why

I can't even begin to go into the things I'm feeling right now. I just want to know why I'm feeling like this? How did this happen? What am I supposed to think? To feel?

when did this turn into what it is now...

and why can't i stop crying...


-bam

unsaid.

So I know that it's officially the day of the year set aside for thanksgiving BUT I have these awkward negative feelings...well I think they're negative, they make me sad?...that I really just want to get off of my chest before I try to sleep and then wake up renewed and refreshed as I can be. I feel so torn when it comes to coming back home. I love being with my mom (and Dad when he's back from the PI) and hanging out or talking with her. I love joking around with my sisters (when they're not in a mood or stressed by work/school). I love being around my troublesome and dilemma ridden dogs. I love seeing my bestfriends who live up here Ayla and Roz (and hopefully I'll get to see Diana soon). I love when theres a family get together or event during my short stay so I can see family members I haven't seen in months or years.

But honestly...that's about it.

So much was taken...no. Torn. From me when we decided to go our separate ways, and by we I mean Vallejo and I. Well mostly anyways. I was never truly attached to this place, I guess that's what happens when you move around so much. And there are some heartstrings that I had to detach. I was never comfortable saying 'i'm from vallejo' because honestly, I don't think I share the same mindset as a majority of the people here. I don't identify with a lot of the same status markers, I don't share a lot of the same attitudes, and I've always felt out of place here.

Now that a lot of people I know either haven't been in touch (or been able to respond) I really don't feel like there's much reason for me to be here. There are a few friends who I simply feel out of touch with because of the distances involved with growing up. But there are also some people who I, for lack of a better word, was abandoned by. I think the reason I'm feeling so torn right now is because I was thinking about how grateful I am for the friends I have now, and the few who have stuck by me as I've moved and grown throughout the years. Then I think I noticed the concept of 'few' and I really mean few. Like, handful few. And it hurts.

For one thing, it still stings that someone who was important in my life has decided to treat me as I never existed. When there was no reason for that to happen. Some may say that our history was reason enough, but I don't think that makes this abandonment right or justified. I can't say why, but I know that this is wrong. And everytime I come home I am reminded of it. I guess I can't wrap my head around why we would endeavor to be friends only for one person to decide the friendship is over. Can one person decide to end a relationship? I thought we had figured out the answer to that one.

For another thing, I know about the gossip that spread after. I know about the things that people think. I know about the ways people judge. And to be honest, hardly anyone up here has given me a second glance since I left and that seriously (pardon my french) sucks. Sometimes I wish I was given the dignity I afford to others who have made their own mistakes in life, and sometimes my patience wears thin (like now) and it beings to hurt again. To be scorned, to be ignored, nothing, in my mind, is worse than this.

I'm trying to get through this haze of hurt because I know just beyond it is so much more. For example, I know now the kind of treatment I should give people who share their lives with me. I know now that when you are given a trusted secret, you must keep it and you must do your best to honor that person. I know now that mistakes are meant to be learned from and forgiven, not scorned and relived. I truly am grateful for the friends that I have by my side right now. I know I'm really bad at keeping up relationships which is half because people think I'm intimidating and half because I honestly like when people take the first steps towards me. I guess those two don't really work well together. I just find it frustrating to always have to be the one initiating events in friendships, but I guess a lot of times I end up doing that and people end up getting used to it, so it's mostly my fault then. But, I really do want to work on it. And my choice to stay in socal is part of that.

I am so grateful for the opportunities I have been given since I left vallejo because they really have helped me see for myself how I can live my own life in this crazy scary exciting nerve wrecking world. I know that right now, the scars of the past still sting, but I'm going to keep working my hardest to get through it because they will not hurt me forever. Not if I never forget the things I've learned. I refuse to let other people keep me down, so I'm not afraid to say that I'll stop coming back here.

I just wish that I didn't have to feel anxious about going out in public here, or remember what it was like to have a ton of people to hang out with here. Times change though, and I needed them to. I fit in better in socal, where my personal struggle with being a better friend can realistically be set to achievable goals. There's nothing but grudges, ignorance, and lack of manners here for me. At least when it comes to the social scene.

