Neo Nomadic Dreams
& Caffeine-Induced Reality

Pin Practice

Practice rolls

We all know my first roll on the pinhole simply vanished into thin air. Yes, they’re that bad. But I’ve got new, more sensitive film to make sure I get those pinhole photos I’ve always dreamed of taking.  I smell a photo shoot this weekend.

Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps

Can’t believe I’m posting this up on a Thursday morning.  Anyway, you might want to turn up the volume on Nat King Cole while you read the text below.

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We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It’s easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven’t even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you’ll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there’s still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of these loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they’re often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really, want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.

- Chuck Klosterman in his book Killing Yourself to Live

Bright Lights

Photo by Christopher Chan

I may live in Singapore but my heart remains in the Philippines, however, I don’t think I could ever go back.  It’s not so much about ego or pride but more about the reality that things could never return to the way they used to be.  Heck, my life right now is so much different from what I used to have a year ago.  I miss my family, my friends, and a special person (whom we will now refer to as J).  It’s been a year already and I’m supposed to be okay.  In general, I could say I am if okay means having a “roof” above my head and enough food until the next paycheck.  Yeah, I’m getting by, if that’s what it means to be okay.

To be very honest, I haven’t truly settled down in this city-state.  Feeling at home would perhaps be pushing it too far.  I take public transportation much better than most locals, meaning I know bus routes, street names, building names, etc.  If knowing the city at survival level is settling down, then yes, you can say I have learned it well.

The Philippines really holds a special place in my heart.  It was where 22 years of my memories reside and much the source of my happiness.  I moved to Singapore and my life just seemed to fall apart in chunks.  I feel bruised with every blow hitting me after a few months of each other.  Sometimes I feel like I couldn’t move on anymore, that I was stuck in the then and now – a sort of limbo.  But almost a year after, I’m still here, not necessarily standing but sitting upright, which I think is quite a remarkable “success”, if you can even call it that.

This week has been rough for me.  I revisited memories of J and it hasn’t been pretty.  I can’t speak for both J and I, but for me I never really had that closure.  I never knew what J felt as words and thoughts in that camp never seemed to reach me.  It was a nasty breakup, a messy one too, and when we both walked away from “us” there were just so many things left unsaid.

In the course of the year that passed I had Please-Take-Me-Back episodes. I admit, those weren’t my finest hours.  I was a pitiful thing to look at or hear over the phone and my level of self-pity was just shooting up at the moon.  I was a mess, an ex from hell who wouldn’t go away.  I had my reasons though.  J and I were happy and everyone knew it.  The day I decided to go to Singapore was the day everything went downhill.  I can’t say it was my fault entirely as I knew J had a hand in our fallout too, no matter how much J denies it.

In my head, if J and I got back together, I know I’ll be happy.  However, things would never be the same again.  I don’t know if we could withstand that change, I mean we didn’t in the first place so what makes me believe we will a second time?  Maybe not anytime soon, not when we’re both being selfish and being a fool.  Maybe not when we’re jaded or perhaps, not ever.

I have a little hope for us, if there will ever be an “us” with J.  But you know, the timing’s never good and it makes me wonder if that’s the universe telling me that it’s a bad idea.  I did get three awful bad experiences during J’s birthday in the past three years; cutting the tip of my finger that resulted in three stitches, my foot almost got rammed in the escalator, and losing a thousand dollars.  I don’t know what else has to happen to me on J’s birthday before I wake-up.  At least I know the universe is on my side, right?

Maybe J was the symbol of what my life in the Philippines was.  I am holding on to a memory that is already lost in time and one that I could never get back.  On hindsight, I realize that the reason I came to Singapore was because I was searching for something different.  I always felt like I had a greater calling somewhere and that Singapore was one of those rocks I’d have to get on to help me see farther.

Today I am going to make a pact to myself.  I will promise to make myself happy, to choose to be happy.  I never realized how much of myself I have lost during my time with J and how lonely I felt when J left me.  All that has to change now because I need to be strong for myself.  I cannot let anyone dictate my happiness like that anymore.  I know it might sound selfish at times but I need to learn to love myself again before I can begin to love other people.

As for J, well…a Cons List is in order.

I’ve been through a cold, dark, and long tunnel but I see a light emerging at the end.  It is bright and it is calling me.  A new beginning has arrived.