ink.somnia

thoughts of lost boy who's waiting to be found

[lost-icarus]

It was like being asked to choose between having you and eventually losing you, or never having you but also never losing you. And I made the choice I can live with. You were worth the risk, but a future without you was not.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #49 ‘things better left unsaid’

[lost-icarus]

And to love in silence is to suffer in silence. To devoid your love of voice is to hide and muffle the cries caused by the pain of a spiderweb-cracked heart.

b.c. //  a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #48

[lost-icarus]

You love for the sake of loving, and not for the hope that the love you give will be given back. Love was never a give-receive issue-- you love and you love and love. Even if that love is unnoticed. Even if that love is not reciprocated. Even if that love is not given back exactly as much as you have given. That, is the nature of love.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #47 ‘on love’

[lost-icarus]

I'm tired of crossing oceans for people who wouldn't even jump a puddle for me. I'm tired of trying so hard but never being worth the effort.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #46 ‘this time, i’m choosing me’

[lost-icarus]

journal entry no. 5 : on melancholic birthdays

as a kid, i always used to look forward to my birthday. it was the day i felt special, like a day was created just for me. used to. past tense.

maybe its the growing up that changed things. the things i used to look forward to, the things i used to become excited about... became the things i dreaded. like today.

its my birthday today. my 22nd. cue in taylor swift's lyrics immortalized by millenials every time they reach this age like its a fucking milestone. i don't know about you, but i'm feeling twenty-two.

what does twenty-two feel like anyway? yolo? reckless youth? take on the world? because to be honest, i don't feel like that. all i feel, well, all i've been feeling lately is dread and melancholy.

maybe its because my country was absolute shit in handling this pandemic that we've been on lockdown for nearing eight fucking months that the semblance of a normal life feels like a fucking mirage in the desert. or maybe because i'm in a low again. or a depressive spiral i'm twisting into.

i always imagined my 20s differently. parties every friday, hungover saturdays, random roadtrips to tagaytay or baguio, spontaneous la union vacations. guess, like i said in my last journal entry, i should stave off hoping in general. stop planning things ahead of time in my mind because i only get disappointed in the end.

deep sighs. it's my birthday but its hard to be happy about it. to be perfectly honest, every day its getting harder for feel excited or even content. every day its just more of the same existential dread and melancholy. i'm tired of being sad. and i'm tired of being tired. so where am i supposed to go from here on out?

[lost-icarus]

journal entry no. 4: on plans, pandemics, and existential dread

See, I had it all planned out. Get into a college far away from our quaint little town, rest a bit before heading into the concrete jungle capital, where I'd share an apartment with my best friend, have a flourishing love life, and get by with a job I wasn't sure I would love or hate while moonlighting doing the thing I loved most, writing. I'd try my hand at writing a full-fledged novel and get it published. If that didn't work, I'd get my masters degree instead. Or law. That part was still hazy.

See, I had it all planned out. And it was all going according to plan, sort of. I was already at the concrete jungle on the first steps as a full fledged adult, set to move into a shared apartment in a few months time. Then the pandemic happened. I never in a million years would've thought that I'd live in a time of a pandemic. I never would've thought I'd be forced to spend months voluntarily trapped inside the confines of a house, without human contact aside from my immediate family, working in a virtual environment rather than a posh office I had imagined. I never thought I'd fly back home just barely nine months since I left. I never thought the time of my life, the start of my adulting life, per se, would kick start only to be paused, put on hold, because of a virus.

See, I had it all planned out. And now it feels like I was surfer and 2020 was a wave that I thought I could ride then it collapses on top of me, sending me splashing, thrashing, drowning in the shallows. And I'm disoriented, rattled, and I don't know which way is up, or down, or what direction I can swim towards safety. It feels like I'm just underwater during a storm and the only direction I'm sure of is down, to the darkness, the abyss.

See, I had it all planned out. Move in with the best friend. Succumb to a 9-to-5 routine job. Get published or get my masters. Get the hell out of the country and take on the world. Full of hope. Full of promise.

See, I shouldn't have planned it all out. Because nothing ever really goes as planned, and now all I'm left with are broken plans, and an overwhelming sense of existential dread. I realized I can plan and replan and replan, visualize the future so much I can taste it, and the Universe can still find a way to suckerpunch me into oblivion.

And now... now, I'm just lost. Adrift. I don't even know what to feel. The first few months, I was optimistic and thought this would all blow over. Now, almost six months in lockdown, a new normal they liked to call it, I can't feel anything else but dread. There are times I find myself dreaming again, of those grandiose plans. And then reality bites me so hard out of my own head. My will to live, to exist, is getting depleted on a daily basis and I keep asking, "Is this it? Is this all that there is? Will this end? When?"

At some point, I'm reminded of a particular scene from Netflix's The Midnight Gospel, a show I had binged earlier in the pandemic. It had a quote that goes, "The moment you accept things as they are... you don't need to hope anymore. Because you realize that where you are is kinda okay."

And where I am... At home, with my family, intact, and still living. And I guess that's the best I could ever wish for. I won't say to look at the bright side, because that would just invalidate the work of the medical community who sacrificed lives to save countless others and the loss of millions of families of their loved ones.

I know it'll end someday. But that someday feels too hazy it's like a fever dream. But I guess that's life, eh? We get through what we need to get through because we need to.

