This Time, For Real

Originally posted in https://www.facebook.com/notes/precious-gan/this-time-for-real/420476571075
Note: Link in Part 2 no longer works, but the related post has already been migrated to this blog

I think the best thing about moving on, as in REALLY moving on, is that it makes you realize how strong you actually are, and how lucky you are not to have ended up with that last person you were with (to nobody's offense). Moving on lets you dream again, maybe not of happily ever after, but a happier after. And if there's anything I learned in my nearly two decades of existence, dreams are a very powerful thing.

I'm including two works in this note, the first is an article from PDI, the next is a random free verse poem I wrote about the love story I want for my life. Funny thing is, when I wrote it, I didn't actually have any particular person in mind, even though I was still very much into a relationship at the time.

Well, "Caleb". Whoever you are, wherever you are, I still haven't found you, but I don't mind waiting. Just please don't take too long, and don't give me a hell of a time when you finally appear in my life. You owe me that much for making me wait so long when we could have spent so much time together already. Then again, if you came too early and we end up wasting what we're meant to have, that would really suck too. Okay, never mind. Just so you know, I'm waiting. Don't take too long, but don't rush either. <3


PART I
My daughter's letter to the man she will love someday
By Cathy Babao-Guballa, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Date First Posted 22:05:00 08/08/2010
RELATIONSHIPS ARE always a difficult terrain to navigate.

As a woman, you spend hours pondering—alone or with your girl friends—the intricacies of the human heart. You always hope and pray that the next generation will get it better than you did.

Below is a letter I found in my daughter’s website (I have her permission to share this). She wrote it to “the man I will someday love.”

I was expecting to read a gushing, romantic, idealistic tome. I was humbled instead by her sentiments. It’s filled with sensible expectations.

I pray that this will make every girl believe that hope does spring eternal, and even if your heart has been broken a few times, you can always put the pieces back together, and make it right the next time around.

Take your time. Don’t rush and don’t just “settle.” If it’s part of His plan, God’s best awaits you out there.

Letter

Dear You,

I will admit that sometimes I really do wonder if you exist.

There is a part of every little girl’s heart that envisions her prince charming. At age three, it is usually of a man who can save her from the wrath of an evil stepmother, wake her from eternal slumber or give her that true love’s kiss.

In elementary school, he becomes the boy with the least cooties, the one who’s willing to cross the playground to share his Oreos even if it makes him a target for the week of all the other boys.

Come high school, it’s that boy you stand with at prom, who your father stared down at the door, who provided you with an experience complete with photos you will cringe at a decade later, a corsage that yellows in the refrigerator, and a faded memory of a night that seemed almost too magical to be real.

Nineteen years into this life, however, and still unwilling to give my heart away, I am still that same little girl who hopes for her prince charming. And although I wonder why it has taken you this long to sweep me off my feet and whisk me off to your palace on horseback, I know that it is probably because meeting you will be better than any fairytale I could’ve read as a kid.

A couple of heartbreaks and a few years wiser though, I will admit that there are times when I question your existence. Because I have yet to meet the guy who makes me hear songs like “All My Life” or “A Whole New World” in my head when I see him does not mean I don’t hope that it’ll ever happen.

I may already know you or may still meet you someday—something I leave completely up to God because I’m pretty sure our story will be epic.

However, I can’t promise you that I’d make the world’s most perfect princess. In fact I’ll probably keep you on your toes and amuse you with my eccentricities—there are a lot of them. I’ll probably steal a bunch of your T-shirts and turn them into shirt dresses, or drive you slightly mad with my obsessive compulsivity and my need to fix your collar constantly.

I can promise to be your best friend however—that person you can rant to after a rough day, the hand you can hold when you get sad, or the person you can text when situations get awkward.

I’ll probably mess up your hair sometimes and hug you for too long, but that’ll only be because I absolutely adore you. I’ll bury my head in your shoulder during scary movies and make you feel like superman when you kill those flying cockroaches that really shouldn’t exist. I’ll cook your favorite food on your birthday and try my best to make friends with your mom.

I’ll respect your nights-out with the boys and make you seem like the perfect guy to my barkada. I’ll watch basketball or soccer games with you, and not complain when you cheer too loudly at the TV set.

