Staying in love...

Have I really changed perspective?

It was a simple question, yet to answer, I realize I need to really know myself, to reinstate what I previously see, and compare it to how I see it now.

The past months brought incomparable gladness to my whole being, that I am sure of. When I met the girl of my life, I've felt a certain joy, a joy that is so genuine, a joy that is so pure.

I count it as pure joy when I see her smile as we tread the outskirts of Pleasantville, towards their home, or towards the school where she teaches. When her hand meets mine, fingers entwined, or when she embraces my arms as I held our umbrella, skipping puddles underneath the ambiance of a soft drizzle and laughing at each other, these are the moments when I always feel how special life can be.

I feel a pleasant sensation, in times when I get to be with her, whether it is in checking papers as we listen to love songs, stealing hugs and kisses from each other as we put on decors, which then turns into something deeper, more profound than any other moments.

These are only tinges in the cascading moments since I met her, yet even in these smallest instances, the feeling as well as the love... I can feel it coursing through me in every passing second.

It is in these moments when I realize that the potentiality of feeling the happiness will only turn into actuality with her and that nothing can sustain that happiness other than the continuation of these simple things for the rest of my life.

The recent unfolding of events made me weak, that I realized, and I would be lying if I deny it for myself. During these times, my mind was bombarded with thoughts and notions, with comments and words, and it turned out that I was greatly affected by those.

I don't know how or why it turned like that. I became weak, and I make no excuses for myself, as I really am guilty of what had happened. It is true enough to say that I am imperfect and that I fail from time to time, but to this one, I am feeling so ashamed that I let it came to the point when I made the love of my life feel that I wasn't anymore the same.

Have I really changed perspective?

What I have felt back then, I remember it crystal clear... in my mind... and mostly in my heart. The pure joy and happiness, the simple pleasures I take in moments with her. No words or notions would be able to take that perspective away.

True enough, I made rash decisions, decisions I regret, and decisions I am choosing to change right now. I don't know... maybe it's too late for that, as the wound it made has already been made, and that its healing process would be the hardest thing.

Yet, in all these, I stand by and hold fast to what I have had in the past... with her, and with these, I have hope, a big hope.

I can be as strong as ever because my girl has given me the chance, the chance that I am not going to waste, the chance that I am going to take, the chance that I am going to fight with everything I've got.

I don't know how I can do this, and I don't know how long it will take. But then, I see hope in these, remembering the joys I once felt, the pleasures I once experienced, the happiness I once had.

If there is one single chance, that would make her feel that same happiness I've given her, I'll take it and I'll do my best with it.

Amidst all the inconsistencies I have made her feel, all the wrong words I said to her, all the heartaches I brought to her, and all the wrong decisions that hurt her, this is the one thing I am sure of. This is the one thing I am certain of:

I chose her, and I plan to choose her again and again, every day. I fell in love with her, and I plan to stay in love with her, forever.

"Sweet Voice"

Is it possible, I wonder, for myself to truly change? Or would my character and habit that has been built in me form an immovable boundary that would prevent me from changing for the better until the rest of my life?

It is almost mid-December, and I've come to ask myself this question as I tread down a certain street of Pleasantville Subdivision, a street I've become familiar to starting from the last days of August this year. The night was young during that particular moment, but still, I was able to feel the crispness in the air that holds the promise of the nearing Christmas season.

I was only wearing a shirt and shorts, and though my backpack was able to keep my back warm, there was nothing to protect my bare arms and legs from the cold breezes that perennially comes at bay. Still, a different kind of coldness envelopes my body as I delve towards the familiar road I've been through for almost every day for almost four months.

I should have been thinking of something way too much, after the long day that was about to end, but I wasn't. This doesn't surprise me, as I have never been that much considering being sentimental. I've been trained to ponder, what with my years of formation and years of being exposed to meditations and silences that was deafening enough to force one to think of even the slightest notions about his own life. But to think of something more than that, I wasn't. It was not because of the tiredness that filled me in, nor the sadness and guilt I was feeling during the moment. It was because I was thinking of one single thing - I hurt my beloved girl, Sheena... again.

