7 nights, 8 days

here, i am again, i'm back. time for another round of crazy Christmas confessions. i went three-four places in the last eight days, and that certainly makes for a host of experiences. not to mention that i also interacted with most of my significant others based south of Manila.

but here's my dilemma. how do i tell you my stories without coming off like am complaining or whinging or rationalizing. even this next sentence is loaded: sometimes i go through all my friends and family in my head, looking for a person who will simply hear me :). bear with me, i can only live my life one day at a time. i may try to or want to, but it's quite impossible to live my life in accord with the hopes and expectations of people who care about me :). so i can't promise that i will be happy, or that i will be wise, or that i will be nice, or that i will be worthy.

i can only live my life :) ... and as we know, each day is actually a spiritual adventure. and i probably failed half the tests that came my way :) ... wait, am being too generous with myself. maybe i failed all my tests :D. hehe.

there's the test of giving till it hurts :D. i love being generous but am never generous all of the time. i'm not quite generous when i know i might just run out of money already when i land back here and will need cash to pay for the cab home and the house-sitter, plus all the bank holidays endemic to the season making things more complicated. so what happens when we know the need of others is urgent, and yet you don't have quite a lot? plus all the righteous thoughts that come with giving. do they deserve the help that i will give? does helping have to go hand in hand with the issue of being deserving? darn, darn, darn. and then some things (self-serving ones) will always be easier to spend for than others. and so i always ask myself, what makes me think i should be better off than others? am i worthy? (answer: no, not at all, it's just a game of chance).

then, there's the issue of appearances. oh my, people are always hung up on appearances, and family reunions always make my fluffy body prime target. i feel beautiful living alone, but mix me in with relatives i hardly see all year, and there i am hanging back, waiting for the next blow. it's not quite the way to live. even after many years, i still can't quite (read: i can't) pull off the smooth and genius retort that'll pull the rug from under my 'detractors': still haven't found the one wise, understanding and compassionate response that will cure them of commenting on my looks forever and ever, amen. i blame myself: i obviously need to take more responsibility for my health and my emotional wellbeing.

this is so much my issue, that just when i had escaped my cousin and uncle who tailed me with their so-fat-tsk-tsk comments, and had already alienated my auntie once removed by rudely moving chairs when she raised her voice questioning me sternly on why it appeared that i wanted to follow her footsteps of never-marrying, life slapped me with a big one. i was strolling towards the boat, ready to sail by myself, when the security guard asked me if i was pregnant. i said no, wondering why he would ask when in my heart of hearts i feel thin (hahaha, delusional). i climbed the stairs, smiling but he had the nerve to call up to the stewards to ask me to go down again. face-to-face, he asked me again if i was pregnant. (damn, no sex for me, unfortunately). i said no. he said that i must wait for the doctor who would confirm this for him, and proceeded to explain how in a previous voyage, a woman who had given birth had cost the shipping company 200K, baby. F**K, major humiliation after surviving the family ordeal. all sense and reason left me, and i proceeded to curse out said security guard for his rudeness, for his nerve, for asking and not taking my answer into account, for humiliating me, for his stupidity, etc, etc. i didn't care, i was soooo mad, i swore blindly for a long time, and he didn't hesitate to swear right back at me. my rational self knew all the time of course that his greatest sin was merely that of being stupid, stupid enough not to know/ make the right judgment call about when a woman is at risk of giving birth or not, on his stupid boat. damn, i may be fat in the wrong places but sure i don't look 7-9 months pregnant. of course by this time i cried. when the doctor arrived, he chastised me for being so angry on Christmas Day, and i said i wasn't there to argue with him. one press of my tummy and he let me go (as if he could be really sure with that, too), and with one last set of curses aimed at the guard, i stalked up the stairs and cried in my cabin for an hour.

why do i write this here? i want to cure myself of my humiliation :). i do not want to keep secret, secrets such as this. i want to know the law about pregnant women and public transportation. do buses and airplanes and boats have the right to turn away pregnant women at certain points in their pregnancy? but most of all, i want to discern the lesson behind the incident. it has in no way escaped my attention that my private issue was made so glaringly public and so much bigger. it was like a streamer saying: VV, learn something from this. to be sure, i still don't know what the lesson is. am sure, it was not about cursing and quarreling like a crazed person. so there, i didn't do so well.

then there's the matter of love. somewhere along these years, i have slowly (slowly and quite painstakingly) taken responsibility for my emotional wellbeing when it comes to my lovelife. i have come to realize, and to act on the fact that some (many) things you can't expect on demand (and lots of pouting). some things you have to create and build yourself. you have to enable/ create the lovelife that you want, you have to make yourself and your needs and wants understood, even as you are also understanding and loving the other. and that there's no such thing as a perfect partner/ relationship, some things are as good as they are ever going to get. my problem is this: in which direction am i deluded? am i being down on something that's workable, and is being worked out in the long long loooong run; or am i consigning myself to not-quite-happiness. to be sure, things are better by me, i am no longer wildly expecting but am quite more accepting, but is that really better? you know how it is when you are no longer struggling as hard against something you can't control, it becomes less difficult. but what happens next? do you find peace or death? i don't know. is my idea of what am looking for, really still out there, or is it just another case of thinking my happiness lies in somebody outside my self?

thank the Mother, I have my thesis to do, or there will never be an end to this.

someday, sometime, love will be.

but far be it for me to say it was a tragic and uncomfortable trip. on the contrary. i had a safe and relaxing flight to cdo. my grandmother was pleased to see me and feed me. i spent time, and scooped ice cream for lovely uncles and aunts and cousins and nieces and nephews, and thanked heaven for generous relatives who give up the very bed they sleep in just for me (goodness me!). my dad came to my rescue, and stopped 'abandoning' me (hahaha, joke), plus i have been having really good times lately with dad and tita and b. you know you can just put me in a car, and you drive, and i'd be happy (oh make sure to make toilet pit-stops). then after the gangplank trauma, i absolutely loved the privacy of my cabin-room for one. i actually love boat rides. hihi. i look forward to them. then i had good times with friends in iloilo. then i had a really good talk with my brother.

so in the end, it was quite a whirlwind but happening vacation where i got the chance to learn many things, some of which i still haven't learned yet, hahaha.

pictures to follow.