The Lonely Road

Friday, November 24, 2006
A Long Drive to Nowhere But You

Home for me is driving on the road it seems. It's probably only in this time that I have a clear head of things. The air seems lighter compared to outside and in this short time, I could relax. At night, the streetlights calm me as I make my lonely drive home. It's kind of magical to see each light pass me by, like a flicker of an instance that leads me where I ought to go, my house -- where I am supposed to be.

Yet at the back of my mind, I have a small wish that I clasp as firmly as I held on the steering wheel - that is, to drive into a nowhere place. A place other than a place.

I sometimes wish that I will come to a place where the street lights are gone from the path. Then, I won't have to drive towards anywhere but just wander around driving, alone in the dark. There is often peace in the long drive, a peace I couldn't find anywhere else. My eyes don't have to focus on anything and I can just take a deep breath and step harder on the gas. As the speed takes up, I let momentum take over as it shoves me back on my seat... the joy of letting it all go in a thrilling velocity...

I notice that things pass by faster on the road. Street lights, buildings, cars, -people- all seem like a blur as you pass them by. For me, it's kind of easier that way. When things pass you by as fast as they do on the road, they never get a chance to come near you... they don't get a chance to tap at your window, they don't get a chance to wave, they don't get a chance to know you. You don't get to make mistakes, you don't get a chance to be disappointed and you don't get a chance to get hurt. Take one look off the road and you're a dead man. Take one look towards someone outside and you will crash into your demise. Such a simple analogy, really.

But why do the rules say otherwise? They make stoplights to stop you and then you can't help but look outside. And the rules say no man is an island, no person can stand alone. That it takes two sets of wings to fly. It nags on me endlessly. Loneliness, it's not so bad but why does it hurt when it shouldn't. Why is there pain when nothing is there to inflict it? It hurts to be alone, even when you do the things you love to do. I don't know why, it puzzles me.

I guess that's why they put breaks on cars, it keeps you from going too fast. Too fast, that you'll miss everything in life worth looking at, worth touching, worth being. It pays to stop once in a while and it pays to have someone wave at you from outside the window, but for me, I guess it isn't enough to have to do things from inside a window looking out or conversely, to have people outside looking in. Know what I mean?

I'm always searching for something (or someone) which I am sure that I have lost on the way. Call it happiness if you will, but I think happiness just comes with finding that thing I'm missing. And rather than go back to try to find it again, I step on the gas and speed as far away from the past as I could possibly can, with no one to stop me, no one to oppose, no one to be attached to, and for what? Maybe to find what was lost in the road ahead of me, never having to face the past that has already been broken... never to be forgiven for what I've done. That for me, perhaps, is the peace I seek. It may not be the kind of peace described in bibles or movies, but it's my peace.

After all, there are people who seek chaos in search of peace in themselves. I just happen to be one who sees it in a lonely drive home.

Riding the Lightning
10:47 PM

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Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Midnight Migraines

I admit that perhaps this is a bad move on my part, to remember things I should have put behind me. Yet, here I am, unable to sleep, thinking about thoughts I shouldn't be thinking at all.

I cannot find words to explain the heavy feeling I'm experiencing nor could I compose any creative prose to give it form. Frankly, I've had a migraine since last thursday and I just want to crawl under my blanket and die. I couldn't write anything since my head started aching, so I went back to drawing for a while and realized that I still remembered how, much to my happiness.

But drawing, like writing, can only take so much time. There's only so much time I can put in my work until I take a breath and realize, that I'm still here, in this world, breathing. I don't know why I write or draw for that matter. I don't see improvements at all whenever I take a pen and start drawing the same old characters, nor do I see any change in what I write. I've been writing the same old things here in this blog for two years - the same hatred, angst, sadness and melancholy of living day by day in this big circumstance I call a life. What for? A friend of mine told me, I'm always looking for something whenever I write. He sees it in how I write these things I call an entry. They always seem open-ended, in a question, never really having any periods at the end - unfinished or, in a term I personally would like to describe, broken.

It seems that every time I press the publish post button for my blog, I take a small pause and review what I had just done. I have just let a multitude of who-knows-who's look into a small portion of my life and aside from that, maybe I have desperately knocked on their doors and asked for help. Why would I write about sadness if it wasn't for pity? Or happiness if not to gloat about it? I wasn't always like this I'm afraid. I had happier days when I didn't need (yes need) to write or draw to keep my sanity and maybe those days are gone now (like the hopes of expecting a reply from you, my dear).