It was no intention of mine, as who on earth would want to intentionally hurt someone they loved. However, the guilt of hurting her is taking too much of a toll for me, that even the cold breaths of night and the tiredness that once conquered me every day seemed to matter not even for a single passing second. This was made worse by the fact that the reason for hurting her is my self, my attitude, formed from the years of stupidity and stubbornness that never have faded but rather became even worse as I grow to immaturity.

I make no excuses for myself, as I admit that that is who I still am, and it pains me to realize this about myself. Yet, despite all these, I believe that if I've done one thing right, it has been to love Sheena since that special day when I shared the totality of myself, my past and all that encompasses my existence.

While this is something that may strike one as a deed not even worth mentioning, it was the one thing I can truly say that I did with all my heart.

Of course, fights have been enormously normal in a relationship, but since this is my first, and am hopelessly praying that this would last, these are my first experiences of engaging into arguments and believe me when I say it's totally heartbreaking, in the sense that words were like sharpened blades, cutting through the past joys and happiness you've once felt and through the seemingly indestructible promises and commitment for each other.

There was nothing to blame on her part. It was solely my fault and the fault of my past attitude that planned on staying with me until now. This is true and I admit it. I speak words that sting, and what is worse is that I never really learned to think first before speaking. I never really learned to somehow use my nerves and to think of the ears and hearts that'll be hearing it.

Now, I am outside their gate, both my arms and legs feel the coldness of the air, and after staying still for a few minutes, I let my feet walk in minimal strides away, as I thought: It was a really good day, and I ruined it because of my words.

This has happened to us before, and the same guilt from me just adds up, to the point that I was already questioning myself if I truly can change myself for good. True enough, I was hurting her. What pains me most is the fact that I keep on doing the same mistakes, mistakes that I promise won't be happening, and yet happening nonetheless.

As to some stranger who will read this, this may strike them as some act of me justifying myself for what I've done. Truth is, I am saying all these because I want to underscore that my attitude and the frequent times I mess things up, I never doubted my feelings for her. Sure, there were times when we fight, with the latest this one, but still, I never doubted us. It would have been dishonest to say that I haven't wondered what would have happened had I met someone else, but in the past months that we've spent together, I never, ever, once regretted the fact that I had chosen her and that she had chosen me as well.

I thought that I was doing okay, what with all my efforts and deeds, but I was wrong. I was able to realize it deeper now. I've learned that all my efforts and plans to make her happy wasn't all that comprises our relationship. What happened before I found myself alone outside their gate was one small event in the great scheme of things, yet it is in those small things that sting much on my part and mostly on hers.

As I bury myself in my thoughts, I took off, leaving the place to penalize myself for being an asshole boyfriend who does nothing but hurt my girl's feelings. It dawned on me that I need to change myself for the better, that loving her meant also changing my bad sides, the negative ones who pricks her every time.

Being careful doesn't do the job. I get that now. In our relationship, I learned that keeping myself together and getting myself to be better is the key to make our relationship stronger as time gets to pass. With my undoubted feelings for her as the fuel, I should be able to change for the better.

***

Is it possible, I wonder, for myself to truly change? Or would my character and habit that has been built in me form an immovable boundary that would prevent me from changing for the better?

As I get distant from that familiar facade, the facade of a gate that I had always stood by since I've met her, the familiar place where I happily waited for almost every morning and evening, where all my cries and smiles was released with all my heart in it, I have heard a faint voice, a voice I am certain I would never forget for the rest of my life.

It was Sheena, the girl to whom I would make it up to for the rest of my life. It was her voice, forgiving me despite all my stubbornness and despite all the pain, I'm making her feel. It was her, approaching my already distant body. At that moment, I realized that I can change, that I'll be able to. And the reason is that I am being forgiven, being given the chance to change, and most of all being loved despite all my weaknesses.

Through this particular walk, I learned, that wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, and it is indeed very difficult to heal them. But then again, despite this, the process of healing these kinds of wounds provide the richest experience in life.