I’ll know the difference between giving you space and being constantly there for you—even if it means sitting and playing video games with you or taking hot chocolate runs when it rains.

I’ll listen to your music and we’ll go on epic adventures together—seeing the world, taking awesome pictures, eating awesome food, and never running out of things to tell each other along the way.

I won’t be waiting for you to sweep me off my feet and take me on a magic carpet ride, because I know I won’t need anything like that to fall for you—I will love you for you.

You will be that someone to make goofy faces with in pictures, to lace fingers with when I’m lonely, and to take long walks under the stars with on the beach.

You’ll be the guy who takes me the way I am—and will laugh as I burst into Disney song or pick out pink wallpaper.

You’ll be that someone I envision a future with—us filling out visa forms as we travel the universe, picking out our first dog together and arguing about what to name it, or being snap-happy stage parents in our preschooler’s annual mini-plays. And I keep hoping that maybe someday when we find each other, you will become that someone whose smile I wake up to in the morning and the last one I speak to every night.

So to the man I know does exist, and who will help me maybe make sense of the world someday, this man I can’t wait to love. Please know that I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. But for now, I wait. Fingers crossed and palms held together, I hope that you’re out there somewhere, waiting for me, too.

With the hope I will be yours for always,

Me

E-mail the author at cathybabao@ gmail.com

PART II
My Love Story
By Precious Rochelle O. Gan, Bittersweet Honesty: Dare to Dream
Date First Posted: 21:02:00 06/28/2008
I don't want my love story to be of any interest to anyone.
I want it simple, insignificant, barely making ripples in the water.
I don't want my love story told and retold,
As if it was a legend that must be known to all.
I don't want to feel the pains of being heartbroken again and again,
Nor of being left alone for a long period of time while he goes to war.
I don't want to wait indefinitely for a love that may never be mine,
I refuse to be a desperate damsel in search for the perfect man,
Or be left by a man for another man.
I don't want to be the subject of a tale of a love lost,
Or of the reunion of childhood lovers.
I don't want to wait until the end of my days,
And I do not want to tell of a love that can never be.
I want to read the colorful stories of romances of heroines
And smile to myself because that's not me.
I want my love story to be short, simple and sweet
That no one will care to know about my life of love.
No one will know of it, and it will be completely mine,
Never to be witnessed by all except the wind and the sky.
Completely unique, forever entombed in my heart,
It will be my little secret, shared with only one person.
And when we are gone from this earth,
We will carry our story to our deaths,
Forever gone from the earth,
The most insignificant love story never told.

Homage to Sherrilyn Kenyon

So I've been seeing a lot of book lists lately and while I'm tempted to join in, doing so requires some research because I tend to only remember stories and not titles. I can't event remember authors if he/she's not one I usually read. In the meantime, I'd like to pay homage to every Sherrilyn Kenyon book ever, because for the past years, her books have kept me whole. Here are twelve quotes that have truly left an impression.

1. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should."

2. "Sometimes things have to go wrong before they can go right."

3. "Life isn't finding shelter in the storm. It's about learning to dance in the rain."

4. "In your past lies your future."

5. "The strongest steel is forged in the fires of hell."

6. "Acheron always says that our scars are there to remind us of our pasts, of where we've been and what we've gone through. But that pain doesn't have to drive or determine our future. We can rise above it if we let ourselves. It's not easy, but nothing in life ever is."

7. "It’s easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their pasts, but you’d be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight. And more often than not, it’s lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul."

8. "Strange how you always remember the pain someone gave you, but seldom the hurt you caused them."

9. "There are some pains that run too deep for anything to absolve them. The best we can do is pick up the pieces and hope for the strength we need to keep going."

10 "How could one sentence uttered in anger cause so much damage? But then words were the most powerful thing in the universe. Cuts and bruises always healed, but words spoken in anger were most often permanent. They didn’t damage the body, they destroyed the spirit."

11. "How can anyone be afraid of love?" "How can they not?" When you love someone... truly love them, friend or lover, you lay your heart open to them. You give them a part of yourself that you give to no one else, and you let them inside a part of you that only they can hurt—you literally hand them the razor with a map of where to cut deepest and most painfully on your heart and soul. And when they do strike, it's crippling—like having your heart carved out. It leaves you naked and exposed, wondering what you did to make them want to hurt you so badly when all you did was love them. What is so wrong with you that no one can keep faith with you? That no one can love you? To have it happen once is bad enough... but to have it repeated? Who in their right mind would not be terrified of that?"

