rose-colored boy

perennially sad individual.

[justkafka]

Japan - 2026

Never thought I’d actually end up visiting (with my family, no less!).

I enjoyed every bit of my trip and I’m hoping to visit again soon. Still can’t believe that I’ve been to two different countries in a span of 5 months. If you had told me 10 years ago that I’ll be able to do that, I’d probably scoff at the idea. Always grateful for the opportunity and privilege. Really made me realize how bad this country is tbh. Wish someday we’ll be like that.

[justkafka]

My head's been hurting quite more frequently these days. I'd hate to think there's something in my brain making it so other than my undiagnosed depression. The truth is I've been mulling over very difficult scenarios the past few weeks after a very fulfilling trip. I can't stop pushing these terrible thoughts even if I have every reason not to feel them. I feel like I'm constantly waiting for something good but it never comes and this disappointment seeps into the things I do every day.

I've been doing so well with all the lies I put in at work -- pretending that I'm doing what's needed of me and keeping up this facade with the most minimal output.

There's this fatigue that I can't seem to get rid of, but sometimes I think about the sun and the trees and I get a little bit better. I'm trying to keep that feeling to last longer.

It's my birthday tomorrow.

[justkafka]

Currently here at Ayala Triangle Gardens.

I love how I woke up this morning, went for a walk to have breakfast around Salcedo and then walked here to have another cup of coffee and people-watch.

There’s no sense of rush in me today as it’s a holiday in the UK so I basically don’t need to open ny laptop. I’m just taking a slow day and might even go out to watch a movie later after lunch.

I used to daydream having this much freedom while employed. Now I’m just hoping I get to do this more frequently while I’m in the metro.

[justkafka]

just random shots of Hong Kong.

i still have an album of more than 300 photos sitting inside my phone that i haven’t really gotten around to editing and posting. Tumblr seems to be the only place i don’t actually mind dumping them all since i basically have a limited reach amongst people i know irl hehe

[justkafka]

Postcards from Limasawa Island, Southern Leyte

We initially planned to go to Limasawa back in January before I went on my trip to Hong Kong, however, the recent popularity of the island made booking an available place to stay almost impossible. We opted to pre-book a couple of nights instead at Dakdak Beach Resort 3 months ahead of time since it was the only period available.

I tagged along with my sister and brother-in-law with their friends (whom my family has already grown fond of), and went on a 3 day-2 night stay at the island (including an overnight rest at Padre Burgos).

While many travelers from Manila would take over half a day to reach Limasawa, the 8+ hour drive from Eastern Samar was just as grueling. Luckily for me I had grown used to staying up well into the night so the travel didn't feel as bad. Still, stepping foot into the island one is immediately rewarded at just how beautiful and serene the place is.

We were lucky to be visiting the island the same time as the anniversary of the supposed first Catholic mass in Philippine soil (which Limasawa is famed for) as well as the start of Holy Week. Strangely though, the island didn't feel as hallowed as I expected it to be. Probably because of the multitude of other Christian denominations and churches present in the island.

Still, the community is as hospitable befitting an island of such renown and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the length of it.

[justkafka]

i had it in me earlier during my ride from tacloban back to borongan, an urge to scour old messages i had sent to a former friend, maybe lover, or more aptly, a stranger that i used to know.

the dates would sometimes surprise me. they seemed random, but if i remembered hard enough i could recall vivid details. cursed are the digital footprints that archive my myriad attempts at begging. by my count, i had sent roughly twenty-four messages, various iterations of "please don't end it like this, i'm sorry, i can be better" and by that same count, i received three replies. one of them a mistyped "im sorry."

much has been said about how the covid years wiped away half a decade’s worth of memories, yet the messages i found myself poring over (stretching from 2016 to 2017), made the decade feel loose and poorly stitched together.

patched, i think is the word that best describes it? mostly out of my poor vocabulary.

may 14, 2016, 9:48pm. somewhere in sampaloc, manila, i sent you seven messages asking to see you one more time.

the cause was the three messages you had sent earlier, at exactly 5:00pm, maybe around up diliman, saying you weren't sure where we were headed anymore. that staying was pain. that maybe i wasn’t worth going through it.

see, i'm not as good at remembering you as i am at remembering the pain. the begging. the endless pleading: to talk, to stay, to fight for another chance.

it is 10:47pm, march 6, 2026. i am in my bedroom in borongan, except this room has no real attachment to who i was ten years ago. not really.

still, whenever i find myself thinking about the times i almost gave everything up to be with you, your memory slips into the usual ramblings i have grown to detest.

so often i realise that the version of you in my head is different now. i do not picture a kind smile or a reassuring hand anymore, and i wonder if i will ever allow myself the reprieve that forgiveness offers.

i knew you to be kind and funny and frighteningly smart. you knew me more broken then, lost and out of place in a city too large for who i was.

i think i'll never get over the fact that i knew you so kind that remembering you still makes me cry.

still, i wonder if you ever think about me too.

