Letter to a Friend

at this point, T, this sharing of ideas and beliefs with you is enough. do you know i actually get a lot of the romance -- men coming on to me strong at first, but who fizzle out fast when i insist on just friendship first?

in a way, it has become my litmus test in my own journey and search for true love. i am tired of sweet nothings and empty promises. i want the real thing, the kind that endures and is unrelenting, bigger than any and all challenges put together that may assail us or either of us, when i do find somebody to have an "us" with.

i am reading a book, "Getting It Right At Last", something about getting out of love addiction. the book's main point is there are two different things: being in love and being in a loving relationship. love addicts tend to get trapped in repeating the first over and over with different people, but never even know what the second is like.

that sounds a lot like me. at this point in my life, i am backing off and looking inward and upward, just observing my life as it unfolds and the kind of men i attract, particularly when it comes to my lovelife. and so far, this i have observed: my tendency to fall for exciting but unavailable/unreliable/even abusive men.

the book says it all goes back to unmet childhood needs, and i guess it is true. my father is basically like that and whatever "love" i got from him , i had to earn with being a good girl and being the best student i could be with honors, awards, etc. i am still struggling with feeling comfortable about receiving love from anybody, just for being me, without earning it in some way.

so what im trying to say is i am at a point in my life where i need to get out of this "addiction" if that's what's im really into. maybe you are the best person to talk to about this because you can definitely relate with addiction! heehee.

i am at that point where i see now the harm and uselessness of my addiction and trying to wean my self away from it, but at the same time, i am still so vulnerable. then, too, the alternative -- meeting available and kind men -- seems still so bland and boring if not distasteful, at this point anyway. so i have a long way to go huh, before i can have a really loving relationship at last.

which leads me to my answer to your question i guess: about doing vs. being. i believe in being first, then doing. i believe in transforming and raising one's consciousness to the level which makes it "natural" for what one wants to just "fall" into one's life, and then when one has attained the consciousness, to help it along with doing. because if one started by doing first without being, there will be resistance everywhere.

for example, with your job and graduate school rejections, i want to ask if you also asked them why they "rejected" your applications (not you, mind you)? was it something you said, wrote, or the way you projected your self to them that turned them off? like if you go around thinking like a failure and looking like a failure and a slob ( if you thought like one, you're bound to look like one), if you were them, would you hire somebody who projected that image?

frankly, i can't believe why they would not accept your applications. you are a good person with a good mind and very good communication skills. so the only thing left for me to think about is maybe you are not impressing them with your packaging that's all. please don't go huffing and puffing on about it's what's inside that counts. i believe that too; in fact we are one of the few who go more for the inner stuff than the outer.

but in a superficial world with superficial people, i think that since we're smarter, we have to humor them by giving them the appropriate packaging that they expect and impresses them so much, that they forget about the substance. and then when we've got our foot in the door, we further amaze them with our inner stuff.

that's how i see it.

That Ache

sometimes, it catches me by surprise. if i had physical balls, i could say it grabs me by the balls.

today, at noon, i suddenly felt weepy and i didn't know why. a wave of terrible loneliness and pain washed over me and i felt like crumpling down in tears. and i was in the middle of a top administrative meeting!

then a colleague and friend who was sitting beside me leaned over to look at my notes, and my god, how i ached from the gut and belly!

that manly scent, his skin brushing against my arm, that deep masculine voice speaking to me softly in an innocent conspiratorial whisper -- they all confluenced to grip me so hard i hyperventilated, both in extreme longing and frustration.

driving home for lunch, i suddenly gave in and cried. i remembered it has been sooo long, 9 months and 6 days to be exact. and i wept for what i missed, what i have been missing, and wondered how long i could go on still without it.

i ran through the admirers ive been keeping at bay: who? which one? when? should i just give in now for the heck of it?