12. "You know, it’s amazing to me the wounds we carry for eternity. But what has fascinated me most these last few years is how the right person can heal them. I remember a wise man once said to me that everyone deserves to be loved. Even you." 

I Have a Happy Crush and it's a Wonderful Feeling... Sometimes

I have a law school happy crush and it's a wonderful feeling. When one has been badly scarred by a past relationship, and life in general, knowing you can still feel butterflies in your stomach is a wonder to behold. And it's amusing how a short conversation with a person you don't have much in common with can brighten up an entire day. Or cause uncontrollable reflexes like unconscious smiling and other tingly feelings.
But it's also embarrassing and nerve-wracking and scary.

It's embarrassing, because when you're attracted to someone, people can tell. Sometimes it's the more obvious signs, like they catch you looking at him when you have no business to. Or it can be more subtle, like that smile you can't seem to keep off your face, that tips people off that you may or may not be attracted to someone in the immediate vicinity.

It becomes nerve-wracking when teasing you becomes everyone's new past time. Even more so when they decide to take it upon themselves to "make it happen". Why? Because moving on to my third point...

It's scary because a happy crush is intended to remain a happy crush. But the more you spend time with the person, partly made possible by these friends who want to "make it happen", the more you risk falling in love.

And I don't need to fall in love right now. I crave it, sure. Strong as I believe myself to be, I remember how much more loved and self-assured and happy I was during the good times in my past relationship. That feeling is addictive, and try as I might I haven't totally rid myself of the hunger for it. Which is not just scary, it's terrifying.

Because what if, because of this terrible jonesing for a love-filled relationship, we mistake crushes for so much more, and in the end, become definitely crushed, broken to the point of no repair?

Selfish

Everyday I need to remind myself that ending everything is the most selfish thing I could do. That I am truly loved and death could only bring misery to the people for whom I have held on for this long. I need to do this every single morning. But sometimes, sometimes it's just too much of a chore. I don't know how much longer I can do this.

Dirty Business

Last April 2013 I posted this:

"To the forces that rule the universe I now make this promise, to churn out at least one completed piece per week. It need not be relevant, it need not be amazing. Right now I just need to get myself back on the writing bandwagon where I know I’ve always belonged. So help me, universe."

I cringe at my failure to comply with my basic promise.

How has life been? I'm happy to say, I have never felt so alive, while walking around like the dead most of the time. Welcome to the University of the Philippines College of Law.

Anyway, I've been trying to organize my thoughts for the last few hours, but it's hard to put into words all the strong feelings I've accumulated these past months, and in light of recent events (Tropical Storm Haiyan, or Typhoon Yolanda, the strongest storm in recorded history has decimated parts of the country merely a week ago), "strong" feelings seems to weak a word.

With that thought, I figured I'd just share the single essay I got to write this past semester. In verbatim, sans edits I found after submitting said paper. For your bashing pleasure.

DIRTY BUSINESS

In. Re. Atty. Dante B. Gatmaytan’s Professorial Chair in Law Lecture: House Rules (The Rule of Law after Reyes v. COMELEC)

There are three things that annoy me about common politics: It’s meddlesome, it’s dirty, and it’s counter-productive. I hold the same view on the propensity for gossip, election campaign periods and the exercise of divisive religion – but that’s a topic for another time. Personally, I’d much rather expend energy on being a good person, which already takes up so much time and effort.

 “Please, if you think a person can’t be political, don’t aspire to be a judge ever.”

Strictly speaking, Politics comes from the Greek word politika which loosely translates to “of, for or relating to citizens”. Merriam-Webster defines politics as the art or science of government, concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy, and consequently, with winning and holding control over a government. It’s a stretch, but the connection makes sense. Of note, law dictionaries rarely contain a definition of politics, and usually merely make reference to political questions. In our country, the personification of politics is a person, who is highly influential, entrenched in the government, is massively rich and usually corrupt. In other words, we have accepted the warped notion that a government SERVANT is one who puts himself above the needs of his constituents.