[justkafka]

the gentle rain and mild breeze prompted me to open my bedroom window in the hopes that it'll set me in the right mood for work.

after clearing my desk hastily, i ended up slumped on my chair, watching the rain soak the papaya tree that has outdone the height of our house. there has been a constant cover of clouds today, with the occasional ray of sun slitting through and at very short intervals would give the surroundings a glint of golden glow.

while i slave away with the multitude of tasks i have ben putting off this week, a much needed break is one i want to get too. sure yesterday's holiday was a good respite, but i spent it at home doing close to nothing.

the week isn't even halfway done for me yet. god i want to break away from here.

[justkafka]

Empty Empty Empty

There are times when I'd stare at a blank piece of paper, or the flickering emptiness of a computer screen, trying to figure out what to write.

I often tell myself that it's normal to not know what it is I want to jot down, especially if it's simply for personal affectations; that whatever writer's block I have will fill itself and somehow, when the time is right, I'll be able to write again.

A few years on, and I still feel like the best of my writing hasn't fully recovered. Funny how the most contemplative piece of writing I've had in a long time is about me not knowing what to write.

But I guess, this isn't really about that. I started typing my thoughts because after scrolling through a myriad of TikToks, tweets, and random instagram posts, my head came to rest at the fact that I am constantly biding my time in the hopes that inspiration will kick in. I keep thinking about how I can't seem to pull myself out of a rut in terms of getting thoughts out. Even now, I'm supposed to still be working on a number of financial reports and analyses, but I'm taking a prolonged respite from numbers and data.

Maybe not to exaggerate myself a bit but I did end up working on Sunday night just to keep from sleeping early. Either way, my head's too full of otherworldly thoughts to occupy it simply with work.

I do think the timing for things lately hasn't been to the best of my advantage. I feel like I put on schedules at the wrong time or forget to place important details into my calendar because I get too comfortable not being busy.

The constant rain has been a solid companion for me though, as I've managed to still myself home after spending a couple of weeks vacationing off in Hong Kong and Manila. I didn't think I'd miss being back in my own room after only a short while. Nevertheless, I still feel a need to wander and have put a few destinations in mind for the year. Maybe I'll get lucky this time and get my UK visa approved and then I'll be off to London for the summer.

Still, I think aboiut the timing of things. I don't know if I just have to force myself to sit through my head thinking about all the loss I've had over the past year or two.

But as always, we carry on and move forward -- with shaking fists and holes in our hearts. I still remember learning that the void never gets filled, only that you grow enough around it so the hole doesn't feel as big.

[justkafka]

📍🇭🇰 Hong Kong Cultural Centre

Definitely one of the highlights of my very first trip abroad. I will definitely be coming back. Hong Kong, you have captured my heart.

[justkafka]

📍 Fame Residences

[justkafka]

Christmas has always been our family's favorite time of the year. We've always made it a point to celebrate the holidays, even if we had grown up financially challenged.

The past five years have been vastly different celebrating it inside our newly renovated home.

Now as we celebrate our first Christmas without dad, there is an obvious pang of emotional pain having to decorate the house without him.

The last time we celebrated together in this house was back in 2022. Now, as his death anniversary approaches, his absence is all the more felt.

Still, we celebrate his life in the ways we know best. As a deeply devout person, dad always centered our celebrations around God and the message of compassion for others and renewed hope that the holidays have always conveyed. This will still be our anchor for this year.

[justkafka]

The weather's been pretty hot today.

I started off this write up with a bit about the weather because even in social situations, or especially in social situations, when one has difficulty trying to come up with a topic to break the ice, the weather's the easiest thing everyone can relate to.

Now, my months-long hiatus from writing has fallen victim to this rut, this unimaginative attempt at starting back from where I last picked up. I could just take the easy way out and have an AI find me topics to discuss, but where's the fun in that? I remember I used to post incredibly detailed prose and mundane ramblings about my life solely because my brain was just filled with ideas. I didn't need another device to tell me what thoughts to think, or words to write, or memories to ponder. God, my nostalgia was incredibly efficient at churning out scenarios to write about.