Even as I try to desperately go back to a time when everything was bliss, there is just no rewind button anywhere in my life's VCR. It seems to just be at this constant fastforward, making my head spin and giving me this aching migraine to deal with. It's my greatest regret that I can never go back and fix the things I did wrong, I could have saved myself then if I did. I wouldn't have been broken and I wouldn't have to ask myself the same old question of "what am I doing to deserve this?" The proverbial question of justice, call it what you like.

Mark told me about an irony, my irony. I will only be able to achieve what I want when I'm depressed, hence I can never be happy lest I sacrifice what I want. An example would be taking an ELC test; I could only pass it when I'm depressed or writing for that matter, I can only seem to write my best under a certain degree of disappointment or sadness. AC backed this up also when he said something like, "masaya ka kung malungkot ka" I know, I found it funny the first time I heard it too but thinking about it again, it kind of made sense. What is happy anyway? Happy was 5 years ago when I was still friends with **** when I felt complete and loved but I can't go back to 5 years ago so I sought a different kind of happiness which seemed to me, like poor substitutes to the original... but happiness nonetheless.

I guess that's where the sadness is, how happiness now seems so temporary compared to back then. As much as I desperately claw into that locked section I call a past, the door won't open because simply, life moves on and doesn't give a damn about little ol' you. So what do you do when you're broken? You wander around trying to find a means to get fixed again. You look for the same feeling, the same person, the same instance to somehow get back that feeling of happiness in your life - the complete one. It's sad for me because whenever I try to find it, it eludes me at every turn and what's more, it rubs it on my face. Sometimes, I'd rather not feel anything or rather, I'm tired of chasing stars. I just want to draw, write or sleep until the day is over, day by day until I finally kick the bucket. I find that easier and less painful, rather than get hurt over and over again in search of something that can possibly... not be there after all.

So I wonder now, as I observe that an hour has passed, whether there is something to look forward to for broken people like me. I wonder if I can ever trust someone as much as I did, or love someone as much as I did before. I wonder whether or not I will ever get better in drawing or write about happier things, like how beautiful rainbows are without it turning into a metaphor about disillusion after the gloom of a rainy day. And finally, I wonder when I will find my happiness - find my peace, so I can finally put these thoughts to rest.

My head still aches from my migraine

Riding the Lightning
12:12 AM

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
. : Legendary Luck : .

I remember when they first pointed to me and called me a person of legendary luck. Myles held that finger and everyone else ushered in agreement when he told me, "Boo, legendary luck." as we played our game of monopoly for the nth time. The title has stuck and I've worn it proudly since that day - Legendary Luck.

I've lived my life in accordance to this title, dodging and getting through whatever life throws at me. Be it grades, games or problems, I've always somehow managed to get through without hitch. Sometimes barely, surviving by the skin of my chinny chin chin... or sometimes dodged it altogether. I'd then make it a point to say something funny when the whole ordeal was done. Somethine sarcastic and funny to make it seem like no big deal. I guess that's why some people would call me an asshole or to put it in better terms, a lucky sonuvabitch. I can't remember how many times Myles, Stan and Glenn said, "Boo Marty" to me whenever I pull another one out of the bag. I guess that's why there would be always be the people who hate me because it seems like I can just make a joke out of anything just because I can.

It was just recently that someone pointed out just how lucky I was. A conversation turned emo pointed out that "I had a better life" which is why I can make it better out of this life. I remember how Glenn used to say that to me over and over, implied and explicitly. And I got so angry whenever he said it. I never knew the reason why I got so angry whenever he pointed how better I was. Glenn was somewhat better than me in a lot of things but he'd say it still that I was better... better liked... just plain better and it irritated me because it was as if he was rubbing it in my face. Now pointed with the same statement, it brought back those countless times of arguing with Glenn. Always judging me to be a better man when he knew nothing about what kind of life I lived...

Do you know how hard it is to make a joke after everything's over? To make up something funny when you just made it out something really unpleasant? Amidst all that you went through, you have to find that one funny thing - that one bright side - to make yourself, as well as others, feel better because frankly, I don't see why someone has to go through something unpleasant if you can't get anything out of it that makes you a better person. Being better has nothing to do with this however and that's what he failed to understand.

Better. Was I? Was anybody? I think no one is better but that's of course just one man's opinion. I think people just get lucky most of the time. We're born into a life under a circumstance, a luckier life or have better luck with friends and all that but it doesn't mean that one life is better. I don't want to believe that I am better than anybody, you know why? Because I can't think of one reason to deserve being above another person. There is not one thing in my mind that makes me believe that I deserve to be called 'better', man. I'm alive for a reason, given life for a reason but this reason doesn't make me better. In fact, it makes no one better.