There will always be family for me here, and there will always be the few whom I trust the most. Thank goodness for that strength, and thank goodness that I still have the hope and faith to get through this all.

<3

an email that I never read

(forgive me blog for ignoring you...i will admit tumblr was too tempting...)


Sometime ago, I wrote an email to a friend asking a very specific question. It was one of those questions that keeps you up at night to your utmost inconvenience and furthermore, one of those questions that you remember the morning after. So, almost naturally, I decided to consult one of my more prone-to-educational-debates-and-explorations type of friends whom I considered an excellent resource in this particular field. It took a little bit of time to get a response, but I did get one, and a lengthy one at that. Unfortunately I was, as I have a habit of being, consumed by commitments and all the time that I would have given up for personal philosophical research was devoted elsewhere. So, as the email prompted, I waited for time to delve into the message and gain some educational insight. I don’t know why, but I suddenly remembered that email today, as I sit in a close friends’ apartment doing laundry by myself. Well the heathen (Benji) is here as well but he’s not very good company when one has something specific to do in mind. After trying to figure out how to search for it in my mostly organized but definitely burgeoning inbox (Yes I did finally realize I should just search with the sender’s email…’duh bam’ I know right?!) I started to skim through and try to remember what it was that had prompted my question in the first place. I still have to do a more in-depth reading as well as some research into a few things for which the details are hazy in my mind, but when I reached the end, I came across a surprise. A little extra that had been added in, that up until now I hadn’t even begun to consider. I can say that I was honestly happy and honored by this section of the email and I am in fact smiling at the moment but it made me pause at the same time.

Pause to think about my own inquisitiveness, and the natural services I believe I extend towards others in this world. (Get your head out of the gutters you know who you are.)

Pause to consider for a second what an acceptance of this proposal might mean for myself.

Pause to think about how things are going for me right now, actually how they’ve been going for me my whole life and before that.

And I’ve started to think that I’m perfectly fine with where I am. Now I know that sounds stubborn but hear me out. What I mean to say is that I am perfectly fine with the pace at which I am learning, discovering and evolving (semi-ironic if you can even begin to guess what the subject matter is) in my life. Everyday, despite the challenges I face I know that there is a force for good that has been present in my life and I’m, at risk of understating myself, eternally grateful. I am also perfectly fine with the rate at which my outward profession of my beliefs is progressing.

And why?

Because I’ve noticed that more often than not, when people I am getting close to open up to me about a few of the things they think I’ve done for them (because we all know my opinion on this sort of thinking) I am told that something interesting. You all know, I’m certain, that when you begin to have your own opinion about something, or get an itch in the back of your head for a particular subject, the easiest and most natural step to take first is to seek out a path or route to let this thought follow. I think it’s fairly safe to say that almost immediately we start to think of people whom we know who either seem to share our affinity, or who seem to have some knowledge of it. What people seem to say to me (A LOT) is that they enjoy that I can be casual about certain topics and not overbearing. But they also enjoy that upon simple questioning, I’m more than willing to discuss.

Now if we’re all searching for a purpose in life, then I can honestly say I hope that being a conduit for personal growth for OTHER PEOPLE is up there on my list. If you know me like I hope you do, then you should understand that I want nothing more than to help others. Sometimes that works out for me too, and sometimes it doesn’t but that part of it hardly seems to matter most of the time. Aside from searching for a purpose, I’ve been raised to believe in other people and have faith that if we all help each other out, even just a tad, the world can and will be a better place.

So hopefully, after all this you won’t believe that I’m being complacent, stubborn, lazy or indignant. I’m simply content with the ways in which I’m learning to live life. I should say that in the past few years my rate of growth has increased exponentially (side note: that is one of my FAVORITE words in the English language) and so have the opportunities I have been granted to help influence the lives of others.