Still, I take exception to the professor’s statement that a political person should not become a judge. In my head there are three kinds of politics prevalent in the government system – party politics, loyalty politics and advocacy politics. The first two kinds can more collectively be known as common politics and should have no place in the Courts. As history and our current state of affairs show, nothing good can come from a Court filled with Justices who feel beholden to those who put them in power, or could keep them in power. Stewardship for the people is one thing, being a lapdog for a person (or group of persons) is another.

But in my opinion, a person engaged in advocacy politics is not necessarily bad for the Courts. To clarify, I think of such person as one who takes an active role in legitimate advocacies such as the rights of various marginalized sectors, reproductive health, environmental responsibility and the like. I say this because I think a person who genuinely supports such ideologies (versus those who cling to abstract partisan thoughts such as forms of government, party platforms or the lack thereof, etc.) may be more capable of putting the interests of the State above his or her own beliefs. I think that such kind of politics, when exercised in the proper venue (i.e. outside the court room) do not necessarily jeopardize a judge’s moral ascendancy. I hesitate to make such absolute statement however, because a judge’s responsibility is first and foremost to interpret and uphold the law, whatever the law may be, which may be difficult for someone who is narrow-minded. My point is simply, that not all people who engage in politics are bad. I say this while crossing my fingers in hoping that it will always be true.

On following the process for change in the Supreme Court

I strongly concur that any changes must adhere to the rules of procedure already in place. As was established during the lecture, the position of the Court in the minds of people is far from one of high regard (and I say this after spending a deliberate amount of time trying to come up with a way to make that statement diplomatic). Disobeying its own rules would easily further derogate the Judiciary from its current image into that of an impotent, inutile and unnecessary branch of government. Now, more than ever, the Court needs to send a message by setting an example and by being THE continuing example of adherence to the rule of law, which shouldn’t even be an issue if the members of the Court could only comply with their mandated duty as the sentinels tasked with protecting and interpreting the law.

Must change come from within the Court? I think not. I think that because some of the Justices are really old and set in their ways, change would be very difficult to initiate from within. I think change must come from the demands of honest, highly interested individuals outside the Supreme Court, who have a directly vested interest in a Judiciary that is respected and obeyed. I also believe that the proper forum for making this demand is not on the streets, disrupting economic activities and causing general upheaval and discomfort, but in a venue conducive to the exercise of rational discussion and argument.

On attacks from the media and the Legislature, and on opportunities for moral recovery

While I agree that the Reyes-Velasco clash and the PDAF controversy, when they finally reach the Supreme Court, are ample opportunities for redemption on a massive scale due to the media attention the hearings will definitely attract, I’d like to think that every case is an opportunity for moral recovery and, hopefully eventually, the alienation of political underpinnings attributed to the Court. I agree that only when the Court regains its moral ascendancy that it could come up with decisions that though unpopular are unquestioned.

In my perfect world, here’s an idea (which I intended to call radical but realized to be actually quite logical): Maybe we need to clean house in a grand manner. How about initiating impeachment proceedings against all Justices for whom there have been allegations of grounds for impeachment? We stroke the ego of the Legislature by giving them the chance to strike out at the justices they have a score to settle with, settle the question once and for all of who is and is not selling his soul to the devil, and free up seats in the highest court of the land. This would give us the chance to appoint Justices with iron-clad balls and ovaries who feel beholden to no one but the people and the rule of law. Of course, in my perfect world, the Judicial and Bar Council would be asking smart questions and the candidates would be dominated by apolitical people (or at most, those whose political inclinations are inclined only towards advocacy).

Side comment: On why I am upset.

Seven days a week, law students devote some of the best years of their lives immersed in mountains of cases. We skip work, we sometimes miss out on important family celebrations, and we skip sleep, forget to eat, and fail to indulge in other basic needs in hopes of complying with our academic requirements. We suffer through the occasional insult and character attacks not just of our professors and peers but also of the common man who looks at lawyers as cold, heartless beings out to make more money from those who have already been victimized. The least we could ask for is to be reading ponencias and dissents written by respectable individuals. Instead, we are reading decisions by some persons whose honesty are questionable, whose integrity are in doubt, and whose partiality are anything but; resolutions by a Court that has been caught with its pants down and holed underwear showing and at a loss for the proper response. The way things stand right now, how can I not be upset?