Her forgiveness and her understanding made me want to strive so hard to change for the better. The endless chances despite my incompleteness destroyed the boundaries that prevent me from changing my negative sides.

Upon hearing her sweet voice, I again realize how blessed I am, that I was able to meet someone who would make me realize the real value of love and everything that comes with it. At that moment, I again realized how much I love her, and that I would do whatever it takes to make her happy, and to make her stay.

Inspired from Dante’s Inferno: Canto 19th and 20th

In fraudulence, their ending was, so in ditches they suffer – A true Inferno

Once good people were they, but from wonder, a beginning so small

Holy things on other side, turned hands rotten with fake riches

Backwards, the past, they recall, for futures exists no more

Forbidden of future, cursed were they with heads aback

In the ditches they suffer, perennially painful indeed

Scholars of wonder, joined with them, together

Guilty were the Holy Fathers found

 To Futures played, spoiled

 From holy things sold

Ditches along hell

Pits beneath

Frauds

August 5th thoughts

By this moment, the afternoon has passed and the twilight’s taking over the vast sky. With its orangey aura that had drenched the seemingly patterned clouds and the trees of the mountains beginning to hide in the inevitable darkness, I’ve thought of you.

Years have already passed since the first day I’ve met you and years have already passed when I realized the feelings that, until now, is kept in the deepest corner of my heart. Through that long time, which feels like a passing hour, have made me accept the fact that thoughts like this, thoughts about you when I stare into an invisible void against the beauty of the scenery, is something that’ll always come in me, simple thoughts that shape who I became after a long time of knowing you.

Sitting alone in this balcony, with a pen in my hand and with my arm resting on a spiral notebook that I always carry, I am certain now that it will always be in me to think of you. The softness of your smile and the innocence and charm you always drool around seems to be an impossible thing to forget than the beauty of this twilight I am staring at right now.

Amidst this war between darkness and light, I remember as well myself. There’s always the meaning and the definition of who I am and what I ought to be just like the clouds in the sky that floats for so many people to see, clouds which shift from one form to another, yet remaining in the sky for so long a time. Knowing who I am and defining myself will always be done by me, yet without you, my sky, I will never be. Others can see what they’ve seen in me yet on my part; there will always be an incompleteness without you who defines me.

For so many times my consciousness eluded me about it having a sort of primacy over existence. For once, I’ve thought that this darkness that has now ended that beautiful twilight is something I can control and that was when I’ve fantasized that the feeling I’ve had would return to me and so yeah, I was dead wrong with that, though I’ve never regretted that. A little bit of sugar-coating in life somehow feels good, and so I’ve made my excuse of sticking with it for a time until I realized that I can’t prevent the darkness of the night and that the cold- breeze it brought is now soothing my skin with a reminder of how one-sided that love was. It doesn’t exist in reality, indeed, this sugar-coated story of mine, yet it will have its self-contained universe which will always be free from judgments and will never be compromised, just like the scenery of the twilight earlier, where I have created a self-contained story that will never be known in the reality to which I am bounded forever.

A little bit of light is still fighting in the outskirts of the mountains that bring silhouettes of the trees it handles, just like me struggling to prevent myself from bursting into thoughts I’ve so much wanted to share. My handwriting now is distorted with the shaking of my hands, scared that I am running out of time yet in my soul I knew I’d have forever to make up for everything and for you. In my mind, though I know the line gets thinner and thinner as the light fades, there’ll be twilight in tomorrow’s reality, another chance to think and to dwell on what I’ll think. It will be another cycle and I know it’s on me again to make it another part of the reality I so much wanted to grasp within me.

I’m keeping my self together now, blinded in the darkness that envelopes the sky that was once loved because of its sweet face. The evidence of the sun’s presence now swept away in a place who knows where and the darkness no one can fathom now covers everything it can. But then, despite all of these, I am here and I think of you and regardless of neither the twilight’s beauty nor the darkness’ emptiness, I will always love you. (written Saturday, August 5th)

4th of June

I was compromised again.
The world really isn't a wish granting factory for everyone.
I would have used my soul but I didn't. I didn't... because using so means the outcome that I'd never get to win the world I desire.
Will I be always that Wynand and can never be a Roark?

