You decide... Cause I just don't want to think too much into it, or maybe I just don't want to accept what it actually felt like to me.
Is being nice worth it at all? Frankly, I'm disheartened at all to believe it at the moment. But I think after this angst-y moment, I'd probably trying my best to stay nice and hope people will see the sincerity in that.
Right now, I just felt used. I don't want to feel like that, nor do I want to believe that, but if I stick to hard cold facts, it will show that I had been cleverly played. I wonder what I had done to deserve this? I don't recall doing anything that would warrant such an action, or maybe I'm just too gullible, wanting to believe in the goodness that everyone possessed. I don't know...
I realized there's a lot of things I don't know, and I don't hide the fact that there's a lot of things I need to know. It just feels really hurtful when they take advantage of your blind spots for their own good. And take advantage of the kindness you had shown them. There are times I felt so old, and times I'm still a child who could just dismiss something like this so easily, that with just a few moments will express displeasure, and then later be playing alongside together like nothing happened. Its easily dismissed if it had only occurred once, but twice? Its time I should realize the friends I think I found are not really friends, just people realizing your potential as a highly profitable person to hook up with and take advantage of. Harsh? Maybe. But the reality it represents... a proliferation of friend-users.
It's funny in a bizarre way when you think about it. I should have been pretty adept at weeding out those people having gone through those people in my life. Makes you wonder how many I'll go through that time in this lifetime...
I never wanted to feel cut-off from the world like I did before, but I felt I don't have much choice when the world shows its ugly side and I'm pretty much left to my own devices.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Sunday, August 05, 2007
The Story, The Deal, The Pain, and The Pride
As far as I can recall, I've always been an accident-prone person. And because of that fact, I'd been known to humiliate myself, and possess a long list of embarassing moments.
In fact, this is, above all, one of the reasons I never truly had what you would call an ideal childhood. A freak accident in third grade had caused the turning point in my life. It was then that I experienced being constantly bullied. It sounds surprising for those who had recently met me, but to those who had grown up with me all those years ago, its as real as the name of our school.
What can you expect from a girl of nine to do at that time? Most likely, that girl would probably begged her parents to transfer her to a different school, keep to herself, avoid picking fights, find another hobby, and try to figure out who she can rely on as a friend. And you know what, she did all that, and the only thing she was actually successful at, was finding another hobby: immersing herself in books.
It was at this stage of her life she detached herself slowly from the people around her, placing her friends under various tests to feel confident that these people have her back, and cringing inwardly when she realized her trust was misplaced. It were dark times in the life of someone who had been a cheerful person to begin with. The ever-ready smile was replaced with looks of suspicions, recess times were reserved for reading books and doing homeworks, lunch, a welcome reprieve from the otherwise tolerant treatment of her presence. She felt for the first time how lonely it was, and how cruel the world is.
With limited options, she kept to herself, a child of forced seclusion, hardly daring to even speak up or volunteer any information she knew. She was made a fool many times over, even by those she had considered friends. She didn't belong anywhere and it was this feeling that had her hanging out with various groups of people, trying to find a niche where she would fit in.
The case would seem a hopeless one at that and it wasn't until later she realized what made her move on, to keep on looking. It was an idealism that she had found in the comfort of her books that talks about a friendship that goes far deeper than giving out answers in a whisper to a so-called friend sitting next to you during an exam. It was a friendship that accepts and love unconditionally. A bonding that comes along to those who keep as much faith in you as you with them. It was fortunate that she found them at end of her elementary years, but it was still too early to let the real person shine through. She had been scarred too many times over to want to let down her guard to the group that had included her as their own.
She came to them meek, keeping to shallow topics, listening but hardly offering any advice, a wallflower at most. But it was also at this time she started to write. Anything that came to mind, a tribute to a friendship she felt blessed to have stumbled in, a song to put into words a childhood crush, a poem about the various uses of a new set of colored pens... a collection that she would show sparingly, due to fear of expected rejection, and worse, a humiliation she would not be able to lived down. Whatever pride must be placed in a work of art could not be found for there was none to encourage a bolder show of a creativity previously unassociated with her.
