May It Be - Enya

I miss Los Banos. Sunday afternoons and smooth jazz do this to you: wraps you in melancholic thoughts.

I miss Los Banos. It was my heaven, my escape from the world I am so used to living in. My two-year stay has been that epitome of wistful love, and no place has ever taken me as much as Los Banos.

In the back of my mind I knew I would not be destined to stay in Los Banos the rest of my life. I was there as a transient, I will move on to better and bigger things. If I hadn't left after two years, I still would have left after four years. I had always known that, but still, I loved Los Banos and wished that Los Banos would be my home forever.

It's like a summer romance. I know it's just for the short while, and real life will happen later on. But it did not stop me from falling as hard as I could, just as summer loves usually are.

Before, I found hard to imagine to live a life outside Los Banos, but I did. I stayed for four years in Diliman, and didn't look back. But when did I look back, simple glimpses (even through pictures) of my memories--SU Building, Humanities steps, my old dorm, Carabao Park, Vega, grove, ACCI field... they all remind me of those times I wished were forever. Time used to pass by very slowly but very quickly.

Reminiscing Los Banos is like remembering an old flame. I have moved on with my life, just as Los Banos has moved on. Everything is still the same in Los Banos, but I hardly recognize it anymore. Los Banos does not recognize me, too, I have moved on from that dreamy writer-to-be to become a researcher with everything almost in her grasp.

I always say that Los Banos is like a passionate lover, someone you want but would be completely impractical and impossible to love, because Los Banos, while passionate, is held within that time you met and will change. Los Banos is a first love, and everything changes since that first love. Diliman, on the other hand, is like the perfect life partner, someone who is ideal but does not have that flame that attracted you to Los Banos in the first place. Diliman will be with you forever, will provide for you, but will never be like that first love.

I miss those days when Los Banos molded me to dream, but also to be afraid. When it molded me to stay strong, to have ideals and goals in life. It made me someone whom Diliman would love.

I am currently cleaning out my room, my shelves, and our library at home. I am clearing out the space to make more space, for the future, perhaps. Readings, papers, reports, hand outs, reviews, every memorabilia of the one time I spent trying to cram knowledge into my brain.

It's a wonder that my past four years in Diliman equates to one box of trash.

I have difficulty letting go of them. I can't believe that I spent the past few years accumulating what I have accumulated, and still feel empty.

Empty.

It may be that my mind is still empty, even after all those years of studying.

Or that my heart just isn't into it.

Has my life become as meaningless as piles of garbage I have stored over the years?

Forgive me for my nostalgia. I look back at what I was before, and with disdain I look now at what I am. I do not think this is the kind of me I should be, I believe I could have done a lot more or been a lot different than what I do or am now.

I look back and realize how much enthusiasm I put into studying, but gradually it wilted away into emptiness. I go to class half-heartedly, sometimes without even a heart at all.

So now that I'm living my academic life, I'm living it for what? I need a purpose, a light, somehow.

I feel as if I walked astray. I want to walk back home to myself.

I find myself getting cooped up too much inside the house. My life revolves around UP and the home.

I need a new adventure. I would love to go beach camping (even during this cold season!) and learn wakeboarding. I'm thinking the beaches of Aurora or Quezon, somewhere in the northeast beaches. I would love to surf the Pacific! (It's always the South China Sea... I miss the Pacific...)

I want to camp on the beach and wake up to a Pacific rising sun.



Hmm. I don't know where or when I can go, though. But with a 6-unit class schedule and free days limited to our organization and to my thesis, I think I can squeeze in a beach road trip and relax for one weekend at least. I need to see the sun and feel the sand. I need surf and swim. Lie on the sand with summer tunes like the Beach Boys on the player, ah, bliss.

I love summers. I miss summers, even if they are so hot and humid. Gives me more excuses to shed clothes and go to the beach.



I need to get away from this place. I need something where I don't need to think. Being ass-burned-out doesn't help any in my responsibilities in my academics and extra-curriculars. I think the beach may be just what I need to feel refreshed.

I am extremely grateful for my tiger telling my ex to go away. I haven't tried anything much to keep him away, I just told him to leave me alone and to respect me enough to try not to contact me.

But he's still there. Sometimes I ignore it, but so many times it annoys me. It gets to me more than I would want to.

I was scared of what my tiger told him. But if it had to be done for it to stop, then so be it.

He has this way of protecting me, being the tough guy (as what he says, it's like those honey-go-wait-in-the-car moments because I probably don't want to witness it). But to me he's unbelievably tender and sweet. Quite frankly I haven't met someone who is as sweet as him.

With him I find what I want most in a man: security and commitment. Every guy can be passionate or romantic depending on how they show it, but he is someone I feel secure in, and someone who wants to be in the long run with me.

I sung my tiger to sleep last night. It felt magical, in a way, to be together but still not be together. If we are like this now, I wonder how we will be in several months. We would go crazy.

Everyday I fall more and more in love with him, if it is possible to happen.

I love you Jeremiah. Everyday is a day less until we will finally be together. Till then, I am here waiting.

Lately I've been getting a feeling of dread hovering above me, which is unusual since I'm known to be overly optimistic.

I can't comprehend the feeling, though I can relate to it, as I've been getting swingy--from extremely elated to mildy depressed in just about as quick as a snap of a finger.

I'm afraid, as the semester is nearing its end, and I still have lots to accomplish. I'm dreadful of the notion of not being able to do anything. Not just doing badly, but not doing anything at all. Do you get it? I don't. It's confusing.

I'm getting jetlagged but mostly it's because of my own choice. I sleep through the morning and get pepped up in the evenings, and I can't get over it.

It doesn't sound anything that I would do, but it also sounds like me getting ass-burned-out. I've been eating more than the usual too, and I'm gaining weight. I should watch what I eat lest I become a cow. This means something. But I don't know what.

When my head does get cleared enough for me to write what I've been feeling, I will. Or won't, as by that time I'll be the usual self that goes through the pains of everyday cheerfully smiling and not thinking of anything else but getting it done but still not writing about it. When I don't write it means I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm happy.

What's iffy in this is that the need to write only comes over me when I'm a bit bothered by something, when I'm terribly unsound, when I feel swingy or confused, or when I'm burned out. It's creepy to think I can't come up with anything good or worthwhile when I'm happy, because my head gets into silver-lined clouds and it fogs my own vision and makes me less creative than I really am.

When I do get something done, it's something I've labored over and over in my head before even starting it. It's neurotic. I have to argue with myself in my head before even standing up to do it.

I'm thinking if I should go to bed and get some rest or sit down at my desk and study. The first one is very appealing and completely easier to do. The latter is the responsibility and the one I should do since I know it's also easy but just need to get it done to do well in school.

I'm sure that if I just read a couple of chapters and take down a few notes I'd be able to pass--no, ace--this exam. But I lack the motivation.

I'm going back to bed and dream of sheep.