jumbledversesandbreaths

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

20Mar2024

It's a common exercise in moving on and getting over someone to list down all the red flags of the person one is trying to get over from has.

I didn't want to do this. I battled with myself and tried to put it off. There's still a resistance in me to see you in a bad light. To keep making excuses for you. To maintain my idea of you as special. To turn a blind eye from all your faults and deficiencies. But that would only mean I am still holding on to hope of an us. And that is not right, and that is not being fair to myself.

Truth be told, if I take my feelings out of it, and just look at things in a very logical manner, you are actually nothing but a walking red flag. You tick all the boxes of someone I vowed I would never date. If for just one second, I lift the veil of shared history and familiarity, topple the pedestal I put you on, disregard the exception my heart gives you and sever the trauma attachment I have with you… I know I will see how you are just someone not worthy of me, my time and my tears. So I'm ready to put things in a realistic perspective. This is why not ending up with you is the best thing that happened to me:

To be fair, I tried to come up with a list of things special about you, or something special you did for me that is not the bare minimum...

I came up empty.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

i blame you

10Mar2024

I messaged you on Thursday. I shouldn't have but I couldn't help myself. I suddenly have the overwhelming urge to tell you how much I hate you. This was after I re-read all your previous messages for me. All those years ago, whenever you reached out to me, you always had a proposition to get back together, to leave her and be with me. You always implied how you do not love her like you love me. Those years that I always refused you, I actually intend to refuse you. I never wanted to take you up on your offers. I know it's a question that's already been answered. Yes, you think you were serious back then, and that it was your true feelings. It just so happened that what's true then is no longer true now. Maybe (but I'm almost sure, actually), me giving in to you now, made you realize you didn't want to actually act out on your fantasy of me after all. That because of me, you were able to realize where your heart truly is. You're welcome.

However.

I wouldn't have thought of you as some sort of lost love if you haven't fed me those ideas. It was really you that made me subscribe to the idea of "us". To the possibility of ending up together in the end. That we are always meant to be for each other. To the hope of you and me. Yes, you and the world can blame me because I should have taken care of my own feelings and reactions. But I refuse to be blamed. I held on to my defenses long enough. It was you. It was always you who wants to enter my life and leech on me so you can find an escape from your plain life, to find validation for yourself, and to act out on your stupid and fucked up fantasy. I blame you.

You thought playing with someone's feelings like that will not have consequences? You set me up, and you ruined me. I always thought you were special and different. But you are just like all the other men. You're all the same. You are all the same pieces of shit. Who's going to take responsibility with what you broke?

So I sent you a message to tell you I hate you. An "I hate you" that carries all the weight of the blame I want to give you. May those be the last words you'll ever get from me. May it make you lose sleep at night. May it make you think back and feel guilt. May it not give you peace. May it be your unfinished business, your cross to bear. May you carry it until you die. Like how I was when I left you before. I am passing the burden of never finding closure, to you. It's your turn now. You might not care about it, I know. Nonetheless, I have released everything I was carrying in my heart about us, to you. It's yours now.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

This Is Not What I Wanted

20 Jan 2024

I admit I have dared to imagine You and Me in my mind many times before. But hope is a dangerous game to play so I stop myself before my feelings get the better of me. And everything was good because I mastered the skill of quiet acceptance.

I shouldn't have, but I let my guard down, you took your chance and now we ended up in a situation I always thought I wouldn't let myself be in. Not even with you, especially not with you.

I was okay going through life on my own, and turned my back on romance. But I always thought that if destiny allows me to love again, i will let it because it will be the love I always knew I wanted.

I wanted someone to be in a relationship with, instead of an affair.

I wanted someone to sing out loud with in the car, instead of bursting into tears after being told that his heart does not belong to just me.

I wanted someone to see the world with, instead of secretly meeting in small rooms.

I wanted someone to wear matching rings with, instead of having to remind someone to take off his rings when we're together so people wouldn't judge me.

I wanted someone to reply to me because I messaged, instead of getting a reply when he has the time.

I wanted someone I can talk to about how my day went, without checking first if he's available or allowed.

