This is the room I used to live in.
For the greater part of my younger years up to the last throes of my teenage life, I've lived in a shitty apartment in Obrero. Growing up content with the company of my parents and a television set in front me, I was sideways set up to be a kid who could do perfectly fine without people bothering him. I grew up without feeling like I had much of a stake in the human race so to speak and that left me with a few character traits that still voice themselves out today. I didn't really care about anything or anyone at the time and subsequently I preferred spending my time alone as to wasting my time on what I generally saw as an indistinguishable flurry of particularly uninteresting people, places and events. I won't really get into the details though. This really isn't something I'm particularly proud of, really. All I'm saying is, at this age I still find it hard to interact with and relate to other people who don't happen to share the same specific interests, much less other people who I can't establish any shared history with.
Up until recently, I felt that being alone was something I could do for the rest of my life. It used to be something I could do with ease; something I particularly enjoyed. Upon entering high school, I was unwillingly tossed into a world of new languages and traditions; one whose biodiversity was permeated with every possible human characteristic, mixed, matched and reconstructed en mass. The older I got, the more I saw that no matter how much of a hermit I believed I was in essence, I fit in some vague notion of a "bigger picture." It was cold, dark and far away from home. For the first time, I actually felt lonely.
My first day in college was one riddled with both the excitement of new beginnings and the fearsome afterthought of being alone in a sea of people. My friends all went off to different colleges (or at the very least, different courses/divisions). I lost touch with them and went my own separate way. They went on to grow up the way they were and I sunk back into the hole I dug for myself every time I felt I lost friends. My then-classmates weren't really that bad but they weren't the kind of people I wanted to be with. I was a demanding middle-class kid who didn't have friends and listened to music nobody liked. I needed more people like that. I had to find people I could get along with somehow.
Around that time, I got in touch with Paeng who just so happened to be one of my childhood friends from when I was 7. I reconnected with him over the internet and started a 90s-style old school screamo band where I sang and he played guitar. This eventually led to my immersion in Davao City's various music scenes and later on my sense of community with the Davao City Hardcore/Punk scene via the City Of Thorns Crew and my current band, Caitlyn Bailey. Oddly enough though, I still felt lonely. Soon enough however, something came along and flipped me over my fat head; something that was to leave a lasting impression on me.
I fell in love around that time as well and for the first time I felt that I actually found a girl who could give me the love and emotional intimacy I craved for so badly. Someone nothing short of spectacular, someone who's actually up to par with my standards for what a woman is and what a woman should be apart from traits I wanted in a partner for myself. I guess it was doomed from the start with me still staggering from one stage of life to another and putting all of my faith and stability on the shoulders of a woman who lived miles, cities and eventually oceans away.
The loneliness was too much for me to bear and I guess she got tired of that. If it's only hurting everyone in the end, what's the point of prolonging agony right? For whatever reason, it didn't work out between me and her. I was bitter. I was bitter and very very hurt. Maybe I'll write about Belle and I someday but to keep things short I guess the best thing she ever did for me was to break up with me and send me off on the path to being a better person. It's been quite a while and I think it would be safe to say the wounds have healed. I wouldn't mind never seeing or speaking with her again, I openly and happily accept that this is just another page in our shared histories. Putting things into perspective though, she wasn't just a lover to me, she was my equivalent of what could be called a religious experience. In all truth, the greatest act of common decency I could give in passing is a sign that for whatever it's worth, I was grateful and her efforts weren't in vain. I won't speak on whatever I feel I may have learned though, that's for me to live through for myself but yeah it's time for me to write on a fresh new set of pages. This is my "morning after" and I could finally smile again.
Starting over, I packed my proverbial bags and set off in search of brighter skies and fresh new horizons. Beginnings always have a special space in my heart and as of the moment, I think I've been doing my part in trying to establish genuine friendships with people that don't always have to be a carbon copy of me and my eccentricities. It's taking me longer than I think it should but at least it's getting me somewhere. Now, I'm looking forward to whatever good things life could throw my way. Beautiful people, lasting friendships and second chances for whatever wrong I've done and pain I've caused. School is so much more fun now, I'm not depressed anymore and I think I'm ready to love again.
Like a page by day calendar, life is one day at a time and I'm getting there.
Up until recently, I felt that being alone was something I could do for the rest of my life. It used to be something I could do with ease; something I particularly enjoyed. Upon entering high school, I was unwillingly tossed into a world of new languages and traditions; one whose biodiversity was permeated with every possible human characteristic, mixed, matched and reconstructed en mass. The older I got, the more I saw that no matter how much of a hermit I believed I was in essence, I fit in some vague notion of a "bigger picture." It was cold, dark and far away from home. For the first time, I actually felt lonely.
My first day in college was one riddled with both the excitement of new beginnings and the fearsome afterthought of being alone in a sea of people. My friends all went off to different colleges (or at the very least, different courses/divisions). I lost touch with them and went my own separate way. They went on to grow up the way they were and I sunk back into the hole I dug for myself every time I felt I lost friends. My then-classmates weren't really that bad but they weren't the kind of people I wanted to be with. I was a demanding middle-class kid who didn't have friends and listened to music nobody liked. I needed more people like that. I had to find people I could get along with somehow.
Around that time, I got in touch with Paeng who just so happened to be one of my childhood friends from when I was 7. I reconnected with him over the internet and started a 90s-style old school screamo band where I sang and he played guitar. This eventually led to my immersion in Davao City's various music scenes and later on my sense of community with the Davao City Hardcore/Punk scene via the City Of Thorns Crew and my current band, Caitlyn Bailey. Oddly enough though, I still felt lonely. Soon enough however, something came along and flipped me over my fat head; something that was to leave a lasting impression on me.
I fell in love around that time as well and for the first time I felt that I actually found a girl who could give me the love and emotional intimacy I craved for so badly. Someone nothing short of spectacular, someone who's actually up to par with my standards for what a woman is and what a woman should be apart from traits I wanted in a partner for myself. I guess it was doomed from the start with me still staggering from one stage of life to another and putting all of my faith and stability on the shoulders of a woman who lived miles, cities and eventually oceans away.
The loneliness was too much for me to bear and I guess she got tired of that. If it's only hurting everyone in the end, what's the point of prolonging agony right? For whatever reason, it didn't work out between me and her. I was bitter. I was bitter and very very hurt. Maybe I'll write about Belle and I someday but to keep things short I guess the best thing she ever did for me was to break up with me and send me off on the path to being a better person. It's been quite a while and I think it would be safe to say the wounds have healed. I wouldn't mind never seeing or speaking with her again, I openly and happily accept that this is just another page in our shared histories. Putting things into perspective though, she wasn't just a lover to me, she was my equivalent of what could be called a religious experience. In all truth, the greatest act of common decency I could give in passing is a sign that for whatever it's worth, I was grateful and her efforts weren't in vain. I won't speak on whatever I feel I may have learned though, that's for me to live through for myself but yeah it's time for me to write on a fresh new set of pages. This is my "morning after" and I could finally smile again.
Starting over, I packed my proverbial bags and set off in search of brighter skies and fresh new horizons. Beginnings always have a special space in my heart and as of the moment, I think I've been doing my part in trying to establish genuine friendships with people that don't always have to be a carbon copy of me and my eccentricities. It's taking me longer than I think it should but at least it's getting me somewhere. Now, I'm looking forward to whatever good things life could throw my way. Beautiful people, lasting friendships and second chances for whatever wrong I've done and pain I've caused. School is so much more fun now, I'm not depressed anymore and I think I'm ready to love again.
Like a page by day calendar, life is one day at a time and I'm getting there.
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