On Compromises

                  As the 2^nd Semester of the school year came to its last weeks, I’ve had the feeling against the upcoming summer apostolate. I believe it’s not the kind of feeling of laziness or disgust because I don’t feel such. It’s not that I am lazy or it’s not that I hate apostolate. I’ve had 3 summer apostolates already and in each of them I’ve felt that kind. I’ve been able to finish each and every one of it with disgust but in toto, each was something, as I realize it, I’ve come to enjoy but this one in Tiaong, I don’t think so.

                It’s not about Tiaong, not the place. That’s another

premise. I’ve had something against apostolates that I’ve come to realize even before I was sent off to Tiaong. I once said it to myself as I did some thinking. For me, I think apostolates compromise one’s ego and it’s totally undeniable. I knew it then, but I don’t seem to mind and that, I guess it is the problem because during my last apostolate, I I’ve come to pay attention to that fact very much and that is why I’ve had one hell of a month.

                Now, about the compromise I’ve said, I said it because my ego, who is not supposed to be bound with limitations were bounded because of me. I’ve let myself be subdued by people I

don’t know, and my reason is just to finish so that I could be on my own afterwards. It’s like staying alive in the hands of bad guys, obeying and giving up everything so that one day I could free myself and take my revenge by doing what my ego was supposed to do – be what it is.

                I guess this is the problem, the values of apostolates and the values of my ego aren’t the same. Apostolates teach us to be dependent on others, doing what it requires while compromising those that I want. Living in places I don’t know, being with people who are complete strangers, being bound to so many prohibitions,

these are just few of them and my ego hate every single one of them, these things compromise so much that I can’t help but be some fake, paper person who folds to anything so that I would be what they want.

                Because of all these things, I knew even before that I wouldn’t be having any fun in my month-long stay in Tiaong. Because these things floated my mind, I knew I would hate so many people and see things in their chaotic faces and when I say people, I mean there’s no exception.

                I would be lying if I’ve only felt this much bitterness. Of

course there came a time in my stay that I was able to put up smiles and break a laugh. That’s another thing. It’s my ego that can’t help but mingle. It’s not like every people in Tiaong was a lost soul. There were others with whom I’ve come to realize that have the values I have, and for that I was able to make good friends. I’ve made friends, that’s a fact but so few of them could be considered. Some were just for my ego’s survival, nothing more.

                Commands were also what I hate the most. To tell me to do things I don’t like is something that agitates me. But then, because I need to finish, my fake ego made it all work out in the

end. Coming to think of it, I’ve had less work in my apostolate in Tiaong. Unlike my past apostolates which were so productive in my perspective, I did so less in the place. Maybe it’s because I did too much thinking in that hell month.

                Many of my friend seminarians would consider us lucky. Only this time did the apostolate in Tiaong be parish bound. The past seminarians were doing apostolates in far flung places of Tiaong. Though I don’t like the thought, living in the parish for a month and seeing so much about how the place ran, I’ve once come to the wish I were also living in those far-flung places.

                Now, as to the other premise I was saying a little earlier, another factor why I’ve come to dislike my month-long apostolate was brought about by the place itself. I’ve experienced Tiaong in its luxurious Villa Escudero, and I’ve come to admire the beauty of the structure of the town while endlessly roaming the streets which were too structured well in a plain manner that makes a stroll quite a thing. I’ve also seen the faith of the people and the devotion they’ve had. Tiaong indeed has so many things to brag about. Still, there’s so much of the bad side that I’ve witnessed with my bare eyes.