I wanted someone to make love with, because we quietly caught each other's eyes, and knew we want nothing more in that very moment than to become one; instead of checking for the next available schedule to meet.

I wanted someone to sleep in and wake up with in the morning, instead of having to rush on our separate ways because it's getting late.

I wanted someone who will finish my sentences for me, instead of having to keep my frustrations and complaints unspoken because I don't have the right to feel how I feel.

I wanted someone to brag about to my friends, instead of keeping a distance from them so they wouldn't see that I'm not okay.

I wanted someone to plan and look foward to the future with, instead of someone I barely get a hold of in the present and a future that I fear of and worry for.

I wanted to share a life with someone, instead of being a character to someone's secret life.

I wanted someone who will choose me, instead of someone who keeps me as an option.

I wanted someone who will give me and show me reasons to stay, instead of someone who guilts me and holds my past mistakes over my head.

When my anxiety and depression comes to visit, I wanted someone who will calm me, and soothe me, and hold me, and assure me that everything will be okay; instead of someone triggering it.

I wanted someone who's sorry he can't stop bugging me because he misses me too much, instead of someone who says he's sorry because he wouldn't do or say anything else to make it right.

I wanted someone to share a love with that is tender and quiet and peaceful and assured, instead of constantly being in survival mode, in a love I have to constantly fight internal battles for.

I wanted someone who brings out the best in me that will inspire me to foster a love for myself, instead of someone who makes me second-guess myself, to doubt and hate and be ashamed of myself.

I wanted someone who will tell me he loves me because he means it, instead of someone who uses "I love you" so that I would shut up and just accept the faults in our relationship.

I wanted someone that I will give my heartfelt thanks to, because he accepted me and my son, because he stepped up and became a father to my child, because he loved my child as much as he loved me. Someone my child will love too, instead of someone I have to keep secret for fear and shame of what my child will think of his mother if he finds out.

I told you this before, more than once, through the years. Being here with you in this situation was never what I wanted. And yet I am here. I could go on and on listing how I want love to be, but it will never matter, because my instinct to love YOU will remain stronger regardless.

Loving you has no rhyme or reason. For all the love and care I poured to you, I barely get anything in return. You won't give me a reason to love you, yet I still do.

I used to think that if it isn't the love I imagined love should be, then I don't want it. But now I realize that it's always been you... or nothing at all.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

Let Me Go

I keep asking you to let me go, because I know i couldn't have walked away even if i wanted to.

Let me go, because I don't want to be here, when you finally realize that she is the one you love. That she is the one you need. That you can't live without her. That she's the one for you, and you for her. That I am a mistake, a lapse in judgement, a moment of weakness. I can't bear to see your eyes, when that realization finally dawns on your face. I don't want to see your guilt-painted face because you didn't mean to hurt me, but also because you can't bear the thought of betraying her much more and any longer.

I don't want to hear how you will fumble with your words trying to come up with excuses on why you have to leave. I don't want to hear the apologies that you have to utter hoping that I'd accept them so you can go back to her in peace. I don't want to have to say, I told you so, that I always knew this is how it will end. I don't want to witness you turning your back from me, knowing that it's for the last time, knowing that it's for good.

So go now, while we are still good. While I still have some pieces of myself left. While I can still have the possibility to heal. Please don't wait until your goodbye becomes the same as the words sentencing me to my death.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

3 Jun 2023

I built walls for years and years.

Made it high, made it appear strong.

Hid comfortably behind it, shielded myself from feeling anything.

Yet in a moment of weakness, I told you where all the cracks are, the vulnerable parts.

It wasn't impenetrable after all, when I always held on to the hope of you.

Everything crashed, just like that.

Revealing the ugly desperation, the brokenness, the loneliness.

You shattered the wall, and I was ready to welcome you in, begging foolishly for love, to be saved.

Only to learn that you never intended to enter, never planned to be here.

Perhaps, you just like looking at little damaged things.

Curious at tiny shattered pieces, that will never be put back together again.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

11.22.2022

i don't know what's wrong with me. i don't know why i feel so sad. i think i have an okay life. I don't have any major problems right now. maybe it's the "keep waiting for my life to begin but dreading that it would never will" feeling. not sure if that warrants all these emotions i have in my chest. i keep wanting to cry it out, to relieve myself of whatever this is. the tears come, easily, but ends quickly because at the same time i also feel empty. like i don't have anything more to give.

i really should try meditating.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

The most painful undeliverable mail notification.

