Halcyon Days

There was a time then when I hung out with this bunch of people. We would all meet up, go out in events, hobnob and most especially get high on ecstasy and ketamine, and at times, by accident, cocaine. It would go on for days never ending, like the end was the next hour. It was such a thrilling experience for me. That was the time when I experienced it all. I didn't think, I just let the moment flood through me and take it all in in between fluid compounding breathes. It felt so overwhelming, this comfort, this infinite and interminable happiness I felt in the presence of such fine strangers and it felt like they shared that feeling with me, like we were all moving in this speedy uniform revolution, that trailed fire, and in perfect unison. That was the most fascinating part of it all. Apart from all the minor and seemingly innocuous things I learned about them in the short time I knew them, there were never really any intimate details that was filed in my head, the kind that only two or a few more people grow to share in fondness built through time, but it felt like they were more familiar and closer to me than my own family. I loved them for that. 

My brain works so weird sometimes. I don't pause to think about what's happening but rather record all the awe inspiring details and nuances of that moment and store it for later assessment. Sometimes, those details are scattered in the vastness of my memory, bits and pieces of it scattered, hovering like dust particles do in space. I'm not an expert in organizing thoughts after all. Eventually, in an exact and perfect timing, those details will find each other and build this bigger picture until finally there is no more piece left to fill it up.

Last night, in the last hours of my birthday, I bumped into one of them after not seeing him in such a long time. It felt strange now that their absence in my routine is the one providing me comfort. I started avoiding them for all the things I fear they think of me, things I realized when my brain, in its always tauntingly timing of pausing, stopped to think about what these people really think of me and what they mean to me.

I've heard stories about what happened to the rest after I left through the usual grapevine, faraway from their sights. It seems everyone else has moved on to live and do their own things. Some have stopped dropping ecstasy and snorting ketamine. Most of them still do see each other. I still do see some of them once in a while. It just feels strange now that we're reduced to usual pleasantries and casual conversations and to that cold feeling of realizing that that person is, after all these years of getting high in the darkness and communing on shared hits, in the harshness of the fluorescent lights, a total stranger you are currently sharing an awkward moment with and nothing else to talk about. I've thought about it a thousand times, trying to reason out those things that seem like failures to connect, wondering about what exactly were the facts and where we could've gone wrong. 

Last night as we were leaving another birthday party, when I greeted that guy, gave him a quick beso on the cheeks and politely explained that we were already leaving, I realized that no matter what happened then, all the details that compose the real truth, all the facts will never be revealed to any of us. We will all be left with our version or maybe a consolidated one but never the absolute real version. The matter of the fact is, none of us will ever figure out what really went wrong, and that it was simply and irreversibly the end of those days and that picture has no more piece left to build it on.

Myself back then should give myself now a talk

I remember someone asking me if I still manage to surprise myself.

Yesterday, a friend wanted me to see a picture of a guy he was dating in this dating site, which asked me to login. I have already forgotten I used to have an account with them two years ago but the site thoughtfully reminded me. So what I just did was to reactivate that account. I left it activated and tonight I got an email telling me that someone from that site sent me a message. I was wondering how exactly someone took interest in my profile when I haven't really filled it up. I thought that deactivating it would scrap the profile I used to have. Turns out, it was still preserved from when I deactivated it.

When I read the profile a few seconds ago, I was totally shocked at how much I had more grasp of who I am then, how spot on my profile write up was. Because if I would've written on now, I would've probably done something very brief and cryptic. That's how I am to myself nowadays, a mystery, which doesn't actually surprise me. What surprised me was the me back then that had a very clear understanding of myself. If this is the direction I am heading then I should be bothered. Or I guess it's only natural that the more the I grow older, the more vague every detail seems, that line between black and white fades into a broad gradient of gray.

Oh and yeah what better time for this than my birthday, right? Thank you God. Thank you playful Fate. Thank you taunting universe. I get the joke. Now can we all have a moment to laugh? So we can all finally move on.

I like it though. A little self-doubt sometimes can be good.

Letting off some steam

The most dumbest, annoying, ironic fact about how I got HIV is that I got it after straightening up my ways. Yes, I may not have still used protection but at least I chose partners. Not like back then, before I had a boyfriend, when I just let every guy in, when I was more prone to contracting it. When I stopped abusing drugs and when I finally went back to school and started being responsible, that's when I get HIV. Great.

Maybe I really just don't want to

One of the most fascinating things about life that never fails to amuse me with disbelief is that often times I obsesses on songs I've only heard remotely and a few vague times in the very far past. Take for example my current obsession with The Strokes' "What Ever Happened". I remember obtaining a copy of Room on Fire years back then but never really actually paying any genuinely interested attention to it aside from trying to fake it because they were the hot band then and Julian was the guy all my waif gay friends then jacked off to. But today... well... yesterday, I couldn't get the first few lines of that song out of my regular cerebral processing all day. I'm amazed at how vividly I remember the quality and texture of Julian's voice crooning the lines "I wanna be forgetten... I don't wanna be reminded".

Maybe this has something to do with this

Oh Julian... you just get better with more figures on your age and length on your hair.

