titles don't matter

okay, maybe they do. sometimes.

[sun-bern]

may 15, 2024

di na naman nakapasok 🥲

[sun-bern]

[sun-bern]

February 7, 2022

I am sick of writing for the academe. It is tiring to have your writing be constantly nitpicked by people and it took me four years to realize this. This is exactly why I am back on Tumblr. What if the only reason I am writing is because it means I've lived? What if I'm writing, not for the pleasure or clarity it gives to others but the pleasure and clarity it gives me?

It makes me feel like a cheat saying this; I took Creative Writing precisely to hear what to improve with my writing. And now, before graduation, I come here saying that I am sick of everyone commenting on my writing. Except it's true. The things I write for my majors are very personal things, and hearing comments about its structure or its musicality isn't really very pleasant most of the time.

And I feel guilty that I feel like this. I feel guilty that I am sick of criticism after four years wasting away on this program. But moreso, I feel weak. I feel weak for not craving to improve my 'work'. Why did I present myself as a writer when I am not ready for all the revisions that come hurtling with the responsibility?

At eighteen, was I supposed to know this when I made my decision? And is it okay that I am coming to terms with it now?

I am still finding my way back to loving writing, because I used to. I am on my way to graduating anyway, so maybe I'll figure things out after. Maybe I'll write for a living. But maybe it won't be about things I deeply care about. Then maybe, it would be easier to call it work. But right now, I have to find it in me to have fun writing again, because if I don't, I'd be setting myself up for a miserable life. Because I write to live. I'd be half a person without it.

[sun-bern]

February 6, 2022

Last night was the first night in days that I didn't have bad dreams. And I'm sure that it has something to do with hanging out with my boyfriend until I couldn't keep my eyes open. I'm sure it was because I was 'with' someone I loved before I fell away to sleep.

But the nights before, in my dreams, I watched myself be a terrible person. And in these dreams, I know I'm doing something bad and yet I do. Then, the sinking feeling comes in and I know I fucked my life up. I wake up crying—with hatred reserved for myself for choosing to do bad things.

Maybe it has something to do with the stars. But it does make me think that I am terrified of being a bad person. And I am scared of hurting the people I love the most for being a terrible person. I have an obsession with being good and I think about this all the time. And I am scared that if I slip, I will end up becoming a bad person, as if goodness is a skin I simply slip in for reputation. Except I don't understand why. Why do I think that when I am stripped away of everything, I will turn out to be a horrible, immoral, unethical person? I've never wanted to be. I have no urge to be. Heck, it makes me uncomfortable just thinking about crossing the street without using the pedestrian crossing.

Why am I scared that I will lose control and be a bad person as if I've been pretending to be good all along? I have no answers, but I do think I am a good person, so why bother about worrying I'm actually bad? I hated myself from my dreams, I didn't enjoy watching myself be irresponsible and bad and hurtful and reckless. But I'm still so scared to discover that maybe I am that. Despite never having met a part of me like that in real life.

I just want to be good. And I hope I really am good.

[sun-bern]

February 4, 2022

last night, i dreamt uncomfortable dreams.

they felt like nightmares packaged in candy wrapper.

and it felt like everybody knew, except me.

as if the world crumbles as soon as i turn another direction.

and now that i am awake, i wonder if it is the same. it has felt like that for two years now.

[sun-bern]

February 2, 2022

Yesterday, Ate and Kuya went to the grocery store to buy things we need for the house—coffee, creamer, pancake mix, Sprite etc. When they came home, they arrived carrying boxes with heaps of food and supplies. Our cupboard was filled with stacks of canned tuna, luncheon meat and corned beef. There were so many bags of chips in the biggest bags they came in. There was a package of dinner rolls. A large pack.

After dinner, I asked them what I should have for dessert. As if their input about this is the most important in the world. Ate tells me to eat Nutella on a dinner roll. We've never been able to afford Nutella until my kuya became an engineer and my ate became a doctor. I tell them, what dinner roll? Ate looks at me and says, don't you remember? When we were kids? I shake my head. They said we used to have it as kids, a luxury then that only our lolo could barely afford. I don't remember any of it. Maybe because lolo died when I was four, before my brain was equipped enough to store many memories.

Ate gets the dinner roll, tears one piece, eats it with Nutella. Kuya does the same. They practically jump out of joy. I do the same. The dinner roll was okay. But I understand. We were never able to afford nice things from the grocery, and when we did, it was from our lolo. When he passed, the best we could do was Best Foods's peanut butter on plain white bread.

To me, what still remains shocking is that we have Nutella at home. And lots of canned tuna. And Japanese mayo. And Queensland butter. How can we just have that? It felt impossible then. But we're here now. Because my ate and kuya have well-paying jobs that exploit them to no end (which is for another time).