So I wrote a considerably long email addressed to this person because my recent recurring dreams about him really had me feeling unsettled. I thought writing my, I guessed, unresolved feelings will put an end to it somehow. As I was writing the message, I was really unsure if I will ever send it out or not. After I have finished it, I thought the letter seems okay and it seemed I knew and respected the boundaries so with my eyes closed and my heart on my sleeve, I hit send.

To be honest, I already expected that the email address he was using to contact me years ago no longer exists. But still, there was modicum of hope that it will be there. So when that mailer daemon immediately popped-up on my notification almost as soon as I hit send, I can't help but feel some disappointment. I think this is still for the best. At least, I got it off my chest somehow.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

6 Feb 2022

I don't understand why I keep having dreams of a long-ago but very significant ex. I am pretty sure I am over him and I don't even want to be in a relationship right now or anytime in the future. But it's so weird that I woke up with a panic attack because the realization of us getting back together being impossible (he's happily married with 2 kids) came crashing on me and I had this overwhelming and unexplainable emotion.

For the most part, I am pretty sure it's not about the person. It's probably unresolved feelings on my part. Or the societal pressure to be settled down with someone now that I am entering my late 30's.

Unresolved feelings because whether I wanted to admit it or not, I still carry a guilt over screwing this ex over. I was really immature in how I treated him and while it wasn't the most ideal relationship, it turned out to be probably the best I will ever had and I wish I had handled the break-up better. Although to be honest, during that time, I really felt that how I ended it was the best decision. I really white fanged him there. I felt it's the best way to make him realize he's better off without me. I had been the weaker party in that relationship and I just can't face him anymore with all that shame and baggage so I made the choice that I feel will be the best for us. No one will probably believe me on this and I never told this side of the story to anyone but I know my truths. Nonetheless, I wish I could take back some of the things I said and I will probably carry this guilt forever with me.

Learned this term many years after from New Girl when Schmidt broke up with Cece, and I was like "that's what it's called." This is what you use when it's REALLY "it's not you, it's me."

Societal pressure because however progressive this country thinks they are now, an unmarried woman (with a child) and no partner is still looked upon with pity worry. It's not unusual for me to get unsolicited comments of "you will find someone for you too" as if it's a goal I should be focusing on. Most of my peers are settling down or had already started a family and sometimes I would feel out of place when I am among them. These kind of things is triggering an early midlife crisis in me and makes me wonder from time to time for things I don't want in the first place. I have been single for a really long time now that I really can't see myself with anyone. Everything I do now is in preparation of getting old all by myself and while it don't bother me much (would even welcome it), I am not a hypocrite. I know that it could be a lonely prospect. But not everything can be a perfect set-up and since this is my likely future, I have accepted it and I can't let some days of possible loneliness dictate my whole life which could actually be a happy one no matter the circumstances.

Did he really say that?

Whatever my subconscious is trying to tell me, I hope I get to the bottom of it so I can sort out my feelings about it. Waking up racked with sadness and guilt or worse, like today's panic attack is not something I want to do once a week. Yes, that's how frequently I dream about him with more or less the same storyline. A few more times and it will be more than my other recurring dream of peeing in public. Uh-huh, I have those for years now but that's for another story.

Playlist for this post:

And of course, it ain't my life if there is no Taylor Swift song for it...

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

I guess what I'm trying to say is...

I'm sorry.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

At night, when the silence around me forces me to look back on all the wrong decisions I have made and all the things that broke me, I can only arrive at one realization... that I wouldn't want it any other way.

I admit it gets lonely at times, but doing it by myself has taught me how to fully appreciate being a parent with all its ups and downs... and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Inevitably, he will grow and be his own person. He will most likely care less about me or worse, hate me like many parent-children relationship turns out. And I will look back to his younger years and feel the old tenderness between us, now already gone, but still, I wouldn't want it any other way.

