4am scare

this is what woke me up at 4am today.

i was nearly off to dreamland when i unwittingly noticed the acrid smell of burning plastic / wiring. to be honest, it was one of those smells that i used to like (addict!) when i was kid, so i did not immediately jump to wakefulness, almost in the same way that you would want to linger in your restful state when you're in a lucid dream. however, the smell persisted in such a way that i eventually had to consider that something was wrong. i got up from my bed, checked the outlet in my room, and sniffed for burning wires. nada. i sniffed some more and the smell was gone. i went back to bed thinking that the smell was just part of a dream. 

singlehood

i have been officially single for quite some time.

it has taken me months (more than a year actually) to really accept my new status, but accept it i have. it didn't help that several of my friends have been getting married left and right, and that being single has some sort of stigma attached to it. at my age, when people hear that you're single, they almost always immediately assume that you would want to be set up with someone (with good intentions, of course), or there must be something hideously wrong with you (physically or psychologically).

i'm the type of person who likes to keep things under control and at bay, so in the advent of emotional turmoil, i immersed myself in a flurry of activity. i rarely allowed myself to be idle. even in those days where i  was on vacation, my mind was preoccupied with stuff that has nothing to do with rest and relaxation.

it came crashing down on me a few months back, and it was excruciating. it was the first time in a long long time that i felt truly alone and vulnerable. i underwent the whole break-up - anger - acceptance - phase in retrospect, which absolutely aggravated my loneliness and self-pity. but like every other phase in our lives, it all had to end eventually (thank you, lord!).

so here i am, officially single and still a work in progress with regards to status singledom. i'm still in the dark on the how's and why's of singlehood, but most of the time, i'm loving it. excluding my parents, i like the fact that i don't have to answer or "report" to anyone if i want to go somewhere. there's a certain self-empowerment in knowing that i can be more spontaneous and go into spur-of-the-moment adventures without thinking of anyone else other than myself. selfish, i know, but i have been living the "selfless" life for a number of years, so i'm taking this whole "selfish" phase as some sort of catching up for the selfless years. being single is not as bad as i initially thought it would be. :)

am i ready for a new relationship? no. and the funny part is that that is the one thing a lot of people do not comprehend. saying "let's be friends" is not my way of playing hard to get; i really mean it when i say it. after having lived in a semi-cocoon for quite awhile, getting to know new people has become a novelty for me. the differences i see between me and other people somehow highlight the quirks and little things i should love about myself. part of this whole singlehood experience is rediscovering myself, and as narcissistic as this may sound, i think i need to fall in love with myself first before i go  into another relationship.

now i'm sure this is all going to be one big adventure...

it's not too late to make mistakes

read this first :D
What To Know When You're 25(ish)

 *image courtesy of RELEVANT Magazine (http://www.relevantmagazine.com)

i don't think we are ever encouraged to make mistakes. ever since we were young, we were strongly advised to excel in our studies or just be good at whatever we were doing at that time. failures were frowned upon, and shame on you if you ever decided to wallow on your mistakes for more than a day. there was hardly any room for errors. you fall down today, but you have to be back on track the next day.

i was the type of kid who was very conscious about her grades, who almost always submitted her homework on time, and who always made up for missed classes. i had a purpose and that was to be at the top of my class. given that i was surrounded by geniuses, i was aiming for ridiculously impossible dream. but even if i didn't manage to be at "the top", i was able to finish my studies with decently high marks.

but being out of the academe has pushed me out of my life track. i have always known that i will flourish in school, but out of it...i am no way nearer in figuring out what i'm really good at, and this is so "deja-vu-ic" because this was exactly how i felt when i had just graduated from college.

it's more than knowing what i'm good at. i'm at this point right now wherein i want to know what i'm really passionate about. i envy people of my age who had already found their calling. some of them may have high-paying jobs, while others barely earn enough to eke out a living. but they have a purpose, and they take the reins in shaping their destiny. may direksyon na sila sa buhay nila.

but i guess these people didn't just wake up one morning and had their life-altering decisions handed to them in a platter. they probably underwent a process of experimenting, discovering, traveling, and spending time to get to know themselves really well. they underwent a process of making several mistakes.

i didn't undergo the "process". i "experimented" but it was always on the safe side. i pushed my boundaries once when i decided to live on my own for a while. after that, i was always in my comfort zone, never daring to try some things out because i knew (or that was how i saw it) i would fail at them, or because they were way too risky or scary for me.

in other people's eyes, i have grown up a lot because i have a stable job, i can be entrusted in looking after their children (hahahahaha!), and i am on speaking terms with my parents again (don't hope much :D---it's a love-hate relationship, so tiffs are quite frequent). but in other aspects, i haven't grown up much after college. i still do things because they are safe or those are what have been expected of me, and in the process, i have been stuck at excelling in fulfilling other people's expectations but never really perceiving what my expectations should be.

i don't want to be stuck anymore. i want to explore and move forward. it's time for me to learn and grow. it's high time for me to start making mistakes.

survival mode

i'll take it one day at a time...and if i find that days are too long to bear, then i'll make it one hour at a time...or even a few minutes at a time...

i love rollercoasters, but this will probably be one rollercoaster ride wherein i really have to brace myself for the sudden loops and belly-flops...

personal reminder

i constantly have to remind myself that the world doesn't revolve according to jacq.

just because i exert myself in trying to act within the bounds of social mores doesn't mean everybody will do the same thing. there will always be people who will be shamelessly unscrupulous, and they will not cower even when they are confronted with their dastardly actions. what you would consider as malicious and unprincipled would be regarded as common and uneventful by others. and just because you work for a company that stands for integrity doesn't mean everyone who works in it believes in upholding integrity.

but that doesn't change the fact that i detest these people more each day--they, who wouldn't think twice about taking advantage of their colleagues, or who would do everything to bring someone down just for the heck of it. the meek shall inherit the earth, and i truly hope i can be there to see these people reap their reward for being thoughtless and unconscionable.

lesson #1 for 2010

the problem with spilling the beans to a person who's figuratively an open book to almost everyone is that your beans could end up being spilled to other people.

i don't bear her a grudge though. she doesn't really differentiate between publicity and privacy, and i know for a fact that there was no malice when she blurts out her news to other people.

my first hard-learned lesson for the year...