As luck would have it, she was praised by someone who didn't expect anything from her. They embraced her gift for words and in turn encourage her to write more, to be open to new people. It took more than a year to share parts of herself, to slowly give her trust to hands waiting to accept it wholeheartedly and kept it sacred for all the years to follow.
With strength brought about by these select few, she had started to spread her wings, exploring more what she can do. For once in her life, she found people who would show and prove to her that ideal friendships do exist in this world riddled with the need to appear more than they are, to step on those who they think were not up to their level.
The years to follow was a revelation of the person she herself had not known exist within her. A person of quiet strenght, capable of withstanding the misgivings and embarassment accompanying an accident-prone person, an optimism she had not known she possessed, contentment and a desire to share the feelings she had been priviledged to feel to others.
And now, she stand before you now, as real as any person who had come to terms with who they are and what they are, accepting and loving the person that some had deemed deserving of it.
I want to thank all of you (Haidee, Jamie, Jamee, Jacky, Iris, Donna, Kristina, Marie, and Louie) for making me the person I am today, for bringing me out to embrace the brightness that can still be found in this world. I also want to extend my thanks to my college friends (Peachy, Eirha, Yola, Kath, Nikko, Nova, and Carlo) for the friendship and being my support system in an entirely new environment. I could list a lot more people to thank, but you guys are the best! Thank you for giving me my confidence back, for showing me that the world isn't a scary place full of friend-users, that I deserve a place in this world, and even if I'm the most unconventional person around, I'm not a senseless nor worthless in your eyes. Thank you for the gift of love, trust, and friendship, it is indeed a treasure I'll cherish till the end of our years, or the end of the world, whichever comes first. ^^
In fact, this is, above all, one of the reasons I never truly had what you would call an ideal childhood. A freak accident in third grade had caused the turning point in my life. It was then that I experienced being constantly bullied. It sounds surprising for those who had recently met me, but to those who had grown up with me all those years ago, its as real as the name of our school.
What can you expect from a girl of nine to do at that time? Most likely, that girl would probably begged her parents to transfer her to a different school, keep to herself, avoid picking fights, find another hobby, and try to figure out who she can rely on as a friend. And you know what, she did all that, and the only thing she was actually successful at, was finding another hobby: immersing herself in books.
It was at this stage of her life she detached herself slowly from the people around her, placing her friends under various tests to feel confident that these people have her back, and cringing inwardly when she realized her trust was misplaced. It were dark times in the life of someone who had been a cheerful person to begin with. The ever-ready smile was replaced with looks of suspicions, recess times were reserved for reading books and doing homeworks, lunch, a welcome reprieve from the otherwise tolerant treatment of her presence. She felt for the first time how lonely it was, and how cruel the world is.
With limited options, she kept to herself, a child of forced seclusion, hardly daring to even speak up or volunteer any information she knew. She was made a fool many times over, even by those she had considered friends. She didn't belong anywhere and it was this feeling that had her hanging out with various groups of people, trying to find a niche where she would fit in.
The case would seem a hopeless one at that and it wasn't until later she realized what made her move on, to keep on looking. It was an idealism that she had found in the comfort of her books that talks about a friendship that goes far deeper than giving out answers in a whisper to a so-called friend sitting next to you during an exam. It was a friendship that accepts and love unconditionally. A bonding that comes along to those who keep as much faith in you as you with them. It was fortunate that she found them at end of her elementary years, but it was still too early to let the real person shine through. She had been scarred too many times over to want to let down her guard to the group that had included her as their own.
She came to them meek, keeping to shallow topics, listening but hardly offering any advice, a wallflower at most. But it was also at this time she started to write. Anything that came to mind, a tribute to a friendship she felt blessed to have stumbled in, a song to put into words a childhood crush, a poem about the various uses of a new set of colored pens... a collection that she would show sparingly, due to fear of expected rejection, and worse, a humiliation she would not be able to lived down. Whatever pride must be placed in a work of art could not be found for there was none to encourage a bolder show of a creativity previously unassociated with her.
As luck would have it, she was praised by someone who didn't expect anything from her. They embraced her gift for words and in turn encourage her to write more, to be open to new people. It took more than a year to share parts of herself, to slowly give her trust to hands waiting to accept it wholeheartedly and kept it sacred for all the years to follow.
