Impervious

The past week has been quite exciting and fun for me. Some good things dropped on my lap recently, and I’m not sure what to do about it. Somewhat. It’s not that I’m pessimistic.

Okay. I am pessimistic. But I’d rather be that than go through the shock of not getting what I want, each and every time. Saves fucking energy, you know. So anyway:

Things I’m Thinking About But Must Not Think About, Really
1. Two job offers I’m obsessing over. It’s a big dilemma of sorts, and the only way to sum it up is through Glenn Frey: Are you gonna stay with the one who loves you / Or are you goin’ back to the one you love?

Sorry, my taste in music is flawed, and the shitty side of it is showing now, but. You get what I mean. By the one who loves me, I meant the one who actually cares about what I can bring to the table and who actually took the time to look at my portfolio. And by the one I love, I meant, not really love love, but the main thing I was looking forward to being. Which also includes a Miranda Priestly incarnate.

2. My website is pushing through. Yay! In a bit this whole thing is going to move over to a whole new place, where I can keep track of myself. I’m creating some sort of home base, a command center, if you will (command center? WTF? I could hear Bruce Willis’ derisive laughter, circa Die Hard 4, in my head right now).

The one thing I’m thinking about is the big reveal. Should I tell my friends about it? I mean sure, I’ll tell my friends about it. But you know what I mean. The rest of the world. The ones whom I shied away for a long time, while I went on my own to regroup myself and fix my life. I’ve disappeared to a lot of people, you know that. You know what that means if you’re reading this now, because you’re one of the few who knows about this place, and by few, I meant few, really. I’ve been going over it in my head for awhile now, asking myself if it’s now time to come back. And honestly? I don’t know.

3. I have a pro account in Flickr! [Thank you, Carolina, love.] One of the things that kept me sane during all those times I couldn’t write poetry (even if I forced myself) was photography. And exploring Flickr opened worlds to me. I’ve met a lot of great people and gained a lot of perspective on the way I see my world versus how others see their world.

For a long time, I thought poetry was the only thing I have. The only thing I wanted to have. And when I came to the point that it’s not working anymore, when I was so frustrated of the things going on in my life, my disgust at myself was so palpable, you know? Poetry didn’t seem to fit anywhere, like it’s not meant to be a part of who I am. I was so angry at myself then, for being this way. For loving words this much. For spending years and years writing poems. And for finding myself in this situation, where it’s just not acceptable in the family, where my place among things was to not be a poet and be someone else entirely.

So I stashed away my notebooks and turned to something else. That’s how I happened to trace my childhood, walking back to my younger self, trying to sift through memories. There must be something else I could do, I’d think to myself. And voila – photography. When I found myself enjoying taking photos so much, do you know how much alarmed I was? To be not writing. I even dared myself to come as far as thinking, I could do without it. Poetry, I mean.

But I laugh now. Because every time I look at my photos, all I see are poems, words in my head being given a visual. Clearly, I am still me. I just can’t write now, but we’ll see.

—

*sigh*

I’ll stop now. I said I won’t think about it. And look, I went ahead and contradicted myself.

The point of all this rambling is that I felt really good last week. It rarely happens, as far as my history goes. So that’s my cause for alarm. Right now I’m just really nervous of what happens next. I’m rarely ever happy, and when I am, the payback’s always a bitch.

So. Yeah. This is a reminder to myself to not fuck things up in the next few days. Possibly, it is also a silent prayer to deliver bad karma to me in other ways, and not on my two job offers. Let’s steer clear away from that, okay, Fate? I’m in a bind already, as you know. Don’t add anything more to it, other than letting me choose what’s really meant for me. Please.

rainy day lament

It used to be that I haven’t been writing because life was currently happening to me.

Well it’s the opposite this time. Nothing has been happening, so why write about how terribly pathetic my life has been?

I haven’t been the same since I quit my last job. Meaning, I was glad I did what I have to do, but I felt like I’m back where I started. See: my entries for June of last year. I’m like that again. I can’t keep on letting my life be ruled by patterns, you know?

The good thing is, I’ve discovered some things about myself when not involved in writing: I can doodle, take photos, and talk to strangers, and feel happy with that. And that’s definitely a big thing. For me, at least.

There’s a certain point in your life where you turn unexpectedly on an unfamiliar road, and you don’t know exactly if you should forge ahead. And if you did go on, like I did, you will find out that sometimes getting lost, or not seeing the ‘right’ path for awhile can be advantageous in ways that will surprise you. Remember that one month when I have declared that I will stop writing altogether? The shit I was wading through because I’m fighting for what I want was getting daunting. Do you remember that?

Well I’m happy to report that I’m past that. There’s nothing I can do, writing is who I am. When I foolishly decided I’ll stop, I cried for days because I really didn’t know what to do if ever I stopped writing. I cried until I slapped myself silly for, well, being silly.

And then began the picking up of the pieces, putting myself back together. What to do when you encounter a roadblock, when you feel that Fate is absolutely giving you no chance to get around this one? You take your time, and you wait. But you don’t give up.

So I took my time. Doodled, when the words won’t come. Took photos, when I needed to say something, but wasn’t allowed to. And I shared them with strangers. When I tried to write poetry, and wasn’t successful, I wrote letters. Notes. Folded origami. Threaded bracelets. I’m just biding my time, waiting until I can say that I’m whole again.

You have no idea how depressed I got, or how much I needed to connect with friends who had an idea of what I was going through. And most of my friends don’t, actually.

So yeah, please be patient. I’m alive, I’ll come back.