[lost-icarus]

We all broke our rules for someone. Even if we had those rules set like lines in the sand, there will always be those people we make exceptions for.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i'll write someday #45

[lost-icarus]

“I love the rain.” But what you really mean is you love things that the rain is reminiscent of– sweater weather, and cuddling underneath the sheets, cups of hot chocolate or piping bowls of ramen, fuzzy blankets to ward off the cold and the light pitter-patter on the roof.  But you do not love the rain. You do not love the way the droplets of water fall from the sky, especially if it pours in sheets. You do not love the way the rain makes everything wet, like your favorite shoes or your bag, or the cute outfit you needed to cover up in a coat. You do not love the rain when it’s a downpour that makes rivers rise up higher than expected, and make the streets into canals that could put the ones in Venice to shame.  You say you love the rain, but you do not love it, not really. You love the idea of rainy days but despise rain as a force of nature. You are in love the idea of it, but not the reality of it. You do not love the rain.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #44

[lost-icarus]

god your writing is amazing. I'd buy your book in a heartbeat

Oh my god. I've been inactive so long because I thought my writing isn't being noticed, but then I see this. Thank you. You don't know how much this means to me. I'll write more. I promise.

[lost-icarus]

Love doesn't take hostages. It won't point a gun to your temple and ask for a ransom; it's a trigger-happy shooter who doesn't care who's in the crossfire and how much it'll hurt.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #43

[lost-icarus]

But loving someone is never a guarantee that they will love you back.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #42

[lost-icarus]

Is it possible to start feeling a deep nostalgia for a home you haven’t even left yet?

b.c. // thoughts about life #1: homesick

[lost-icarus]

journal entry no 3: on a great perhaps, leaving home, and temporary goodbyes

Tomorrow is the day that changes everything for me. A catalyst, of sorts; the fork in the road, a turning point; a major, however small, life-changing event. Tomorrow is the day I board an airplane and start to (try to) make a life for myself in a concrete jungle. I grew up in a small town. The early part of my life was spent in simplicity: staring at the seemingly never-ending rice fields, lush mountains in the far distance, on the way home; looking at the line where sea meets sky, wondering how far the other shore was whilst sitting beneath the shade of a coconut tree; falling asleep with the nocturnal symphonies of insects outside the window as a lullaby. This was the life I was used to. Despite our simple means of living, I was aware that a bigger world was out there. A world with buildings as tall as the sky, where the lights never seem to fall asleep, a world which seemed to pulse with life at every second, a chaotic sea of noise and light and lives. I always had said to myself: One day, I'd get to live like that. A small town boy with big city dreams. With that state of mind, I had always pushed how I can be able to explore beyond the borders of our province. Then college came, and the prospect was in front of me. Moving away for college, with the university a good six hour ride from my home, was supposed to be one of the hardest parts of my life. But I went to university with a handful of friends I went to high school with, so maybe the shock of a new environment and distance from family wasn't as hard as I expected. Especially since those friends eventually became my family away from family. But the city life I imagined I would be able to live was not the one I got in college. UP Visayas had two campuses in Iloilo: one in the city and one in the small, quaint little town of Miagao. My degree program was offered in the Miagao Campus, so my college environment wasn't as different as the environment I had grown up in, save for the fact of a different dialect and the occasional taste of the city when time and schoolwork allowed. My sunflower bloomed as I got my awaited Sablay last June. I graduated from university. I survived my degree, which I had almost thought was impossible. Now that I finished that milestone, the "real world" was waving at me, and my opportunities pointed to a future in a concrete jungle. To Manila. So I decided to pack my bags, and risk it. But this time is different. This time, I'll be going alone. Though I do have a handful of friends and family living in Manila, they have their own lives to deal with. And I have my own life to start dealing with. This time, I'll be riding an airplane and travelling thousands of miles. I can't simply ride a bus and survive a six-hour travel when I start feeling homesick anymore, not like what I did when I was in college. I can’t just simply book a plane ride or a ship on a whim because I miss home. This time, there'll be no home I can easily run back to. This time, "goodbye" starts meaning "until we see each other again in... a few months” rather than just “...a few days or weeks”. This time, the full weight of missing people would hang heavily on the heart. Am I ready? To chase and find that "great unknown", on my own? Alone, in a city where I barely know another soul? Would I survive? Would I thrive? I don't know, to be honest. And that uncertainty scares me. But that's a part of life, I guess. I have to live outside my comfort zone to truly grow and learn. And who knows? This can be an adventure. A journey. A hero's quest to find... whatever I'll find. Perhaps myself? Perhaps my purpose? I don't know what, specifically. But I do know this, "I go to seek a great Perhaps."

[lost-icarus]

And the fact that you loved me despite my insecurities amazed and scared me at the same time because all my life I thought I had to hide parts of me so that I can be loved.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #41

[lost-icarus]

Inside your embrace, I felt warmth and tenderness. And right then, I knew, you were my lighthouse in the middle of a stormy sea-- a safe harbor I know I can rely on in the middle of catastrophe.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #40 

[lost-icarus]

I can't promise that I'll always be the same person you fell in love with from the start; but I can promise that I'll always try to be a person you'll fall in love with over and over again, every single day.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #39 “of promises”

[lost-icarus]

Love is pounding chests and bright eyes. Love is falling, lifting, flying, spinning. Love is a language spoken and shared by two souls; a dialect older than song, than rhyme; older than time. Love is more than a feeling, more than an emotion, more than what a human mind can grasp. Love is a divine force, and mortals cannot comprehend nor tame nor completely understand it.  And love has no bounds nor limits; no labels nor definitions; no face nor race nor religion nor gender nor sexuality. Because all love is, is love. And that is all it ever needs to be.

b.c. // a snippet from a book i’ll write someday #38 ‘about love’