I guess if I think about it, I’m already doing some of what’s been proposed to me. I have the rest of my life to keep learning, growing, giving and humbling myself to receive and I look forward to it. I know that there’s so much more that I need to learn, but I learned full well from my own failures, that if I force myself to learn things too quickly or when I’m not quite ready the lessons don’t stick and I end up losing a big part of the message being sent my way. It’s not that I’m playing it safe, well I suppose it does sound like that, but I think that right now, the best thing I can do and the right thing for me to do is to keep growing the way I have been. I really do think that both paths proposed (the first by myself and the second by my friend the expert =D) will lead me to the same fulfilled and blessed life that I’m hoping for.

And with nothing left for me to say or explain, I guess I just want to say that while change is good, sometimes it means thinking about how we deal with what is new in our lives and changing that instead. This isn’t me attempting to send the message that ‘sometimes no is the best answer’ because I hardly believe that life can be so black and white. But I do believe that everyone’s life experience is different and so life should be thought out and lived uniquely by everyone. And that can segue into a whole new debate but that’s for another time I think.

<3bam

p.s. I know at times I can be hard headed and stubborn, as we all can be, but this time I really have thought about it and feel that this is the course of action for me. Think of it as a toned-down version of the alternate, a slower but equally deliberate course.

title

title

fail.

i fail at updating this.


more so...i fail at quite a few other things...

-motivating myself in spite of my laziness, fatigue, etc.

-getting easy assignments done early.

-making time for other people. (i get so anxious i make time for myself and i forget others).

-reminding myself that I'm important to someone even if i'm neglected by others).

-budgeting. T.T

-thinking just far enough ahead that I don't freak out.

-coming up with a better plan.

-remembering that most plans fall through.

-picking up my phone.

-paying my bills.



ok now that's out of the way. some thing's i've started to do right:

-stay at home to recover from being sick, not using the time to do other stupid things.

-bought food so i can eat from home not from anywhere else.

-started to clean my room. (it needs work)

-started to try to make plans for postgrad life.

-owning up to the mistakes i've made financially.

-facing up to my parent's expectations of me.

-making myself more open to people. (never mind that few seem to take the intiative i present them [i guess i'm still 'unapproachable'] but oh well there's only so much i can do about my situation with other people, they have to do some work to and i can tell when people are lazy/comfortable).

-seeing all the areas I need to work on.




I'm not perfect but I'm trying to be a good person.

"The best way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." -Walt Disney


<3bam

it's a fact.

People suck.

Honestly, I haven’t been this fucking disappointed in a while. You know what makes it worse though? Border line heartbreaking? I NEVER thought these people would hurt me like this. Not after everything I thought we had grown through. Not after everything I thought we had agreed upon.

I guess I used to believe that people are growing up alongside you, they’re really only just at the same point you’re at only for that moment in time. After that, they might never be alongside you again. Why am I always so stubborn to believe that some people are hurting me until the pain is infuriating?

Why do I always brush aside tears of frustration and annoyance to wait for tears of heartbreak?

I really need to be as honest with myself as I am with other people. That’ll be my next step/goal for growing up.

Ask me what one of my prayers constantly is for, and I’ll say understanding.

<3bam

Love.

Overpowers. Overwhelms. Overcomes.

<3bam

time flies...when you're getting old.

I'm sitting here, studying for a midterm today, when it hits me. This is 5th week, winter quarter, I AM HALFWAY THROUGH MY SENIOR YEAR. Not only do I feel old, I feel strange. Borderline Melancholic and wholeheartedly scared AND excited.

I know that after graduation I'll get to see Des again, but I'm scare im not ready. we'll see. Not much time left now.

Gotta keep going as full out as I can.

<3bam

deliciously complex

my oh my how the time flies and time changes and all that seems for naught.

I'm up late right now, deliberating with myself over some key moments in my life and how I handled them. I can honestly say, I wish I could kick myself for the way I acted, but more importantly for the things I didn't say. Why?

