Jaded

Talking to one of my team mates about work and life always seems so refreshing. Although it may not seem like it, he's actually one of the best persons I'm able to discuss about things because he (most of the times) doesn't judge the way you talk or express yourself when you do. In short, he's a good listener.

Due to a, what I call, a "series of unfortunate" events, I've been a little bit more passive about things. I've noticed that I'm more jaded about life simply because the people around me are. There are only a few people that I know who constantly shows their support for things I believe in, and I feel that instead of running against the tide, I'm just going with the flow.

During one of our brief lunch conversations, I shared my thoughts on 'jadedness' and he mentioned that it's not lack of passion or motivation but rather, I have matured - equating it to the fact that I have come to accept that my ideals are bound to never happen.

"You were too idealistic"

"You can work for the ideal but the things you envision is not going to happen."

"The faster you accept it, the more mature and better it is"

Is it wrong for me to disagree?

I doubt if my jadedness is all about becoming mature. I strongly disagree with the idea that maturity, in its entirety, is because you have come to accept that you are a corporate slave for the next 40 years or so.

What I do believe in is that we all choose and we cannot blame life if we never end up what we want to do. I believe in work to live vs. live to work. I've seen my mother and father waste away their lives and marriage because they were too busy with work rather than each other or with us, their children.

I believe in believing. Steve Jobs, in his commencement speech, said it best: "Stay Young. Stay Foolish."

The thing is, I've read the lives of gurus, travelers and successful CEOs. I've read all about people who, despite hardships, are able to succeed. The one thing I noticed is that there is no formula. The only common denominator is that everyone, despite the advice of their passive and good listening friends, stayed faithful to the vision they had for themselves.

I hear Steve Jobs' voice: "Stay Young. Stay Foolish."

Foolish in love? Yes, I've done that.

Foolish with work? Yes, more times than I can count.

Foolish for pursuing my dreams? Always.

I hear it again: "Stay Young. Stay Foolish."

So here's to 2015 and to following my dreams!

A Series of Day by Days

You know there's no rhyme or reason
For the way you turned out to be
I didn't go and try to change my mind
Not intentionally
I know it's hard to hear me say it
But I can't bear to stay
And I just know, I know, I know, I know
That you're gonna be okay anyway
Always keep your heart locked tight
Don't let your mind retire
Oh, but I just couldn't take it
I tried hard not to fake it
But I fumbled it when it came down to the wire

Recently, my life has been a flurry of day by day activities. Truthfully, I've been living a routine of weekend work trips, Monday and Thursday night Yoga classes and the never ending sleepless nights that unusually plagues me now.

Given my "trying to be healthy" activities recently, I've also been trying to open my mind to new things. Music, being one of them. I've recently discovered Haim and I'm hooked with The Wire. The ultimate feel good song that captures my inner bitch feelings for X. I did mention to Frances two weeks back, over the most fulfilling - diet crushing- buffet lunch with the boys, that we're not an item and we will never be. Now that weeks have passed and I'm finally able to fully digest what transpired, I do feel liberated - proving once and for all that I may not seem as prudish as I (and everyone else) thought I was.

Speaking about prudishness, thinking about the exact opposite - heavy doses of PDA and thoughts of sex, I attended a wedding of an aunt last Sunday (the fact that she's roughly only 5 years older than me makes me wonder how normal is my family). Wearing my favorite A|K gold dress and sporting the amazing sunglasses the Certified Olympian gave me two birthdays past, I felt like I was ready to mingle and be the life of the party.

Unfortunately, it's a family affair. Thus, mingling was limited to the following:

• Family members you haven't seen in awhile. This includes a long lost uncle who mistook you for your own brother (I also don't know how this is possible since I was wearing a dress and I did look very feminine if I say so myself). 
• The bride. My aunt who was wondering all through out our conversation before my uncle informed her that I was indeed my mother's daughter, the family's eldest in said generation - twice removed (adding this bit for flair)! 
• The groom. Whom I only met on said wedding.

And by god, where was the dancing? 

Aside from the customary first dance plus the heart-wrenching father and daughter dance, whatever happened to guests dancing as well? Is it just me or no one really does these things anymore? I'm not talking about jumping and flailing about like I'm in a club - although I don't mind at all. I'm talking about actual dancing where people actually slow dance and party the night through...

...Maybe I've just been watching too many sappy rom-coms where man and woman dance and celebrate in the end.

either way, looking forward to dancing in future weddings,

When It Rains, It Pours

It's been raining lately and I've been thinking about how when it rains, it pours.

Especially with the weather right now, I can't help to think that maybe the world sensed my gloom and automatically, they matched my mood. After months of intense heat and complains, we were finally able to experience raindrops and flooded streets. Some say it's a sign that the end is near (just as my very paranoid office mate) or that maybe the weather is going back to the way it used to be (June and July being the start of the wet season).

I've also been hearing the same expression when it comes to work.

A boss, upon congratulating me on several - albeit assisted - closes, quipped: "It seems that when it rains, it pours..." I can't help but grin, it was true. After such a "dry spell" in the workplace (including all the negative thoughts and depressing weary wondering of 'What am I doing with my life?'), I'm finally able to catch myself again and start thinking about more positive things in life and in work. I've even tried doing the whole "plastic" route. When I'm feeling the blues, I automatically think of my favorite things - thank you, Sound of Music - or start talking about positive things about someone. The goal was, fight the blues by making the people around you laugh. So far, things have been progressing quite well. This was until several things happened that make you really do wonder: "Will life keep giving you storms you can't handle?"

