Remember that time when we were younger? When we were too little and carefree to think of all life’s worries? When our biggest fear in life come birthday-time is not receiving the present that we hoped for all year long? Whether we are getting that spanking new toy that will make us the envy of the kids in the neighborhood, or we are, by dint of cosmic joke, bound to receive (again) that despicable snake and ladders set that we perpetually receive on an annual basis?
As kids, we hope for the coming of the next year. Adulthood is something we are dying to reach. We were too bold and brazen to decide, as such an early age, what we wanted to become when we grow old. And as far as I could recall, never in my wildest dream have I told myself that I wanted to become a nurse when I was that young.
By a sudden twist of fate, the image of birthdays being shiny and hopeful turned into something dreaded and scary. That was when we learned that growing up is never a joyful passage of time and memories but a ruthless monster devouring our hopes and dreams. Time has become our enemy. And birthdays, an event we associate with aging and sorrow.
I started asking myself: is this the memory I am going to imprint in my life as I grow older?
Or can I, for one, be like that child again, and celebrate my birthday the way it was supposed to be commemorated?
For the past 5 years that I have been writing here at The Unbearable, my birthdays are marked by loneliness, hope, beginning, and sorrow, a psychologist could easily interpret as an unconscious guise of my inner bipolar self. In between my personal oscillations of using and abusing several drugs in the formulary, ranging from anti-depressants to minor tranquilizers, lucid intervals are always bliss. And I’m proud to say that for 3 years now, my body has become prescription- or recreational-drug-free, and my doses of Valium have been minimized to a great extent.
Why, then, am I feeling this melancholic?
I actually don’t know. Blaming my brain’s raphe nuclei and serotonin proves to be an effortless escape but I won’t digress. Maybe it’s the season, and it’s my Seasonal Affective Disorder talking, but I have always liked the rain, making the diagnosis very unlikely. I think the conclusion is that the problem lies within myself. And I therefore need not ask.
In a few hours, I will be turning 18. Plus 5.
A few years back, I was praying to the Lord to give me enough wisdom to help me decide what is right for me and act upon that in a prudent manner. A few months back I think I received the wisdom that I ultimately longed for. Last year, I was living a life. It might not be the “best” life I’m capable of living, but in my heart I know it’s the kind of life that I know I will never exchange for for all of eternity.
This time, I have only one prayer:
I will live my life.
And this time, I will live it well.
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Thank you for your unending support. This post is for single men (and women) everywhere, and one in particular... my very good friend Raymond, the eternal optimist, who always believes in love.
Milestones – that’s what they are called. Trust, mistrust. Autonomy, shame. Initiative, guilt. Industry, inferiority. Identity, role confusion.
Intimacy.
Isolation.
I have always believed that during the course of my fleeting, ephemeral lifetime, I was able to pass my psychological milestones with flying colors. I like to believe that I was nurtured well enough that I was poured, bathed even, with the necessary milieu needed to achieve them. Then came my epiphany.
I have always asked myself year after year as to how my life has been changing. Yes there might have been that proverbial, “older and wiser” adage but I doubt as to whether this passage still applies to me, or I’m moving otherwise. It appears to me that just like mankind, I have been taking huge steps backward, and it seems as if my world is screeching to a halt.
When I was younger and my ways of dating could be defined as indiscriminate at least, looking for love has been like choosing a personal outfit. I was young and reckless back then and love for me is just like a chemistry experiment. If the reagent does not match with the base product, we dispose, and if things go awry, we run to the nearest fire escape.
I seem to have found myself in a stage where I think I’m ready to settle down. But every time I think of the single, carefree life that I will be leaving, fear grows in my heart. Am I ready to commit to my one true love? Is he the one? Can I get over my previous lovers whom I still feel a certain response every time I see their faces or hear their names? Will I miss the night life I think I will desert once I’ve decided to settle down? Am I still allowed to flirt with other people? Am I a husband material?
A lot of my friends have been hitting me with a hammer, figuratively. At 22 (23 next week), I still have a lot of immaturities I should’ve grown out of when I was 13. But then again, at 13, I was facing a psychological test straight people are passing through with ease. It took me several years, and several failed relationships to finally decide what I wanted to be. And there I’ve found my identity.
“Don’t settle for anything less,” I always tell myself. But then again, the more pressing question is that, “do I deserve the things that are presented before me?” Or am I taking them for granted.
I just hope that there will never come a time when life will turn it’s back on me and tell me, “I have given you enough, now it’s time to take what’s mine.”
Darn identity.
Defying conventions has been my biggest obsession for the entire part of my life.
I push androgyny to the limits. I bend the rules. I dare conventions. I challenge the cliché.
So when a good friend has been betrayed by his lover and came to the conclusion that all men are by nature irrevocably polygamous, I digress.
Okay, that was the inner me bluffing.
I know she’s right. Polygamy is a part of our genetic make-up, much like the sizes of our penis or the propensity to develop acne. Most men want what they can’t have. And once they have it, they want more.
After losing some of my loved ones due to those “dreaded” third parties, I have come to the realization that as a man, inasmuch as being human, we are such insatiable creatures. We could never get enough. We are never enough.
For we are beings with needs and wants. Being with a special someone does not, and will not guarantee us the fulfillment of our desires. For always, what we ultimately want is more.
I might have a special someone with me right now, but I firmly believe that there will come a time when I’ll get to meet someone who can better satisfy my needs. And I’m amenable to the fact that he might find someone else too. But I guess for now, we’ll just have to do.
There are conventions that we can fight, and there are some that we can’t. But in the end, what separates us from the other member of the specie is that we always have a choice. We can confront or we can succumb. We can challenge or we can surrender.