What I'm saying is, we're not used to abundance and luxury. Everything lavish then at the grocery was either a birthday treat or a special thing we got if one of our relatives from the States visits. It was never just a regular item we put in our cart. And now, every time we shop, my ate and kuya would fill our cart with more than enough. Mom and I talk and say we don't need that much. But ate and kuya would keep doingg it, walking around the aisles, hunting for products we have never tried before. Fuck, they sometimes take us to S&R? That's absurd.

We aren't used to abundance. And so mom and I say we don't need it. And so my ate and kuya lean into it. Because we can. We finally can.

[sun-bern]

January 31, 2022

This feels like the longest month I have ever experienced. I got covid at the beginning of January, effectively canceling a lot of the plans I had for the remainder of my break. And when I got out of isolation, my brain was so fucked that I couldn't bring myself to do anything for days. My head was swimming in dread and anxiety and grief and I couldn't get rid of it. I never expected covid to be physically easy, but I didn't understand how mentally taxing it is when you get it. It feels like the world has ended and there's nothing you can do about it. It feels like you can never live the same way even when you get out of isolation. Your brain thinks that you will perpetually suffer. At least, that's what covid did to me. I've always been a worrier. And covid worsened that 10 times. But even now that my head's a little better, I still haven't been able to get back to my regular routine of being a person. It's been more difficult to wake up early, to work without dread, to do things I want to do. It's hard to set things for myself because there are still days when I return to just wanting to vanish, I come back to the apocalyptic feeling of having covid in isolation. It's much harsher that it happened in January, when I wanted to be better and to get my shit together, but most days now, all I do is survive the day. No quirky morning routine or a movie night to wrap up the day. Literally just getting through it. And it is frustrating. So terribly painful to want to do things and be better but feeling like I can't. It's been better but I wouldn't say I feel completely normal yet. But then I remember that I have to be kinder to myself if I want to feel like I'm healed. And being kinder to myself can be just letting me take it one day at a time. Because after all, if good things can't last forever, neither can bad things.

[sun-bern]

january 24, 2021

there doesn’t seem to be the right set of words to put together for what i’ve been feeling like the past few weeks. but if the universe is listening, thank you.

[loviely]

“Sometimes suffering is just suffering. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t build character. It only hurts.”

— Kate Jacobs (via quotemadness)

[showerthoughtsofficial]

Your mom finding her friend at a store is like unskippable cutscenes

[helpmemysisterisafreak]

The fucking worst is that as I get older i completly understand the interest to catch up an unreasonable long time because turns out adults just dont get enough time to hang with friends, so catch up next to the Aldi cheese aisle it is

[sun-bern]

Can we make a different world out of the same horrible rubble?

[sun-bern]

the noise creeps in silently, then loudly. it announces its presence when all its particles are gathered in the tiny room called your brain. then it tells you what to do what not to do what you never do what you think what you do not think what you would they what they would think. all at once. like the strong current of a river after the first heavy downpour in a while. you hear the crashing on the rocks. but nothing shatters. the water just breaks as the noise does. until everything goes back to normal.

[ps1]

[flowrr]

[12h51mn]

Retro phone booths transformed into goldfish aquariums by Kingyobu Osaka, Japan 2011

[sun-bern]

jan 7 2020

some days i am convinced that miracles are real. in the crevices of my body where i find the strength as i am bent in angles not human-like. crumpling on the floor like paper except i am soaking wet from tears. i do not remember when the rain started pouring.

miracles are found in days when i decide to get out of bed. when i refuse to let my head win when it says it's okay to isolate myself from the world until it forgets me. my head tells me that the world has forgotten me. and that maybe, it never really remembered me in the first place.

it is difficult to believe in miracles because most of the time, we are a stranger to it. we are only ever familiar with misery. but during days when we fish out from our pockets little miracles we never expected, we look up. we say thank you. then we live on.

[sun-bern]

january 5, 2020

i am afraid of a lot of things, one of them being forgetting anything and everything that has ever happened in my life. and that is why i document most things. all things. whether they matter in the grand scheme or not. i have to have a way to remember at least. i am convinced that most days, two twitters and two instagrams are enough. but now, i’m not so sure. when i’m on the timeline in whichever account, it floods. i post too much just for it to be difficult to find these posts in the long run.

i figured that tumblr is not the same. tumblr is safe. but more than that, tumblr gives me a way to categorize my experiences. or the things i think of. it’s easier to navigate on nostalgic days.

and i am allowed to format my posts more personally compared to other sites. and i am allowed to ramble more. because it’s just me. there’s so much comfort in that. i do have a journal but i cannot for the life of me, write that long irl. so here i am.

just for all that’s happening in my life - the big and the small, the victories and the losses.