When someone is born, they will inevitably die so it's all the same for everyone but what's between life and death, ah that's a brainteaser ain't it? All I see between those two points are circumstances. That's in fact, what makes it funny; that each person goes through these circumstances in their own way. I can just make a joke about it and not care because it's just a matter of a great cosmic dice roll. Sure, you can make your life turn around countless times but it doesn't always guarantee success. More often than not, there's going to be someone or something to sweep you off you feet and make you fall flat on your butt. The only thing you can really do is improve the odds - try the best you can and hope for the best. It's like jumping into water, just hold your breath and hope instincts take over - learn how to swim if it makes you survive better, but it doesn't mean you'll always survive when you do. That doesn't make anyone better, it just makes people luckier. That's why I hate it when people run their mouths about being better than anyone else or saying that they're worse than someone, they're not - they just got a crap roll.

If you believe that you're predestined to be better or be worse than someone, then what's the point in living when you're not going anywhere? It's as if to say you're born to lose in this game. Does being better mean you're born to win? Hahaha don't make me laugh, no one wins in life, you always have to pay something to gain something or to better clarify, you pay something and HOPE to gain something. Life's a messy dealer that way, don't you think? But you don't want to play at Death's table, he/she ALWAYS wins there.

I'm glad enough to live (thank God for small miracles) but I know it's not for free. I got lucky sure, but that doesn't mean I don't have to pay my dues. After all, I have to improve the odds to keep my winnings. I think no one really knows how life works, no science to this gamble - not one scientist or philosopher knows - so why bother. It's too big for a small human being to understand, why fight it? Like I said, just hold your breath and hope for the best. No one is better than anybody else... it's just a circumstance.

Legendary luck? Haha, I guess so. It's just that I know how to play my cards right and maybe, a little blessing now and then makes the deal a little sweeter and with playing with life as the dealer, you'd hope to improve the odds at any chance you take. When you get lucky, thank god for small miracles

Riding the Lightning
11:33 PM

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Monday, November 06, 2006
Death in Real Places

Whilst reading on Silent Hill, I found a very interesting insight about hospitals. It was that though hospitals were places for saving lives, it was more of a venue for death. Personally, stepping into a hospital creeps the hell out of me. I remember one time while sitting outside an office and they wheel in this guy in a stretcher and I mean, really serious wheeling in. Gave me serious chills.

Some people don't notice it too much. They reel people into the hospitals with the hopes of saving someone but then again, it doesn't really bother you that you just might have wheeled your loved one to their final resting place. I find the thought really unsettling. Imagine yourself lying in a bed or in a room where someone already died in. I think my dad had that premonition once.

I got this unsettling call from my mom when I called to check on my dad two years ago when he was hospitalized for liver problems. He told that my dad couldn't sleep that night cuz he had a "visitor" that night. He just described it to be all in black and came right up from the floor. That scared the hell out of him too so much so that it stopped him from drinking indefinitely (something I'm happy about). The point however is that, it was then that the idea of death creeping about hospital halls came to my mind as something real and not fiction. Sure, I've played Silent Hill games where the hospital was more of a place of death than life and I have read books saying the same thing but when it hit home, I guess that's when the fear really started creeping in.

I really hated visiting people in a hospital. They all look so weak and frail, like there was something malignant hanging above their heads and they hook you up to machines just to keep you alive. Have you ever gotten sick days where your mind wanders and it eventually gets to the point where you start thinking, "God, I'm going to die"? Perhaps feeling sick and weak does that to some people and basically in a hospital, you have a place full of sick people who just might be thinking that... more often than not, their wish gets granted.

I think it's like that time we went to visit my grandfather's grave this All-Soul's day. It was this huge tomb thingy my father's side of the family kept for a long time where I found out something gruesome. My dad kept telling me that it was okay to fold these papers at one side of the tomb but not the other one. He said that because my grandfather was at one side of the tomb and naturally, oh-so-inquisitive me asks what the other side was for and he said, it was for my grandmother... went her time came. I almost jumped when I heard. I was there, folding papers, at the place where my grandmother supposedly would be laid to rest. Right then, I just wanted to get out and start running. It was right there, staring at me. Some time in the future, someone deceased will be right there where I was and how can I bear that thought in my head...

I don't know what death really is. It can be a person, a feeling, a condition, a state or something you can hold in the palm of your hands but then again, thinking about it, maybe it can be a place. I find it somehow unsettling that death can be a place where you're destined to end up in -- in a hospital, in a home or even the grave...

Scary thought

Riding the Lightning
9:43 PM

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