Dear Heath,

I was a skeptic coming to the theater. Batman was my favourite superhero of all time. All that talk about The Dark Knight being the best Batman film in history made me wince. How can one achieve such a thing? To be able to grasp the depth of Bruce Wayne’s character is something no actor or director has touched yet, ever. So I said I wasn’t going to believe anything until I’ve seen it. And last night, I sat in awe as the credits rolled.

Thank you, Heath. Thank you for giving me the Batman character and the Batman film I’ve always dreamed of. It was all because of you, and you weren’t even the caped crusader himself. And because I’ve no one to talk about it at this hour, I’m writing you a letter in my journal, secretly hoping that the cosmic forces are at work to give this to you on the other side.

You were as good as they said you were. Seeing you again onscreen – I thought I was looking at the face of an old friend. I don’t know if I should say this – I don’t even know if I have a right to say it, or think about it – but I think I understand now why you died. Why you had to pass away at the most inopportune time, why you had to go quietly – where else but in your sleep, something that you needed badly if you have to keep yourself sane. Sleep was your way of keeping the demons at bay, your own ghosts, leftovers from one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen. To be able to do that kind of performance, you must’ve have lived The Joker’s life for a time, studied him, scrutinized him. Christopher Nolan said he chose you because you were fearless. And he was right. You were magnificent.

The only regret I now have is that you won’t see all of this, all of us cheering you on. In fact, I’m still waiting for you to make a big comeback, laughing, clapping your hands, being so full of life – and tell all that the joke’s on us.

Thank you for giving strength to Batman’s character. I loved him most among all the others. I loved him because he was human, and he couldn’t have come face-to-face with the limits of his own humanity if it wasn’t for you, Heath. You made it happen, because you made the film real. And it wasn’t just Batman; you did it to me, to all of us. At every chaos you instigated, you made us look at the people faced with choices and we see ourselves.

And unlike what others have been saying, about how you upstaged everyone else, I’ll have this to say: the film was clearly NOT about your character. Through and through, it was about Batman. It should have been all about you, and had the character been handed to any other person, that might have just happened. But the method in your acting was so precise, that although your brilliance was so stark and poignant, your character was able to round the story up and bring it back to Batman. The Joker enabled Batman to own this film, which is why, at the very heart of it, the film was about you, the actor, and the heart that you put into all of this.

I’ve always believed that a superhero is only as good as his adversity, as in real life — you won’t know how strong and resilient you are until you’re faced with your worst fears. And Batman’s enemy is not The Joker, but his own humanity, his conscience, his choices. His fights are as old as the history of our world: the survival of order amongst chaos, the perseverance of the light against the darkness. And to win the battle, he must be ironic. He needs to dive into chaos to restore order, he needs to fight in the dark to keep the people safe during the day. And this tongue-in-cheek philosophy is what makes me love him.

And yeah, because he’s also an obsessed, miserable bastard. At the end of the day, when he’s done risking his life for the city, the real phantoms, the dark clouds of his past, will be what Bruce Wayne, stripped of the costume, will have to face on his own. Here, he toes the line; here I can say, he is as human as the rest of us.

And your portrayal of The Joker toed that line, too. You made him a person that we can understand, and not just a character that we can dismiss once the story is finished. You made me frightened of him, you also made me struggle as I deliberated on suspending my belief in The Joker as a human being so I can hate him, versus understanding his mind, his own psyche so I can empathize with the person that he has become.

The whole film was an exhilarating journey. Of course, you didn’t make it easy. And of course I love you for it.

There’s a wave of nostalgia now. And there will always be. Thank you for giving the performance of your life. You were gone too soon. I hope you’re in a place now where you can begin again. I’m sure you’ll still be as dedicated, and as fantastic.

Rest easy, Heath Ledger.

Superstar

When I wrote this, I knew it. I knew exactly that my fears will come true. It’s not a matter of psyching my brain for self-actualized disasters to counter my happiness, it just is.

My Bad Karma in Exchange for Good Karma

1. The two job offers went down the drain. The scenario changed so suddenly I was really flabbergasted. Verklempt. What else do you want me to say? One turned me down because I was overqualified. I didn’t know what I did to be too deserving of the position. What does one do to be an editorial assistant? How do I dumb myself down so I can get the job? Apparently, with less than a year of experience, I am still too much for the job.

The other one didn’t want me to work full-time, which baffled me a lot. They said they didn’t want to let go of me because of what I can do, but they just can’t absorb me right now. What the hell does that mean? (And when I did ask what it meant, I didn’t get an answer.)

2. My grandfather and my father were confined at the hospital. Those were two of the most exhausting weeks of my life.

3. I’m still jobless.

4. After three years of really, really fighting hard for it, I’m at this point again. Back in college, the diagnosis was I needed to see a psychologist and take antidepressant and antianxiety pills. The same diagnosis given to me when I was in senior year of high school, dammit. But I said no, and I helped myself along the way. Persisted to keep my head above the water. Now I’m just feeling that all too familiar pull and I’m just really scared.

More Good Karma That Might Result to Another Exchange of Bad Karma

1. My online portfolio is temporarily here. With nothing much in my hands because the freelance thing is a bit slow, I had more time to make another portfolio. I don’t know why, I just feel like it will come in handy.

2. My parents have pretty much accepted that I will never again settle for a fucktard job like I did the first time around, because I will really kick my own ass if I did. This doesn’t stop them though from pulling a Michael Kors during deliberation time at Project Runway, ie insult your soul while making a very accurate observation of your self-worth. So I guess I’ll just have to swallow their side comments for the rest of my life, in exchange of their artificial understanding of my stubbornness.