Because if I had learned to speak my mind sooner, I wouldn't have hurt so many people. If I had learned to explain more careful my reasons for behaving like I did, I would have looked like someone worth retaining and I wouldn't have been forced to let go of a 'good' (in the descriptive and quantative sense) portion of my life. If I had learned to say what I meant, rather than try to say something more seemingly situationally correct, I wouldn't have come off as a rude, selfish, little girl.

But that's me, and I've finally grown to the point where I can say honestly to myself what I'm doing wrong in the here and now. Did you know that it's possible for one person to, in the process of making the decision to act a certain way, consider at least five different resulting possibilities and that at the end of this listing, its possible to tell yourself "STOP IT!" or "DO IT DIFFERENTLY"? and then at the end of it all, you can beat yourself up for the simple existence of the possibilities that would have fucked so much of your life up? All this in the matter of seconds that it takes you to decide something. Insane isnt it. But amazing.

I love telling myself I'm doing something wrong, even if I' m not and especially if I'm unsure if it's right or wrong (which is situational of course). Either I end up saving myself from looking like a fool (oh joy for the concept of self-preservation) or I end up more convincing an actor. I don't like the person I am sometimes, but I love the person I am who can question and adapt to the things that I know I need to fix.

I love being deliciously complex and altogether simple. Why? Because, it doesn't matter. There is so much to go through in life that having your ideals for yourself so finelined at any one point in time is only going to make things worse, but having developing guidelines, like growing into faith, thats the way to live. You find the best way, the better way, and the challenging way to live a life where you create the world around you and you can accept it all (faults, failures and flaws included). Acceptance doesn't mean you are forced into being unhappy, it means that you know you were meant to be here and that where you are right now, because of the decisions you made to be a better person you are quite literally in the best place you could be in.

I know this all seems like rambling, but believe me, it makes sense after you look back and see how horrible a person you've been. It makes the hurt come back, and it has made me realize that a lot of the hurt I felt was self-inflicted. No one was there to tell me what I was doing to myself because I didn't say anything, I didn't think I could. I am so glad I know better now.

Thank you God for showing me how to be happy, I'd forgotten somewhere along the way here.

<3sami

car accidents are odd muses

Sometimes, I wonder what life would have been like if way back when, those decisions that were beyond my control had been made differently. Right now, dealing with the stress of the aftermath of the accident I occasionally wonder what it would've been like if I hadn't gotten out of bed like the good student I was trying to be to go to class.

I wonder every now and then, in a non-trauma related fashion, what it would've been like if I had (for example) stayed in the Philippines and gone to school there. Where would I have ended up going to college? Would I still have developed into the person I am today? Would I have become the person I fight with all the time, aka the side of me that I feel is all faulty and lousy? Would I have the same goals? Same morality? Same faith?

Sometimes I wonder about small things, like what if I hadn't decided to dance in college? What if I hadn't gone to school at UCI? What if I hadn't changed majors? I suppose the limits really endless per the things that I sit there contemplating. I honestly do it everyday, and if you see me spacing out, there's a high chance that I'm wondering if the situations playing out in front of my eyes would have been different if I had acted differently at a previous time. That's the whatevers part of the thinking, the fun part is trying to puzzle with myself over the events/situations that lead up to the situation I'm witnessing. But I digress.

Honestly though, I never find myself regretting anything in spite of the possibilities and the 'grass is greener on the other side' outlook. I think it may be that faith, that consistency in my life of God looking out for me and for the goodness of life coming through no matter the consequences that has convinced me that worrying about the accident itself is no good use of time. I think that's why I'm trying to be so on top of the paperwork, and other things that I need to do to handle this situation smoothly, efficiently and in a timely fashion.

I feel really anxious now, and worried about finances for a new/used car and about what the other party is going to do and for how this is going to affect my parents. But isn't that all short term stuff? Isn't that all something that, with time and God's grace will work itself out and will eventually become a part of the past that will have brought me to a point of more experience, wisdom and patience? Deep breaths and thinking help a lot right now, so does talking to people about it, or just talking to people in general so I don't feel alone.