During my weakest moments, whenever I am scared and confused and has no one to turn to, when ending it all seemed like the sweetest escape, I shake myself off and force myself to deal with all the pain cause a little boy needs his mother. He might never know this, but I need him more than he needs me, because he saves me everyday.

See now, why would I ever want it any other way?

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

Kapag Nakita Mo na Siya (youtube.com)

Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye's spoken poetry reminded me of this. When a friend shared it with me, I cried like an idiot while on public transport. 😆🥺

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

Watch "Sarah Kay & Phil Kaye - When Love Arrives" on YouTube

This is really beautiful.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

New post idea to keep this biz going: online scrapbook! 'coz why the hell not?

Starting with a little self-appreciation, because I'm feeling (and loving) the benefits of eating healthier. I still got a long way to go though, and I'm not getting any younger.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

I encountered this again as I was listening to old Radiolab episodes. It's just too beautiful not to share.

A History of Everything, Including You. By: Jenny Hollowell First there was god, or gods, or nothing. Then synthesis, space, the expansion, explosions, implosions, particles, objects, combustion, and fusion. Out of the chaos came order, stars were born and shown and died. Planets rolled across their galaxies on invisible ellipses and the elements combined and became. Life evolved or was created. Cells trembled, and divided, and gasped and found dry land. Soon they grew legs, and fins, and hands, and antenna, and mouths, and ears, and wings, and eyes. Eyes that opened wide to take all of it in, the creeping, growing, soaring, swimming, crawling, stampeding universe. Eyes opened and closed and opened again, we called it blinking. Above us shown a star that we called the sun. And we called the ground the earth. So we named everything including ourselves. We were man and woman and when we got lonely we figured out a way to make more of us. We called it sex, and most people enjoyed it. We fell in love. We talked about god and banged stones together, made sparks and called them fire, we got warmer and the food got better. We got married, we had some children, they cried, and crawled, and grew. One dissected flowers, sometimes eating the petals. Another liked to chase squirrels. We fought wars over money, and honor, and women. We starved ourselves, we hired prostitutes, we purified our water. We compromised, decorated, and became esoteric. One of us stopped breathing and turned blue. Then others. First we covered them with leaves and then we buried them in the ground. We remembered them. We forgot them. We aged. Our buildings kept getting taller. We hired lawyers and formed councils and left paper trails, we negotiated, we admitted, we got sick, and searched for cures. We invented lipstick, vaccines, pilates, solar panels, interventions, table manners, firearms, window treatments, therapy, birth control, tailgating, status symbols, palimony, sportsmanship, focus groups, zoloft, sunscreen, landscaping, cessnas, fortune cookies, chemotherapy, convenience foods, and computers. We angered militants, and our mothers. You were born. You learned to walk, and went to school, and played sports, and lost your virginity, and got into a decent college, and majored in psychology, and went to rock shows, and became political, and got drunk, and changed your major to marketing, and wore turtleneck sweaters, and read novels, and volunteered, and went to movies, and developed a taste for blue cheese dressing. I met you through friends, and didn’t like you at first. The feeling was mutual, but we got used to each other. We had sex for the first time behind an art gallery, standing up and slightly drunk. You held my face in your hands and said that I was beautiful. And you were too. Tall with a streetlight behind you. We went back to your place and listened to the White Album. We ordered in. We fought and made up and got good jobs and got married and bought an apartment and worked out and ate more and talked less. I got depressed. You ignored me. I was sick of you. You drank too much and got careless with money. I slept with my boss. We went into counseling and got a dog. I bought a book of sex positions and we tried the least degrading one, the wheelbarrow. You took flight lessons and subscribed to Rolling Stone. I learned Spanish and started gardening. We had some children who more or less disappointed us but it might have been our fault. You were too indulgent and I was too critical. We loved them anyway. One of them died before we did, stabbed on the subway. We grieved. We moved. We adopted a cat. The world seemed uncertain, we lived beyond our means. I got judgmental and belligerent, you got confused and easily tired. You ignored me, I was sick of you. We forgave. We remembered. We made cocktails. We got tender. There was that time on the porch when you said, can you believe it? This was near the end and your hands were trembling. I think you were talking about everything, including us. Did you want me to say it? So it would not be

