“It would have been much easier for me not to have been born…”
-Shawn “Clown” Crahan
This is the kind of Math/arithmetic equation I dreaded doing. Adding another year to my age. Especially if it means getting older—and still seeing that everything changes, everything stays the same.
Or, in my case, everything’s going downhill.
To distract myself on how far downhill I am heading, I tried counting tombstones on top of the hill. I intentionally detached myself from things and gadgets that would connect me to the world. Unfortunately, strong winds and sudden gush of rain forced me to stop my “tombstone count” and evacuated me from my comfortable spot, where I can also get to have my nice good nicotine count on the side. I ended up waiting for the rain to stop in a place where connecting myself to the world is so tempting, thanks to this thing I can’t leave home without. I hope that the chocolate carrot cake and passion fruit tea would keep me away from it and continue writing these “birthday thoughts.” I believe this is the only time of the year that I can get my thoughts together, so here goes.
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I started my afternoon gathering my thoughts at a secluded area surrounded by gigantic statues of saints. The place was quite eerie, to be quite honest. The pews were old, almost dilapidated. They were quite dusty, but its smell kinda mixed with the smell of the earth, making me not mind on what it might do to my khaki fisherman pants. I started thinking about those people who I know would remember. And I know that they mean well in remembering. I would like to technically start by thanking all of you, from the bottom of my heart—even if I stayed out of the loop for a while, making me not receiving all of your joyful messages for another year in my life…whatever that means. Either way, I am so blessed to realize that I have countless people who loves and cares for me—and here I am preferring to act like a hermit and stay away from it all. God knows how many times I’ve tried to show how grateful I am. But it seems that my effort is still not enough. What is enough, anyway? But either way, I hope and pray that despite my queer way of reciprocating all that love, you are all in my prayers for today. And I hope that all of you would still understand my reasons for silence…especially on this time of the year…
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Horoscope for the birthday celebrants [that’s me, included], as seen on today’s paper: You are often viewed as the voice of reason. Expect to learn something valuable in your year ahead.
Funny how reason dominated my thoughts since this year started. To be quite honest, this is one thing that I am so much searching for—and still hoping to find. One of my ultimate birthday wishes, if I may say that. I was counting tombstones instead of candles on my cake. It’s all because I don’t know and I can’t find the reason behind all of these. On why I should be blowing candles on a birthday cake and be happy doing that, in the first place. Everything related to tombstones was all I could think about these past several months. And because I have a reputation of cowering and taking the backseat most often than not, they just remain as thoughts and figments of my imagination, together with the love and prince charming I so very much dream of since I was a naïve 16 year old. I lost count of how many times I imagine myself seeing blood on my wrist—whether the cut should be vertical or horizontal, or how it feels to have a rope choke on my throat, my feet hanging behind our washroom, like a newly washed shirt hanging out to dry. I don’t know if it is a good thing, or what, but maybe I’ll be seeing that good reason soon—and I just hope that it’ll be sooner than I think!
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Dear broken promises and washed away deals…I want to say that you are the least of my problems…like I don’t really give a damn anymore. You are far easier to forgive and forget than the pleas and promises of staying and not leaving town again. I don’t care anymore if you come to resurface like a genie in a bottle, or will remain washed away by the ocean. Suffice it to say that today’s afternoon rain says it all. The cold weather starts to bring my brows together. Huddling under a thick sweatshirt and long black trench coats are like those heavy and annoying shackles on my ankles. I will still love the summer, even it means remembering that deal we had over one sunny morning at the beach.
What I am trying to say is really, I don’t care anymore. I never really expected you to come forward and give me better options anyway…nobody did.
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My more concrete way of saying thank you…something that I know must be said and done on birthdays…
As always, to my loving family and friends, thank you for all the love, despite everything I do to all of you in return. Thank you for reminding me once again that violet is my favorite color, and not black and white. Thank you for telling me that I am more colorful than that! Will forever treasure those violet things given to me today…
To sanctuaries on top of the hill. For never failing to remind me that I still have a good soul despite all that has happened to me…and after all the crap that I’ve done. I can practically consider myself to be a living dead…until you reminded me otherwise. I know you will keep my prayers and wishes safe…until it is the right time for them to be answered.
To enemies, who I know also exist in my book. I am proud to say that I only have a few on my list, but I still thank you, nevertheless, for your existence. For making me battle with your intellect, should it be called as one. And even though one is forcibly included as someone to hate, I would want to think that I’m doing this for the right reasons—all because I want to do the right thing…whatever that is.
To Matthew Gray Gubler and Criminal Minds. Strange show to watch as therapy, but that is how you really are. How humans can dehumanize the people around them makes me see how human we can be in the end. I want to approach my enemies in the same manner. The only way for me to win them over with respect and dignity, despite them not giving me that. I will definitely look forward to all of you again this next season!
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And to you. As what Garcia told Reid, “I can’t be my sparkly self when you are where you are.” Every morning I wake up, I dread the thought that it is going to be another day. How I start it by practically imagining my name has finally been etched on a marble stone because of this decision that you’ve made. I over count my caffeine consumption and calorie intake in the middle of the day to inject me enough endorphin to last me the entire afternoon, and torture myself with more than 10 kilometer walk home whenever I could, to sweat all that guilt and painful thoughts away. I consume countless amount of nicotine to at least put my head together at work and school. And in most cases, the nicotine consumption would go futile. My head would always chant how much all of these is my fault. That nothing and no one can take me out of this crap I am in anymore. At the end of the day, that hopelessly hopeful wishful thinking lulls me like a hypnotic lullaby and ironically completes my entire being. A false promise that all of this is just a sick joke and everything will be fine in the end.
Your action and decision always remind me how less of a woman I am the minute I wake up, and it even torments me to oblivion every night. You may have treated and likened me to the lowest of all creatures, but there’s this tiny part of me still whispering, encouraging me to prove to you otherwise despite it all. In fact, I will prove to you otherwise. I will prove you and everybody else wrong. I may still not understand what all of these is about, but I will make sure that should I be destined not see you again the same way and watch you from above, I will make certain that you will not take my entire being from me. You are not going to make me less of a person and I will make sure of that. I will not be saying more about this, especially in this manner, but I would want to believe—I still want to believe, that all of these still happen for a good reason…even if I think that everything is out of reach for me already.
Because of you, I will struggle everyday of my life to be something you are not. I will struggle to be a better person, with a stronger heart and a kinder soul. I will struggle to feel other people’s pain, including yours, even if it pains me to give up the smile and happiness that rarely comes my way. I will struggle to choose the right thing, even if it means not breathing anymore to atone for the things that I have done wrong over the years. Something I know you never did. I am carrying your cross and your pain and I know I will carry them for the rest of my life. It is my curse, my consequence. I don’t know and I still do not understand why I have to bear all of these. This may be the lesson that Everyday is trying to teach me. What will make me fully understand, that I do not know.
And I hope someday you will.
"In youth we learn; in age we understand."
-Maria Von Evner-Eschenbach