                So many people who live there were corrupted greatly. The eyes I saw in the crowds were full of something I can’t explain. I’ve seen people who were nothing great. There were people who show goodness even though I can smell how their insides stink. A lot smile when they face us but talks a lot when we weren’t around. Church people serve only the church, but forget those who sacrifice for it. Priests seem bugged. They do their work, yes but that’s where it ends. Tiaong is beautiful, but inside it is an upheaval I don’t ever want to remember for the rest of my life. My month long stay was a nightmare I don’t want in my memory anymore.

                Last night, we’ve had our way through the town, and I’ve come to say it’s been a pleasure, and quite a big pain. What makes me happy now is the fact that Tiaong will now be just a memory about my past that I would never ever relive again, a memory of a place that once compromised my ego so much. Now, it’s just a part of my memory about my ego who was subdued and bounded but is now and will ever be as free. 

'Mind' strike

     Randian Philosophy, Objectivism, upholds the supremacy of man, of man’s ego, of man’s reason, in short, of man’s self. This system expressed importance to individuals as individuals, and expressed its disdain to humanity, for being a hindrance to the exaltation of man. It showed how important and how high the “I” is as it should be and it showed how bad and rotten the “we” is as it is now.

     It’s always been the root cause of the many problems a seminarian is facing, even ordinary people. It took me years to realize the negative things the “we” is bringing to each and every individual. That “we” is always a factor to consider in every choice an individual makes. There’s no more “I” in every action and every decision one is making.

     One seminarian will enter the seminary not because he wants to but because of the people around him who wants him to. One seminarian will continue because his classmates continued and he can’t live without his classmates, so he says. One will disobey the seminary rules because his friends are doing it and he wants to join because they want him to. One will be stubborn and lazy because he sees that the others are being the same. One won’t strive for excellence anymore because not everybody is doing so. Every thought, every action, every decision, everything is considered with the “we”. It’s because of that “we” that an individual doesn’t care anymore of what he thinks, and of what he wills. It’s rotten. It’s truly and definitely rotten.

     Every one of us has our own, respective minds. Each one of us has the power to be, to think, to decide, and to act. There’s no such thing as collective mind. Everything about ourselves depends on our “I”, on our “ego”. If we want to change, and we should change, it should all start in us.

     Being ‘selfless’ was the term Miss Rand used to an individual who doesn’t think but let others think for him, by having others’ decision as his own as well. He is being selfless, in the sense that he loses himself because doesn’t use his reason anymore. He has the power to think, to act, to be, but he refuses to do so. Just like a seminarian who always agrees to what the others think, even if he has his own idea or a seminarian who always submit himself to things without even understanding anything about those.

     I myself have been dissolved in that overwhelming “we” for so many years. I’ve always been so considerate with what the others may say that it brought me to the point of not making any decision of my own. I do what the others like me to do. I’ve been selfless, in the sense that I am not myself anymore but a puppet of the “we”. Being controlled by others is one of the many things we hate but then, considering other’s opinion in what we do is a total submission to that statement we hate.

     I call for a mind strike.

     Let’s renounce the “we” and reinstate the “I”. All the things that we do should come from our own volition, not from other people. Let us join the others that share the same value with us and depart from them if we don’t. The same goes with the seminary formation. We cooperate with the formation because we share the same value, the same end – priesthood. If you don’t, then be brave enough to use your reason and part ways. Do not submit to something you don’t want, to something that you know won’t be essential for your life. To those who want to be a priest, then continue with the formation, because I am certain that as long as we value priesthood and Christ, then we totally share the same value with the formation.

     To be selfless in the sense of not using reason is not something that we as individuals should do. It’s totally against our nature and it will lead us in total frustration and even in self-destruction. To have our minds be influenced by others is the same as having our minds controlled by them. We should want what we want, as individuals. There’s no point in joining what you don’t like. If the whole world is wrong and it tells you to move, you say: No! You move! If using your own reason, your own mind means standing for what you think is right and fighting alone, then so be it.

     If only we fought for our “I” in everything we are, in every action we do, and in every decision we make, then we’ll certainly be what we should be – the man who has his own reason, his own mind, and most specially, his own self. By using our own minds, we uphold our supremacy. We uphold our own selves.