Even with problems, it seems that when it rains, it pours.

I don't want to fill me head with random negative thoughts, more so this blog. Although, I've been filling this blog with happier moments to get my mind off things, I need a little more light in my life.

Thinking of sunshine and the gentle afternoon breeze,

Relate-able: Post Secret

They weren't really bullies. But I'd like to think of them as bitches - they were mostly girls that annoyed me because I knew they thought I was smelly and unkempt. They were girls that fed on other people's insecurities and I had a lot.

I'm sure I was a bully too at some point or another. That was school. It was high school.

I'm not planning to go back. I can't. But if I could, I would have tried less to fit in and tried harder to have fun.

X

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin

Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in

Now you're outside me you see all the beauty

Repent all your sin

It's nothing but time and a face that you lose

I chose to feel it and you couldn't chose

I'll write you a postcard, I'll send you the news

From a house down the road, from real love

Thinking about it now, I can't seem to find a more fitting song than Stars' Your Ex-Lover is Dead. Although I'm not saying he's dead literally but I think it's more of really realizing that the things you sort of hope that was there isn't really there.

I'm sure I'm not making sense to you (my interested albeit few), reader. If you don't know me that well, I probably won't. The best way I can explain it is that, now, I feel like I'm getting a part of me back by loosing something totally different. I do feel bad because my "liberation" came with a fake one.

Frances once quipped how liberating a carnival ride was for her and we laughed it off because we survived the experience. In hindsight, it was no laughing matter. Frances was one of the most silent and proper individuals I know. It was indeed liberating for her, but it was also liberating for me to break the idea that this friend is simply my prim and proper friend. I don't want to "process" this too much (as we say in my line of work). But I think it all boils down to the idea that a lucid moment can come from all the madness of everyday life and a random plan with someone you hoped would be different by now.

I've also come to accept that in any relationship - we cannot and should not change the person. Regardless if it's for the night, a month with a card, and a number of years - we bond (for lack of a better term) because we know that they are worth it and not because they are ideal. I think people have the tendency to hope for someone to change for them because it is portrayed as the most romantic gesture of the lifetime. Now, more than ever, I just find it stupid. People change on their own, for their own reasons. Real character is measured by this and not by those around the person. We just always assume that we are worth the change but maybe in reality, we are not worth anything at all.

We cannot stop people from changing. I'm not the same person that I was when our hands, held together by the idea that sweaty palms were romantic, were hidden from view care of our Jansport bags. The same way I've come to accept that you will never be the man you thought you would be, I think it's high time you accept I'm no longer the girl who had carefree thoughts on how to rule the world.

Thank you for the night. Thank you for the future nights. But more importantly, thank you for helping me understand my changes a little bit better.

Knowing that something cannot be because you actually tried to make it work is indeed liberating. Knowing that there are, indeed, things you just don't want simply because you don't want them in it is also liberating. Knowing that you are ready for a different one, a someone that you know might not be the one, is the most liberating thought of all.

I'm sorry if you're not the one.

Taking leaps,

Someone Anxious

Lights Out

We don't have forever

Baby daylight's wasting

You better kiss me

Before our time is run out

Nobody sees what we see

They're just hopelessly gazing

Baby take me

Before they turn the lights out

It's been a while since I've blogged about more personal endeavors. Although I've been pouring all my efforts in my food blog, there are things that I feel like I should share in this semi-private hole in the internet.

I've been thinking about moving lately.

Like physically moving, changing locations and leaving everything behind.

Since I've accepted that I won't be up for the "prestigious" scholarship (thank you very much, people who care), I've been thinking about just following my dream and moving to a totally different place. My mom has been sharing how they're planning to buy a home in the suburbs and I'm thinking that maybe in a year's time, I can comfortably follow.

There's just so many uncomfortable things running around here.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like this from time to time. But honestly, I want to clear my head and I know for a fact that I can't clear it here. I feel like despite the smiles, I'm slowly burning myself out. I'm tired of trying to make an effort of having a good time or feeling like my old self when those things SHOULD come naturally to everyone.

People say it's because I'm growing up. I like to think that it's only because I'm growing old. When people say age is just a number and you know for a fact that it isn't, I think that's a sign. I'm scared because I'm starting to forget. I'm forgetting not just the actual number, but what should be experienced with it. I worry about too many things that doesn't matter. I start paying to take those long walks I know I could have for free. Then I start making a big deal out of it because I know it should be free. It's a cycle and I know for a fact that I don't want to be part of it.

I've come to realize that it is not in the process of losing everything, but rather, in the process of gaining everything that we loose who we are as individuals.

I guess, I just want to be preventive rather than reactive. I've learned to take multivitamins for my body. Maybe, I should earn courage for my soul.


Working on to be,

Someone Anxious.

Random Thoughts: An Inability to Explain

I think that most people take a lot of things for granted.

Like when someone listens to you.

Even though I like to talk (as most people would think I do but I really don't), I listen more carefully.

I listen to rants. I listen to complains. I listen to instructions...

...I listen to you.

So please, please, please, for one minute don't ever assume that I did not listen to you. Don't make me do something just for the sake of doing something. I am (and consequently, you are) better than that.

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Someone Anxious