Of lakes and stars

In a span of a decade, everything has drastically changed and if you have noticed, it has become increasingly difficult for me to vividly recall a memory attached to a place or a thing... 

-MakMak, Higher ground: Up to the Rooftop

San Pablo, for me, has not yet become Makati, for you. I still recognize the old houses lining that lonely boulevard where our house still stands on. I still see those wonderful trees giving shade to the city, though, like you, I have never climbed any of them for the hunt of caterpillars.

But then, even as I still have clear memories of buildings erected in my hometown, like you, much has also been lost. Many trees have long been used as firewood. Many fields have already become houses and buildings. The one big playground where we usually flew our kites on is now a track field for San Pablo's growing population.

But, more than these, what I miss the most about my hometown are the people who I grew up there with. It's the friends who I never see anymore. It's the school rivals we have always had upon dismissal of classes in the afternoons. It's the crowd in my org as we planned to conquer the world.

Now, so many years after, and still miles and miles short of my quest to rule the earth, I look back in my hometown with silent hope and confident pride. Hope that I too, like many others before me, will make my hometown proud. And pride, that once I reach that dream, I can and will always say, I am, in my mind and in my heart, truly, a son of that City of Seven Lakes.

Lakes that will always reflect the beauty of your rooftop's star-adorned sky.

FUCK THEM ALL.

Eight Months

Because I missed partying tonight due to some circumstances beyond my control, melancholy kicked in--or more precisely, the feeling of longing for someone to hold and be with re-surfaced. While surfing the net and hanging out in my usual sites, I remembered the feeling of having someone to converse with during these lonely times. I remembered the feeling of sharing one's life with someone else, and then growing in the process. 

More than anything else, it's that connection to someone that keeps me looking back. 

I've been single for a few months now. Eight months to be exact. The longest time that I have been single since I was 20. Six years do pass by swiftly, and sometimes, when one gets used to routines all those years, it's hard not to miss it. The comfortable feeling almost always has its way of creeping back to your consciousness.

No matter how much you tell yourself you already changed.

You realize, some things just keep on coming back.

My Humble Home

I was surfing the boob tube when I chanced upon this travel show in TV 5, Travel on a Shoestring. I got interested when the host, from the very start of the show, mentioned how there are lots of places that one can go to with a budget of just under five thousand bucks.

Being the cheapskate that I sometimes purport myself to be, I decided to give the show a chance to wow me. And wowed was I when I realized the place they were doing a review on was my one and only hometown, San Pablo City.

It's so weird watching a review of my own hometown. For one, it makes me think why, despite my 17 years in San Pablo, I haven't been to all of those places that they went to. For another, none of any of those featured in TV seem to be the way they really are in real life.

For instance, the inn that the host stayed in for two nights is just across the grade school that I went to. And despite studying in that place for nine years, not once have I seen how it looks like inside. My impression of the place has always been one that is frequented by people of questionable professions. I was surprised, greatly I might add, to discover how homey it is inside and not at all what I thought it was. Imagine me going to and from that place for nine years bearing in mind a specific notion of the place, only to know now how wrong I have been all the while. Talk about not knowing what you have when you have it. Geez.

But on another angle, the supposedly nice sceneries that they went to are not that pleasing at all. Not to put my hometown down, but Sampaloc Lake, for instance, long lost its luster and charm, at least in my eyes. It's no longer as pristine as it used to be. The people living around it, the "villagers" as the host of the show called them, has contributed much, very much, to the lake's decline. Even the air that the host of the show so intently complimented isn't as good as it seems to be. Now, the lake (or more precisely, the circumference of the lake) only serves as a jogging path for me on those few occasions when I go home. Bummer, right?

But whatever was said about the places in my hometown, however it was depicted in the show, good or bad, San Pablo City still remains a special place to me. If Ateneo were the one that ushered me into adulthood, it is San Pablo that built the foundations of my life. There, I learned the meaning of morality. There, my values were formed.

Even as I have now physically left the place, even if I now would feel no one but a stranger in those places that I have grown up in, San Pablo will forever be etched in my mind and in my heart as that place that first molded me into who I am now.

It will forever be my home.

My first humble home.

Ritual of the Lost

When life weighs down on me big time, like it's doing now, I have three things I need to do on my own first before I break down in front of my friends. First is the incessant thinking and wishing. Thinking of what I have done that led me to the predicament I am into and wishing that I hadn't done those things in the first place. 

Then, when I am just about beaten to a pulp due to my continuous wallowing in self-pity, I turn to that place that has always given me solace and comfort, my sanctuary from this real world. There I compose myself, pull on shreds to mend my broken self, and emerge as if I were as good as new. 

Lastly, there comes the resolution that I shall emerge from that pit, that I shall fight back with all my God-given talents, that I shall be me, the fighter, the go-getter, the never-say-die soldier. When this stage comes, I almost always have furrowed eyebrows all the time, ready to snap back at anything and everything that dares provoke me.

Then if and when nothing comes out of it, if after this ritual has been performed and I still am at a lost, it's the time that I call in the troops. It's the time for back up. Time to rant and bash all those that/who caused me pain. I gather strength from the people around me and use it to bounce back.

Then I recover and become happy again.

Then I become stronger.

Then I become ready when, once more, life will pull its rank on me and weigh me down. Big time.

New Cubicle

We just transferred to a new office. Wee!!! The only thing is, I'm a bit disoriented because (1) dunno where all my files went, and (2) the bigger cubicle I now occupy seems too big for me (coming from my old cubicle, that is, hehe).  But, mind you, I'm not complaining at all. Why? I now have a view! Yey. Add that to the fact that my Sun signal is now always in full bars, and I have a new and exciting cubicle experience ahead of me. Coolness!

Taking off

Sometimes, all it takes is one simple skin with one simple entry to bring me back to reality.

I'm back.