Eggerisms

I always have that same feeling when I'm about to finish a book. It falls on the same part of the spectrum as with breaking up with someone really great but you know that your relationship has reached its determinable end, or when a really awesome escapist trip is about to end, or like when something dear simply has to end like an amazing dinner birthday party for a friend. And always, always towards the end, I break the intended progression of the story by the author. Whenever I get that feeling I jump right into the last scene of the book then start reading disjointedly different scenes that leads up to that end in random order. 

I started reading You Shall Know Our Velocity out of interest piqued by a couple of quotes from the book a friend posted on her journal. Through the course of its neurotic and often painful narrative, I've had some opinions about the characters, some I liked more, some less than most of them. Towards the end, and after reading that there's another version of the book with an additional 50 page or so digressive narrative by the other main character (the story was narrated by one of the two friends),  I've somehow started seeing everyone, even the smaller nuances, on the same light. 

"You can't ever guess at life, at pain. All pain is real, and all pain is personal. It's the most personal thing we have. It eats each of us differently."

-- Dave Eggers

We have built a difficultly intricate sad society to navigate our emotions through

Why is it so hard to compartmentalize my feelings? No matter how much I try to distract myself, things always manage to manifest itself in more sublime cryptic ways that only I can understand and that seem more troubling in the long run. Is it the same for everyone else and we're all have just gotten so good at hiding our emotions? Because I seem to be the only one having this problem.

Banters and schemes

Oh the games we play

To keep ourselves

Entertained

We taunt danger

We tease shame

Just to not feel

Mundane

Just a thought

I was reading this book

I realized something about myself because of this painfully paranoid, amusingly obnoxious and deeply pained narrator who likes to travel very fast against the natural revolution of the earth.

It seems like the more I know -- or the more I assume I know more -- the more I'm daunted. The more I'm daunted, the more I become overprotective of myself and the more I appear arrogant and an asshole. 

It's such a predicament. Some resolves are easier thought of and said than done.

Poignancy

It's such a funny thing how we sometimes deny our pain and wind up being more scarred by something we can't identify. Like how we take drugs to reject pain of loss but end up getting more lost than we were before.

I'm an asshole

I had a very interesting professor this term for PHILOMA. When I first saw him during first day of class, I had this impression that he was this smart adventurer. He dressed like it; casually fitted button down short  sleeves and slacks, and the kind of rugged leather shoes mountain climbers wear. He was from another region hence his regional accent, which I can understand. It can't be helped. I was never one to measure a person by the person's accent but rather what the person says. 

But as the term went on, I developed a distaste for his lectures which he often conducted by reading from a textbook most of the time. I hated his method. I didn't understand why he did that when he seemed like such a smart guy when he introduced the course. There were times that I gave snide remarks and snorts of stifled laughter when he would say something. But he never reprimanded me. He just smiled every time. 

During midterms, it was expected that I would flunk his subject. I didn't study because I felt discouraged to do so. I flunked his exam and so did majority of the class because none of us paid him attention he deserved. We all probably thought he was an idiot for different reasons. I was just the one most apparent about it. I would've flunked his subject along the rest of my classmates but he didn't flunk us or just me for that matter.  I don't know if it's because he was scared of us or he just wanted us to like him but I'm pretty sure it's something else. Because of all times my young, naîve juvenile classmates were all overpowering his voice with their small talks, he never did once flare up or lost his temper. He was always calm and very diplomatic.

After the midterms, things got a little better between the two of us. I felt bad that he even gave me a 2.5 for my midterm grade despite my lack of enthusiasm. When we reached the topic of Buddhism and other eastern philosophies, his lectures started to change. We started having small debates about this exotic and seemingly foreign beliefs that fascinated me. I took a special interest in Buddhism. 

What I particularly liked about Buddhism was its idea of an afterlife. It was never the kind of place where in everything is perfect as how the modern Christian belief of heaven has now evolved. Nirvana was something else. The idea of Nirvana is being finally moving in perfect synchronicity with the universe after being reincarnated so many times and acquiring all these different points of views with each life you have lived. It's about understanding enough to relieve the pain in the world. It's like having courage to dive in after a brief moment of fear.

Buddhism  as I've come to understand is a kind of belief that doesn't lay judgement on people. It doesn't deem one man's action as a sin but rather explains it as something that causes harmful reactions. I think the idea of sin is a trap for judgement and judgement always brings about anger no matter how we try to deny it.

It striked me that perhaps this is why this man, my professor, remains so calm. When he handed me back my term paper and told us all that we are all, again, supposed to flunk for our final grades but he's adjusting the grading system for at least most of us to pass. I know that's the kind of practice that tolerates laziness and mediocrity but for the better part of his subject, I think I've learned so much. I have never met a person who's ever caused me to feel so much shame without even lifting a finger or uttering a single word with that intent. 

Life minus dreams

I was looking at all the short films I did this term and I felt a little sad. All the ones I did were compromises because of lack of suitable actors or resource. I'm not saying I'm not happy with them. They all turned out nice. Even better than I expected of them. It's just they're not what I want. It's like settling for something just because it's the only thing there. But I know life is like that. We make do with what we have and hope that we get what we want in the end. If we always got what we wanted, then there would be nothing left for us to want. That would be such a tragedy. I guess that's also why we don't know the things we really want most of the time.