While my writing has taken a bit of a backseat ride, seeing as I have been focusing on a myriad of things, I thought for over the past few days that I might find inspiration from other people. Now I know books will have a much better and more effective effect in inspiring me, but I was hoping to find more chunk-size essays or stories. Unfortunately I can't seem to find anything decent.

The Internet's vastness has been it's downfall too, I guess. Search rankings on Google simply churn out ad-driven corporate bullshit about topics I actually want to read. That or everyone else has simply turned to social media to write 140 (or 280 apparently) character stories that simply don't just do it for me.

I mean I could understand. Friends of mine who used to write countless essays have also gone radio silent. Just a couple of days ago, my best friend shared that the current political landscape has eroded her drive to write things she likes. She'll end up venting her frustrations over the corrupt undertakings of the admin to the point where her attempt at describing her quiet Sunday afternoon brunch had seem almost an afterthought.

Still, we continue to jot things down. Either through sheer will or stubbornness, we write what we can. Just as writers of centuries-old have done.

I'll probably end up writing this and find how sharply my skills have dropped from my 17 year old self, writing incredibly moving tales of his time in the big city. But we tread on against these thoughts anyway. Because words just..linger in ways that stain, not just paper pages, but something deeper, almost primitive. A tug on the heartstrings perhaps? Or maybe, just a simple need to vent.

[justkafka]

The past few months have left me feeling utterly lost. So much has happened in such a short span of time that, at times, I can’t help but wonder if any of it was real. It feels as though I’ve been swept up in a storm, unable to catch my breath long enough to fully process what’s been happening.

I’ve been caught between holding on to pieces of who I used to be and trying to understand the changes that have unfolded around me. Life has been moving too fast, and I feel like I’ve been moving too slow to keep up. Sometimes I find myself coming back to that scene in Fleabag, where she’s mourning her mother but instead I ask, “What do I do with all this grief?” What do I do with all of this? Where do I put it? It feels too big to manage, yet too present to ignore.

But the idea of sharing it, that feels just as overwhelming. How do you begin to share something so heavy, so consuming, without feeling like you’re burdening the people around you?

Looking back, I find myself piecing together a narrative that intertwines joy and struggle, growth and uncertainty. Life has been anything but stagnant, and as I sift through the events and emotions that have shaped this period, I realize just how much I’ve learned about myself, my priorities, and the people around me. At the heart of it all is a grief that feels impossible to put into words. Losing my dad has been the deepest loss I’ve ever endured, and the weight of it is something I carry with me every day.

When I think about the person I was a year ago, I find myself questioning if that version of me still exists, or if life has reshaped me into someone entirely new, someone I’m still trying to recognize. You get so used to heartbreak that you wonder if anything else is going to top that pain, and yet somehow it still finds a new way to break. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a clip from Midnight Gospel, where Duncan and his mom talk about her cancer and death. He asks near the end:

"You can't stop a heartbreak - what do you do about that?"

"You cry"

and sometimes it helps. And you start to think, maybe it helps because it's a distraction. Or that maybe, you don't get to go back to the way it was before all of this happened, so you grieve that part of yourself just as much as you grieve for a person.

I don't think I've ever written a eulogy, and I don't think these 3 posts count as such, but being back home in the house Dad built for us, I think fondly of an excerpt from a poem by Hakim Sanai, made popular by Del Toro's The Shape of Water:

"Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with your love. It humbles my heart, for you are everywhere."

[justkafka]

It's been 7 years.

Whenever Tacloban came to mind before, most people who were adept to Philippine history would either associate it with MacArthur's return or maybe picture the San Juanico Bridge.

But ever since November 8, 2013, the first thing that people would most likely talk about Tacloban would be the devastation brought about by Super Typhoon Yolanda (internationally named Haiyan).

Memories do fade when we choose not to go over them every once in a while, but every time the anniversary of the storm rolls around, I am transported back to the details of that horrible November day.

I can never erase the images of thousands of dead bodies on the streets, the creaking sound of the hospital roof being blown away by 195mph winds, the smell of rotting bodies, garbage, intertwining with my own sweat and blood. The awful feeling of dread and loss as my grandfather quietly died in my arms inside the hospital, with the gentle touch of the nurses telling us that we should move his body outside of the room we were staying in so as not to discomfort the other people who had seek refuge in the same room. These things don't easily fade from my memory.