one recent admirer's words kept ringing in my ear: "I was not trying to make an offer for physical contact with you, just trying to suggest that I think you are capable of learning and growing and not falling back into the old routines. I really hope that you can find someone you can have that with and to be happy, even if it ends too soon."

that jarred me back -- "if it ends too soon."

why should it have to end too soon if something meaningful and substantial is what we say we both want?

and then it hit me -- he is the same with all the rest, so far. no matter what is said or promised, it all comes down to one thing they want from me: temporary pleasures at the least inconvenience.

i want to have it all and i can give it all, for the long haul.

what is so wrong with requiring as much as what i'm willing to give, and not settling for less?

if suffering my temporary aches is the cost of saving my self for something good and real and lasting, so be it.

a simple truth

in the many
little gaps and silences
of my days,
nights,
weeks,
months,
years

that i try to fill--
with work, wit, ideas
and even
up-and-down little loves--

a simple truth remains:

you, the one i truly love;
you, the one i want to build a life with;
you, the one i cannot have.

Good

okay, okay, after that initial dumping with "Bad", there's a germ of a future yet for me.

the same yahoo personals relationship results say that with all the good things i am, i should focus on finding men who are available and kind, and stop wasting my time on men who may excite me but who are not really there for me and not kind to my spirit and my esteem.

sigh.

except that right now, the available and kind ones i see around me also bore me to death with their niceness.

somebody attractive and independent and who's his own man, but available and kind. somebody with a good heart.

tough order, Universe, but serve him up! i'm up to the challenge.

Bad

i just finished this very long relationship test at yahoo personals, and the results should make me feel good -- it says im basically very good with people and showing empathy and compassion and have excellent communication skills -- but it does not.

it also says i am too trusting and naive and open when i shouldn't be, that im an eager pleaser (ouch!) especially when it comes to my men, and that my high sexual drive is a double-edged sword because although i want both romance and sex, my appetite for the latter too soon in a potential relationship sacrifices the blossoming of the former.

:(

so what should i be now huh?

right now, i just want to live like a hermit and a nun and shun any and all that has anything to do with men, love and romance!

hmp.

Inward Trip

this always happens to me every time i take a trip away from home.

i come back more conscious of how my present life is being lived; it's like im an observer and visitor to my own life.

it takes a while getting used to my life here in Bacolod again. even if i have physically arrived, my consciousness still retains the level and quality of the one i've reached in the place i've travelled to. i seem to imbibe the very aura of a place when i go to it even for a day or two; i am very sensitive to nuances in culture this way.

like right now, i see my children and i feel how blessed and thankful i am that they are there in my life. i see my home with them, my books, our things and i see how simple yet so rich my life is. i see my paperwork that reminds me of my work and friends at school and my career and i see how lucky i am to be doing the kind of work that i'm not only very good at but which i also love to do. i see the simplicity and integrity of it all-- my children, my home, my things, my work, my friends, my life -- and i wonder why i make it so complicated sometimes by my periodic ups and downs and angst about my so-called lovelife. it will happen-- true love-- in it's own perfect time. why torture my self needlessly with false ones?

a while ago, my two younger kids were quarreling and the noise rose to a din but i ignored it, feeling immune to it all, thinking "it's their business, let them settle it themselves", and i wondered why many times i let my self get sucked into their little wars and exhaust my self further by trying to make all things right for every body, when they can very well get along fine without me having to say or do a thing.

i watch and see everything, both the outer things and the inner ones-- what is there in my life and how i feel and think about them. and then it all comes down to the "re-realization":

i am me in my mind and heart. that is the real me. all the things out there are creations of the me i have been, so far. and if i don't like them, i only have to change the kind of me i am in my mind and heart, and the outer things will follow.