We can be polygamous if we choose to be. We can always choose not to. For in life, we all have two choices. To do what is right, or to do what is wrong.
In the end, we ultimately become what we choose to do.
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Image from flickr. My Interpration by Mika.
I find it amazing that almost a year ago, I was musing with my epiphanies of self-indulgent greatness with this post that I personally think is the best that I have written. That despite the fact that the scale of accomplishment and failure tips on the former rather than the latter, what I have achieved for the past year is something I could definitely be proud of.
Looking back, the three words that sum up my dreary almost non-existent life is nursing, sleeping and eating. The thing that fuels my existence, aside from my pay check, is personal satisfaction. I made things possible without a special someone, a trophy person, dare I must say, to celebrate with my victories and empathize with my defeat. To quote;(3) My ideal guy is just around the corner, and sooner or later, he’ll get to find me. It’s just that we’re both busy chasing our dreams that our lovelives is a little haywire. After some readjustments of goals, he’ll come to me, and we’ll live happily ever after.
Fast forward a few months of waiting, just when I thought that I have given up on love (again), a special someone comes in the form of an amazing, understanding person. I might have had a notorious reputation of finding my loved ones in the most inopportune places (only if you consider ONS’s as inopportune), this time, I thought that this could be it. I told myself that there’ll be no pressure this time. “Let’s see” has become my personal mantra. And time has become my friend instead of my foe.Before, my weekends are filled with night outs with friends with the aim of spying potential lovers that would pass our ways. Looking at couples not only enliven my angst on love but also rouse my relentless homicidal ideations and murderous tendencies. I channelled my inexorable libido into my personal work, and even started a new hobby in taking photographs.
But then this person came. And I was inspired. My weekends are now filled with intense lovemaking sessions (hahaha) and I no longer feel the existential angst for lovers walking as if they’re the only people in the world. I no longer dread the pity talks. The self-help books will have to go for now. And I will no longer watch movies alone.Though everything is still far from the hedges of roses that I have envisioned before and am still envisioning now, the fact that I did not spent Valentine’s Day alone is enough blessing that I should feel thankful for.
Images from my friend K's multiply account.
“And I was never looking for approval from anyone but you
And though this journey is over I'll go back if you ask me to…”
I used to believe that my greatest fear in life is dying, especially, dying alone.But in the midst of living, and working in a place where death is as common as a thought, facing death has been the norm rather than the exception.Every time a patient’s heart stops, a chain reaction of activating a code, rummaging the emergency kart for cardiac drugs, pumping the chest and shocking the heart has been our second nature. So much that almost everything has been routinely impregnated in our systems. In 30 minutes we stop, or in some instances, when our muscles still can permit, we allow 15 more.Whoever said that running a code blue is so cinematic and surreal must be seriously absurd.
I have seen death several times and at most of these times, facing it has never been easy for my part.As medical professionals, life is what we protect at all times. We may have different values towards it, different views, opinions, and outlook on it, but in every chance that we got, we have learned how to protect it at all costs.Because we cherish its brevity. How transient it could be. One moment you’re someone else’s son, someone else’s mother, someone else’s special loved one, and the next thing you might just be the cadaver I’m wrapping up in a shroud.When burnout sets in, I couldn’t help but contemplate on whether I should volunteer myself to the hospital’s pediatric wing, or in the nursery where life abounds and everything is sweet and cuddly. But then reality slaps me back where I’m supposed to be. No matter where I go, people will die. People are going to die. And life begins anew.Maybe it’s for this reason that I have begun to realize one of the most important things in life.
That life is what we make of it.As the old saying goes, “Yes, we can't do anything about the length of our lives, but we can do something about its width and depth."And sometimes.Yes, sometimes.It’s all so comforting.
“I’m not dead just floating
I'm not scared just changing
You're my crack of sunlight yeah…”
Images from Flickr, I’m Not Dead by Pink.
“All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of who I am
And how I got to where I am…
Reading New Year posts never fail to both amaze and disappoint me.I feel so jealous that some people were able to accomplish so much at such a little amount of time, and yet here I am, feeling as if nothing has changed and everything is going against my way.
But there are times when I just feel elated because there are moments when a single day, a single minute, a single hour stretched like a forever’s worth of happiness and satisfaction.
And just like that I feel nothing but thankful.Thankful to Him for the blessings I’ve received for yet another 365 days of my existence.
Thankful for my superiors for giving me a stable job. One that allows me to manage my own finances. That despite the seemingly meager amount, it nevertheless gave me enough to afford me trips to Gucci and Louis Vuitton and end up carrying some.
For my patients for allowing me to learn a whole lot of things. I may not have given them my undivided care but in my heart I knew that it is my best they have received.For my co-staff for being my mentors and friends.
For my family for continuously bringing out the best in me. For sticking with me through thick and thin, I will be eternally grateful.
For “J,” for believing in me and loving me and taking good care of me. We might not have been “there” and the road is still long and winding, but I’m thankful because we have taken the first step together and I’m praying that you’ll be holding my hand as we journey through life together.
And for you for inspiring me to write. A passion I nurture for quite a long time. For this blog that served as a forge where I can share my emotions, never will I quit you, that’s for sure. 
With all these blessings and wonderful people surrounding my life, tell me why should I feel ungrateful for?…Oh but these stories don’t mean anything
When you’ve got no one to share them to
It’s true, I was made for you.
Oh yeah, and it’s true that I was made for you.”
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Images from flickr. Lyrics from Brandi Carlile's "The Story."