In line with this, since they also can’t stand seeing me apply at independent companies, whose names they can’t brag about to their friends by the virtue of the companies being unknown to many, I’ve been told that if I wanted to start my own business, I have their go signal. All I have to do is create a very sound business plan and present it to them formally.

I don’t know what to do, really. And this is exactly what I feel, what I’m scared of, 100% these days:

“[I never wanted to be my own boss.]…I don’t think i’ve ever wanted that, in fact i’ve often shied away from it, during the dot-com heydey, and consciously chosen the boring default. I’m not sure why exactly, whether it’s sharing a name with the unbelieving apostle, cowardice, conveniene or just high resilience to bs. It doesn’t really matter after all, the point I wanted to make was that I never dreamed of being my own boss, i would have been contented working for other people all my life. in fact I think I would mostly prefer to be part of a team, with limited responsibility for having to make it all make sense (and money).

Yet here I am, running a small non-profit with Sebastian. Responsible for my own destiny, our success, and a lot of other high-brow things. It just happened this way. I found the ideal business in ict’s for the developing world, in which i had more fun, more fullfillment, and more interesting challenges in 3 month than i would have in a year of web agency, dot-not mayhem. I knew that that was what i wanted to work with, and i took the only path that presented itself to me. being my own boss.

It’s haunting me now. I can’t help but feel misplaced in so many ways. I can’t help but dream of having a regular job, with colleagues, limited responsibility, and the ability to run away screaming if it all becomes too much. Perhaps that’s really what it is, a fear of being trapped. trapped in a construct i invented, trapped in a job that i don’t really want, but can’t run away from, because that would be running away from myself and my dream.

i think that’s probably a large part of it. it’s a responsibility i never wanted, but having taken it upon myself, despite this fat, i need to deal with it or find a way out that leaves at least a few bridges standing.”

I don’t know if I’m just lacking in self-belief. I’m pretty sure if this was presented to me a year ago I’d be balls out with this thing. My elder sister firmly believes I can do it. I wish I have her enthusiasm. I just don’t know if this is what I should be doing.

3. I got my final paycheck from my old job. And there’s nothing else to say. I mean, of course I miss some of the people there, the beautiful people who have become my friends. Meeting a wonderful person like Gingey was one of the best things that happened to me. I firmly believe that a strong bond existed between us in our past lives.

But no matter what they say, I’m still glad I left. And I’m happy that two of my friends left. Because it’s just not the best place to work. Ever. It sucks the life out of you. I’m sorry, I just have to say it. With people leaving, a lot of them have been pretty sentimental in their blogs the past few weeks, and I just can’t bring myself to say anything else but give them all a virtual hug. If you can be the person who can stand an adversity with a little help from your friends, then by all means, embrace that kind of life.

It’s just not for me. I knew I had to fix my life, and relying on the power of friendship to get me through the day is not the answer. I might be seen as the loser, the stupid girl who quit before she had another job — but I’m not joking when I say that it was one of the smartest things I did in my life.

———-
*sigh* I’m blabbering again, am I? No, I’m not drunk. It’s just three in the morning and I’ve been sitting here thinking all day. Just sitting and thinking, would you believe it? All day. I know there are a lot of grammatical errors here but I’m too tired to edit myself. You are witnessing my brain on run-on function. Bye.

Bruise

1.
Over coffee, while the dark was slowly spilling over the sky, I told a friend how comfortable I was with my sadness. I said, I’ve always been sad. The man I loved knew that. He learned how to live with it, that feeling that sits beside me. He learned how to make me happy and never demanded that I trade all of it for his love. Which is why each time that we were together, I have never been happier and sadder in my life.

2.
In my music player I have eight versions of Bach’s Air. When I’m feeling sadder than usual I play all of them, all day long. Once, he asked me, Why do you love it so much, this piece? It’s so simple. Not even a notion of grandeur, what overtures are made for.

I said, Because it is all of the poems in the world put together. Because it is a long walk in the park beneath a sky without stars. Because it is dreamless. And most of all, because of its name: I lie on my back and I feel that I’m listening to air, to the sound of other people breathing, to the sound of your lungs exhaling, the sound of my lungs inhaling. I love this piece because this is the closest I can get to being under your skin. And this kept him silent.

A few nights later, with my head on his chest and Bach on the stereo, he thought he was giving me a surprise. Being half-French, he whispered in my ear, Air is just the French word for Aria, darling, and nothing more.

That is the most cruel thing that he did to me.

3.
When sleep eludes me and I’m too tired to chase it, I sit on this chair and write bruised declarations of a past life. I walk barefoot into the kitchen, open the fridge and look inside it for a long time. I turn on the TV and mute the sound. I stand in the middle of my room and look at my hands. I long for a window that isn’t there. I recite some lines from a Philip Dow poem:

Hunchbacked
by his heart
swollen with dreams
of wings, of girls whose breasts are antelope
trembling beneath the lightning
that seeds his spring: he hears the boes
of their unborn children
growing.
In his heart hut he lives,
a mute
chewing crimson flowers
to make speech, to keep
saying
what does this do
to save my life?

His words stall for time,
slave for the mortgage on his bones:
he knows he is a fool
who cannot solve it –
yet, goes at his heart over and over
repairing: with jellyfish, lame horses,
whistles, white cords of his body, white moths
seeking colors, damp alleys,
odors of knives,
trees, stumped, putting out tiny wings
of translucent new leaves anyway.