In Hiding Again

i have been in going-inside-myself mode lately. net friends can see that from my yahoo and msn profiles which are not so open anymore.

i have this imaginary conversation with an imaginary friend going on inside my head:

friend: what happened to your profiles? i don't see your personal website and your blogsite addresses anymore! and what's that white butterfly picture doing there?

me: im hiding.

friend: hiding??? from whom? why???

me: from perverts in the net, maybe. from screwed-up people who just lie and cheat and sweet talk their way into your heart and life, i guess.

me: i'm not giving them any "ammunition" anymore to use against me to screw me! i should have learned that the first time, huh.

friend: yeah.

friend: i hate saying "i told you so".

me: i know. me too.

friend: yeah. ... i think i know now what that white butterfly means...

me: yeah. thanks.

friend: (HUGGG!!!)

War and Peace

i never noticed it when i decided to buy the book at the airport; i only realized the irony of it all as i was already reading the book!

today, on my flight back home, while waiting for my flight to be called, i browsed through the airport bookshop and came across a newsprint annotated version of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". i had a whiteprint translated-from-the-original one years ago which i only read halfway through before i gave it to my brother who was joining the army. still, the half-a-book's worth of lessons served me well during the tempestous legal negotiation process with my ex after i left my marriage.

the irony is-- i am going home after a very rich weekend spent with likeminded colleagues and newfound friends at the Pax Christi Pilipinas first national general assembly! Pax. Christi. Peace of Christ. a movement for peace, for a better, more humane, more just world.

: )

sometimes i trip my self up. my conscious self does one thing, then my subconscious self does the opposite. heehee.

but it is not as polarized at it appears. maybe i need to learn the art of war to achieve the ways of peace too.

and reading the foreword and first few pages of "The Art of War" affirms that insight:

"Civilization might have been spared much of the damage suffered in the world wars of this century if the influence of Clausewitz's monumental tomes On War, which moulded European military thought in the era preceding the First World War, had been blended with and balanced by a knowledge of Sun Tzu's exposition on The Art of War. Sun Tzu's realism and moderation form a contrast to Clausewitz's tendency to emphasize the logical ideal and 'the absolute', which his disciples caught on to in developing the theory and practice of 'total war' beyond all bounds of sense.

... (Sun Tzu) believed that the skilful strategist should be able to subdue the enemy's army without engaging it, to take his cities without laying siege to them, and to overthrow his State without bloodying swords. ... (for he) considered the moral, intellectual, and circumstantial elements of war to be more important than the physical...

(Sun Tzu) did not conceive war in terms of slaughter and destruction; to take all intact, or as nearly intact as possible, was the proper objective of strategy."

*****

our general assembly was capped by a very honest and very touching talk by a priest based in Mindanao, of how the long-standing armed conflict between Filipino Muslim separatists and the government has caused so much suffering to thousands of men, women and children, and how this environment of "periodic war" (you learn to expect the wars almost like you expect the changing of the seasons) is creating a generation of children who see the world without anymore the innocence and trust and natural goodness one expects of children in otherwise "normal" and peaceful environments.

Father Bert's sharing caused lumps in my throat and tears to well up many times, because his sharing was not so much of teaching concepts but of telling the stories of the lives of the every day people he lives with and ministers to. (at one particularly heartbreaking point, i decided that someday somehow, i will try to get these stories out into the "mainstream" of public consciousness in the series of more children's stories i am still creating in my head.)

anyway, the whole point of the talk is that the idea of authentic reconciliation is a heartwrenching struggle, but then there is also hope.

i learned that, for authentic reconciliation to take place, the following must happen:

1. sincere, honest, open truth telling of personal stories (why one did what one did, what one felt because of what the other did)
2. repentance
3. forgiveness
4. restoration (and transformation) of the relationship

i asked some questions of the good Father:

1. what happens if despite one's efforts to tell one's truth, the other does not?
2. what happens if there is no repentance?
3. why is our court/legal/institutional/administrative arbitration/mediation systems structured in such a way that the questions asked do not encourage truth telling from the heart, but "truth" telling in terms of fact reporting, how many evidences one can present of one's innocence and the other's guilt, etc.? does not the system itself contribute to an atmosphere of war rather than of authentic reconciliation and peace?