The storm and the humanitarian distaster that came after brought about many personal changes. I left Tacloban to continue a semester of my studies in UP Diliman. I discovered how much I didn't know what it tuly was that I wanted to do. I became so much more aware of how difficult my living situation was and it affected me up until I graduated in UPVTC. Even now, remnants of the storm still pop up in my dreams.

Any news that involves storms always takes me back to Yolanda.

Tacloban is a different city now from what I remembered. There are still traces of the destruction and the ineptitude of our government to handle natural disasters are still a recurring nightmare.

7 years on, Yolanda's wrath may just be a memory to some, but for those of us who have felt head on the distaster, it is clear that the consequences of the storm are still very much a reality we try to overcome.

[justkafka]

In commemoration of the 11th anniversary of Super Typhoon Yolanda’s onslaught, here’s a post I wrote a year ago. I still find it hard to write about experience but maybe soon I might just be able to.

For now, we must claim justice for all victims of climate-related disasters exacerbated by human greed.

[justkafka]

September

The past few months have been difficult — with my dad being at the hospital and work drama starting to take a toll, I’m glad I was able to take a break and fly back to Borongan for a quick visit for the town fiesta.

It was a nice trip, and even tho my parents weren’t there for the first time, I’m glad my aunt, sister and brother in law, along with all their friends were able to lend a hand to make this a memorable one.

Seeing the house and all the things that make it a home during the morning light was a really calming experience and still feels surreal knowing this is where I can go home to.

[justkafka]

Comfort has been hard to come by for me these past couple of months. Reflecting on everything that has happened since I last put my thoughts into words, it feels as if I have lived two completely different lives.

I've been striving to not let these emotions hinder my search for that elusive feeling of comfort, but it seems the universe truly has it in for me.

Let me explain: I am in a relatively fragile stage of my life right now, transitioning into a new chapter. I moved into an apartment by myself, a feat I haven't undertaken in over eight years of living in the metro. I impulsively left a well-paying job at a prestigious company because my depression and anxiety got the better of me. Now, I find myself at a new company whose business I have yet to fully understand, even after being there for over two months.

There have been many changes in my life recently, and the fact that they all happened in such a short span of time has left me reeling. I still have difficulty finding my rhythm. Simple tasks overwhelm me, and I feel lost and incapable of handling them. The thought of living like this for the next few months is unbearable. I keep thinking about future plans and what's next for me, whatever it is I hope to find or gain by living alone.

In the past few weeks, I've confided in strangers through attempts at getting back into the dating pool, seeking comfort through relationships (perhaps not even romantic ones). But it seems futile and more of a red flag for them. As I'm still in the early stages of this transition, I indulge myself in fantasies about finding a partner. It might seem desperate and craving for love and affection, but I cannot mask this fact—I am lonely, and sometimes the comfort I seek seems to come in the swift warmth of a naked body, soon to leave in the morning.

Perhaps I'm forcing all these changes to happen too quickly, maybe I've grown weary of lengthy conversations when all I want is for somebody to say, "Take me, I am yours to devour, my body craves you just as much." Yet, this melancholy washes over me often, and I wonder why I even bother.

I huddle myself in the corner of my bed, alone in this dingy apartment, cradling lonely thoughts and empty memories, trying to feel whatever warmth is left in my sheets. Comfort still eludes me.

[justkafka]

Setting My Affairs In Order

I am terrified of what I am going to do. I don’t know just how much I can take anymore so I’m setting my my plans clearly. But in all honesty, I don’t think it’ll ever be clear. I just want things to be over.

I had thought that I’ll be able to rid myself of all stress by Thursday. But a stroke of luck saved me a little - almost as if it were a sign not to move forward with my plans. So I shelved it for now.

But lately, my head has been running amok with all these thoughts. I can’t seem to stop myself from spiraling. In my head I see myself becoming free from all these if I just end it all. And so I fear that that might just be my ticket out of here.

I am terrified. Extremely terrified. I’ve had thoughts like these for years and yet I never really followed through. I could get myself a few short weeks of reprieve or maybe even delay it just until I’m completely in my own place but…I don’t know if I can last that long.

Nothing is ever going to make things right. And so I must end it all here. What a strange way. I’ve always thought I’d go out on my own terms. Funny how even in death the universe finds a way to deal me a bad hand.