I gotta say, without any hint of animosity, those of you who are in proximal relationships (in case you didn't know thats the opposite of long-distance or distal relationships) have no idea how lucky you are to simply have the peace of mind that should something happen to you your significant other or family members will be there in an instant. If I had that path of thinking perhaps I wouldn't have cried while waiting for the police, perhaps I wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night shaking, perhaps I'd be able to sleep for more than two hours and wake up feeling safe. I'm not going to tell you to not take your proximal relationships for granted, but I will say this.

The next time you complain about someone not being there for you even though they could have been, just think about people who don't even have the option of that proximal comfort either because they're like me and living far from comfort, or they're alone in the world when it comes to high levels of intimacy. I can honestly say that I am grateful for the friends who have seen me, talked to me, or checked up on me in any way shape or form, because I have the most comfort right now in the fact that God has made up for my distance from Des and my family by putting me in such close contact with friends/dance family/aphio family. We'll all make mistakes and hurt people, but really think about the proximity of the people you treasure and how that proximity comforts you and what you can do to bridge gaps that shouldn't be there. I'm grateful that I've learned how to better treat people and get to know them so that we care about each other in mutual regard. Praise the Lord for everyone in my life.

A few quick thank yous to some pivotal people thus far:
-MCIA: I would love thank all of you individually but I would run out of tags, so I just want you to know that I went to practice that night because I knew that being around you was the only way to ease some of my fears and calm myself down. I feel safe and loved when I'm around you all, and you truly are family to me.

-Franklin and Sheryl: thank you for picking me up from the hospital and letting me hang out with you for a bit so I wouldn't freak out and I could feel a little bit of normalcy. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.

-Aimee: I didn't really crave bread or tea but it was so small and normal for us to go that night that it made me feel like everything was back to normal, even if only for a bit, you never cease to amaze me with how comfortable you make me. thank you cc. i love you.

-Kris: for bringing me lunch, making me feel comfortable, stupid filipino accents, and driving me to get the rental car I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

-My Roommates Jen, Ng, and Kirby: thanks for putting up with me lying around the house and using the spot. It's nice to come home to a a REAL home and not just some silly place we all happen to live. You three make me feel the safest and most comfortable I feel in Irvine.

-Angie & Tracy: Thank you ladies for visiting me today!! It really brightened up my day! =) I was frustrated but having your company even though only for a short time, helped me smile today.

-My cousins and family on Facebook: I hope that most of you found out via word of mouth from the family rather than my fb as to what happened, btu I am so grateful that all of you are checking up on me, and supporting me. I really feel your love and I appreciate you all so much.

-My mom and Dad: they keep me calm, hear me out, let me cry, put up with me being moody and stupidly yelling at them when I shouldn't, and they take care of me. They always know how to make me laugh even if I'm utterly depressed or stricken down with anguish. They taught me how to live out the "everything will be ok" perspective and I am so grateful.

-Des: for keeping me calm, amusing me, putting up with my mood swings, crying fits, and unreasonable emotions (well you know what i mean), making me smile before we say goodnight or goodbye despite whatever mood i might have been in when we entered the conversation, you are beyond amazing and quite literally the best thing thats still happening to me.

-Last but not least to EVERYONE who expressed concern I cannot say how grateful I am for you. It's freaky being in an accident alone but at the same time I'm glad none of you were in that car with me because I would never want to be the cause of pain for any of you. I hope you know that even if you thought your well-wishing was small to me it was a huge effort. I've had my phone plastered to my hand so that the minute I start to freak out and doubt the goodness of the world I reread what you sent me and I almost cry because I'm so blessed by the people I've gotten to know.

I'm sore, and now my stomach hurts a little so im going to wind down for bed now. I just had to jot some of this down so I won't think about it when I try to sleep. Wish me luck trying to sleep tonight. =) I wish YOU the best.

giving in to growing up

i just realized the reality of giving up a short-term goal that I fully thought was accomplishable four years ago. I nearly cried....


More on that later. (yes i know I keep saying that but honestly my brain is on vacation from writing).


<3bam