lost? It was too much for me to think about. I could not go back to the beginning. I said, not really. And we watched the sun go down. A dog kept barking in the distance, and you were tired but you smiled and you said, hear that? It’s rough, rough. And we laughed. You were like that. Now, your question is my project and our house is full of clues. I’m reading old letters and turning over rocks. I burry my face in your sweaters. I study a photograph taken at the beach, the sun in our eyes, and the water behind us. It’s a victory to remember the forgotten picnic basket and your striped beach blanket. It’s a victory to remember how the jellyfish stung you and you ran screaming from the water. It’s a victory to remember treating the wound with meat tenderizer, and you saying, I made it better. I will tell you this, standing on our hill this morning I looked at the land we chose for ourselves, I saw a few green patches, and our sweet little shed, that same dog was barking, a storm was moving in. I did not think of heaven, but I saw that the clouds were beautiful and I watched them cover the sun.

[jumbledversesandbreaths]

"Timeline" (30/03/2002)

Prelude: A good friend of mine reminded me how I love to write stuff. I visited my Tumblr account and indeed, it seems really neglected. The thing about me is that, I have to feel things to write things. And since I haven't felt things for a while now, it follows that I do not have to urge to write. These days, I'm just an almost middle-aged adult going through the motions and routines of daily life. In this pandemic, if there is anything remotely interesting happening to me, it's probably the early onset mid-life crisis I am feeling and/or the occasional mental breakdown that is actually not that occasional. It's interesting to look back on stuff I wrote and remember the moments that inspired the words. One particular entry in my journal made me smile and cringe at the same time. Written by 15 year old me when all I ever worry about is getting a boy to like me. Not just any boy, but THE boy that pretty much owned my life during my high school years. XD. This was back when I prefer writing poetry because actual journal writing (with ink on paper, ugh) is just too tiresome for me. It goes something like this.....

-Timeline-

.

Dalawang taon na ang nakalipas

Mula nang una kita makilala.

Wala akong kaalam-alam

Ikaw pala ang magiging mahal.

.

Isang taon ang nagdaan

Buong akala'y tayo na.

Yun pala'y lokohan lang

Paano mong ako'y napaniwala.

.

Matapos ang ilang buwan

Ako'y iyong niligawan.

Akala ko'y totoo na

Pero ba't bigla kang nawala?

.

Nagmahal ng iba

Ngunit ikaw lang talaga.

Saan pa 'ko pupunta

Ngayong ikaw ay wala na?

.

Nitong apat na buwan lang ang nakaraan

Sa pag-uwi ko'y nakasabay kita.

Bakit kaysungit ko tanong mo sa'kin

Sagot ko'y "bakit ka isnabero lalo na sa'kin?"

.

Akala ko'y iyon na talaga

Pero di pa ko natuto ang tagal ko nang nag-aakala.

Sabi ko sa sarili ay di na magsusungit

Ngunit kinabukasa'y nagkasalubong di ka man lang tumingin.

.

Noong isang linggo, nagpakabangag ako

'Di ko namalayan nakikipag-usap na pala sa'yo.

Binigyan mo ko ng dahon pero dahil sabi ko

Di bale na, basta yon ay itatago ko.*

.

Kinabukasan nagpunta tayo sa Recto

Sa dyip lagi tayong magkatabi ng pwesto.

Ipinagdarasal na wag mo sanang mahalata

Dahil sa tuwing katabi ka'y puso ko'y kabang-kaba.

.

Tukso ng barkada'y kinaiinisan ko

Ngunit ang totoo'y nagpaparamdam na sa'yo.

'Yon na yata ang pinakamasayang araw ko

Pero bakit ganon, di ka yata kasingsaya ko?

.

Noong Lunes, sa gate ika'y nakita

Nahuli ko sa akin ay sumulyap ka.

May sasabihin ka ba sa'kin

O sa suot ko'y napangitan ka lang?

.

Kahapon ay naghihintay ng tawag mo

Alam kong may telepono na kayo.

Ngayon ay nag-iisip kung alam mo pa number ko

'Di bale, hanggang may bukas (sayo'y) maghihintay ako.

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*I actually still have this leaf. :/