in one piece after 8 hours of uninterrupted climbing up and falling down, didn’t really feel any pain, i’m probably immune to it already – which is great.

sky, snow, clouds, board, sky, post, tree, sky, snow, lift, sky.. i’m definitely doing this again next weekend.. hopefully no avalanche warning this time..

at earl’s for lunch this afternoon to mark a friend’s birthday – quarter of a century, what a milestone. where was i when i reached that mark? my blog says i was at cafe havana with ri and gia, they’re now in japan and london respectively, one happily married, the other engaged, time flies when you’re having fun =) back then i was marking the whole october as mine as usual, travelling, watching movies, playing games, buying gadgets, hanging out with friends, dealing with family issues, tinkering with tech stuff, dabbling in poetry, juggling broken hearts, waiting for flowers to wilt, probably swimming in mud and contemplating on existentialism or what i’ve done with my life so far – quarter life crisis, but it doesn’t matter anymore. life is getting better every day. and today is just one of those days.

tonight i’m catching up with my older brother. everybody’s been asking me when i’m coming home, i wish i knew the answer, but i don’t. and i don’t really care anymore either. whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera sera =p

When welcoming the New Year, It is customary to recap events or enumerate if not rank people or things that had some significant impact in our lives for that passing year. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, that’s all relative, as long as it affected or changed us, then it should be recognized. So to honor this tradition, here’s my best of 2008:

– trips: San Francisco, Hawaii, Oregon Coast, Seattle, LA, San Diego, Vancouver mainland / islands, and Toronto; not nearly as many as last year and mostly cities I’ve already gone to, I was running out of new places to visit that don’t require a visa, (I need a blue passport ;p )

– firsts: Despite my being ancient, I still have lots to discover on this earth. Here’s a list of new things I tried:
* sailing, driving a powerboat, sleeping in a boat on a freezing night, snorkeling, kayaking, camping, doing the grouse grind, hiking the chief, staying at hostels, hitching rides, talking to random people, exploring lava tubes, watching a volcano spew magma up close, cycling along the seawall, cycling across the golden gate, running to catch ferries, missing plane flights, having turkey dinner, watching live hockey game, shoveling snow, pumping gas, sleeping over at other people’s house, attending parties with people I don’t really know, staying away from allergens and alcohol, actually taking my meds and finishing a bottle, and allowing myself to be friends with people outside my bubble

– misses: Knowing I have issues with failure, this year has been particularly difficult for me because of some heartbreaking mishaps:
* being kicked out of the house because I leave early / come home late to / from work all the time, camping at the office since I have no other place to go, dealing with the rollback of the same project which robbed me of my time and caused my living arrangement to deteriorate, coming to terms with the fact that everybody is replaceable and can be fired or sent home without notice no matter how much they know or gave up, feeling like a pawn in a chess game – so small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, becoming a burden by sleeping over at other people’s couches while looking for new place to rent, coping with disappointment of a post release breakdown, missing family and not being able to go home to people who truly care for me, dealing with fake people and playing their games while trying to keep my soul intact, understanding that some people never say what they mean nor mean what they say and doing my best not to be like them, and finally accepting that I am nothing, a nobody, a tiny flame who can’t even cast a proper shadow.

– lessons: Experiences happen to teach us something, so I distill these events and ferment them with time, until they no longer hurt, that way I can finally see them for what they truly are, and appreciate what they taught me.
* living alone in a faraway country without family or friends is tough, last year was bearable because I had relatives and workmates with whom I can relate to, I never felt misplaced, or homesick, but after losing them and having to face all these disappointments, I learned valuable lessons on humility, patience, understanding and acceptance.

I went through a phase of depression right after coming back in August, I was homeless, a failure at work, stripped of my friends, and without anybody to turn to but God. I prayed for an Angel to guide me because I couldn’t do it on my own, but it’s not reslly my nature to ask for or accept help, so I kept sinking into the black hole.

Outside I was this strong, self sufficient, in control, calm, cool, and collected person, a complete structure on it’s own that didn’t need anything else in this world, but each night I was breaking down till it just became too much to bear. I missed being hugged and crying on someone’s shoulder, I missed being told that everything will be alright and tomorrow will be better. I never felt more miserable in my entire existence on this planet.

“after great pain, a formal feeling comes; the way freezing persons recollect the snow, first the pain, then the stupor, then the letting go”

So I decided to let go, let the waves crush me to the rocks and stop fighting the tides, I started putting everything in place, making sure the world will turn uninterrupted for people I will leave behind in case my time here is done. I have always lived each day as if it were my last, but now I have this urgency to share everything I know and give everything I have, leaving only the minimum to myself. I keep saying I’m done with all this pain, I’m ready to give up.

– resolution: I’m not a person who makes these, instead I have goals or some sort of general direction where I see myself in the next 365 days. But as it is, I don’t really plan stuff, I just flip coins. Unfortunately I gave up my coin some months ago, so now I have nothing, I’m just waiting to be led..

With this coming year, I feel the winds of change are blowing once more, I will keep all these lessons like seashells from some sandy shore and put them all on my shelf of recollection. I am embracing the unknown and letting the rain shape me and mold me to become someone better, or crush me into pieces until I return to the dust where I came from. I don’t really care anymore. Such is life.