With strength brought about by these select few, she had started to spread her wings, exploring more what she can do. For once in her life, she found people who would show and prove to her that ideal friendships do exist in this world riddled with the need to appear more than they are, to step on those who they think were not up to their level.
The years to follow was a revelation of the person she herself had not known exist within her. A person of quiet strenght, capable of withstanding the misgivings and embarassment accompanying an accident-prone person, an optimism she had not known she possessed, contentment and a desire to share the feelings she had been priviledged to feel to others.
And now, she stand before you now, as real as any person who had come to terms with who they are and what they are, accepting and loving the person that some had deemed deserving of it.
I want to thank all of you (Haidee, Jamie, Jamee, Jacky, Iris, Donna, Kristina, Marie, and Louie) for making me the person I am today, for bringing me out to embrace the brightness that can still be found in this world. I also want to extend my thanks to my college friends (Peachy, Eirha, Yola, Kath, Nikko, Nova, and Carlo) for the friendship and being my support system in an entirely new environment. I could list a lot more people to thank, but you guys are the best! Thank you for giving me my confidence back, for showing me that the world isn't a scary place full of friend-users, that I deserve a place in this world, and even if I'm the most unconventional person around, I'm not a senseless nor worthless in your eyes. Thank you for the gift of love, trust, and friendship, it is indeed a treasure I'll cherish till the end of our years, or the end of the world, whichever comes first. ^^
Friday, April 20, 2007
Woeful Days
There are days when I feel perfectly fine, totally in control of my emotions, ready to face the world with the smile they had come to know so well, eyes that radiate nothing more than interest. And there are days when the stony facade crumbles and the anguish shows through. I guess today is one of those days. No matter how strong I try to make myself into, I'm afraid, I'll never be truly strong enough to face the challenges ahead with a smile on my face and no tears evident in my cheeks.
Friday, April 13, 2007
What Makes You Different...
"What makes you different, makes you beautiful. What's there inside you, shines through and through..." Line from the Backstreet Boys' "What Makes You Different", which was also used in the soundtrack for Disney's Princess Diaries.
It is something that had become close to a litany as I embrace my uniqueness. Lines that had kept me from hiding who I really am.
What does it take to be real? To be open to scrutiny and judgment? To be regarded as 'different'? A whole lot of courage maybe, or just a real desire to show the world the reality of their misconceptions. We all grew up in a society that doesn't take too kindly to those who are unlike them, we see them label a whole number of people solely because they are different from themselves. But what makes being 'different' a bad thing? Something I always end up wondering about.
Look around you, they're all like you in so many ways. They go to school, study, play games, work, think, eat, and a whole lot more. And yet, for a simple action or characteristic that you have no part of, you will consider as someone not fit to be in your social circle. An outcast to a society-driven thought.
What a sad reality it is when we realize that a lot of the people around us wears a mask, to hide who they are as a person, to represent a fabricated persona in order "to belong". A life I also once led.
Based on experience, it is a doomed fate. Tyring to please everyone by being someone lead to nothing more than becoming their lackey, being bullied indirectly, accepting their cruelty, and toyed around emotionally. It leaves more battle-scars than joining a real war since they are invisible scars that left you feeling unworthy, and in worst cases, a person who doesn't deserve to live. Some would probably laugh, thinking this is an extremity, and there are those who will scoff, thinking there are no one like that at all. It is our own inconsiderate attitudes that sometimes lead to a much cruel fate than we ever could imagine. A fate that leads to a loss of self-worth, self-respect, and the loss of one's own identity.
Learning to embrace my own individuality, restoring my sense of self-worth and self-respect was an uphill battle filled with discouragment, and a lot of self-doubt. But what I learned from all these, by slowly being true to who I am, I gained true friends that love the real me, and being different cease to be an ominous concept.
Nowadays, I still hear a lot of comments calling me weird, and for most people, that would be considered such a big insult. For me, it was a term I learned to equate to being unique. Weird doesn't have to be a bad thing at all, because God made us all weird by giving us individuality.
For the friends who stood by me through the ups and downs of my eventful life, a heartfelt thanks!!
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