there wasn't as much pat answers that i got as suggestions of how peace workers have been doing it in Mindanao so far, and more sharing and more thoughts for reflection. the good Father said, "it's all a struggle, both personal and communal, among us peacemakers. but the whole point is that there are alternatives to what we have been accustomed to in resolving conflicts. conflict is a necesary part of life and change. but conflict does not always necessarily mean that the only way of resolving it is through war."

and i learned about the concepts of retaliatory justice (what we have been accustomed to, how our bureaucratic and penal system is set up for) versus restorative justice (the kind of justice that not only sets things right, but heals brokenness... of individuals, of relationships, of communities.)

oh, so many questions...!

my mind is exploding.

Short Trip

today i leave for manila by boat for the Pax Christi general assembly. it's going to be a short trip. i'll be back on the first early morning flight by sunday.

funny that i have only P100 pesos to bring with me on the trip. my sponsors said all my accommodation, meals and transportation needs will be taken care of anyway and a colleague and friend who's going with me on the trip offered to lend me funds in case i'd need more. heehee still living on God's grace and people's goodwill and generosity, after all this time!

but look at the places i've gone to even with lack of my own material resources -- the key cities in our country (this year alone this is my third trip to manila and have made two trips to iloilo), and even Hungary and Romania in 2001!

as with all my trips, i look forward to this one again. it's a chance to get away from my usual life here and just be my self, take care of my self, without being responsible for others. it's a chance to connect more closely too, with likeminded colleagues and new friends, and explore new adventures, even for just a while.

i hope to be further renewed again by this trip, like travelling always does for me.

God take care of my children and all the things i am leaving behind, as i go on this short outer and inner journey again!

Goals Set Directions

i just came in from a visioning congress where i was a volunteer main documentor. the keynote speaker was our country's top senator, a young man in his early 40s who's loved and respected for his integrity, intelligence and performance in business and government service.

since i was the one solely responsible for transcribing his extemporaneous speech, i think i absorbed almost all of his words and ideas. what struck me most was his example on how our province, in 1986, had a GDP which was 85% dependent on our sugar-based economy; and how now, 18 years later, our province's GDP is still 85% dependent on our sugar-based economy. no wonder we can't get out of our economic rut, sugar now being a sunset commodity in the global market.

the senator exhorted setting specific measurable directions that veered away from sugar dependence. he said, pick a figure and pick a timetable, any figure and date will be correct. what is important is you decide on a goal. that goal changes your direction. any decision that comes afterward becomes subsumed to whether it supports that goal or not.

this made me think about my life.

it's been 2 1/2 years since i left a horribly sick marriage, and so far i've been doing quite well, in fact, better than most people who have left their marriages/been left in their marriages, other people told me.

i have done my emotional work of healing and growing and becoming more mature in many ways, i have forgiven the ex and the past and am now starting to move on, i am doing work i love to do and my career is thriving, my kids are doing really okay growing wiser and stronger in character without losing their basic innocence, all that's left is finetuning my financial security and stability so i can really move on with taking care of my self and my own without having to be so economically vulnerable.

i remember now some goals ive set for my self for when im 40, which will be in 4 years. basically those goals mean achieving economic stability and security as i steer my career towards doing more of the work i love to do and am best at -- writing, speaking and connecting with people, traveling.

although ive always hoped and wished for somebody special to share my life with, i just realized that i've never really made it into a conscious goal. i actually see my self flourishing independently on my own for a while, before i settle down again to commit to another and build a life with another, at around 40.

so why have i been bashing my self lately over experiences which are not even part of my overall personal life plan for a while?

maybe it's just the feeling of loneliness sometimes, and being so different from everybody else i know, and the deep longing to connect with someone and share my life intimately with that someone for the long haul. sometimes, it's just the feeling of being so alone, so besieged by life and feeling overwhelmed from being the one solely responsible for three young individuals in my care.

those are the times when i really long for somebody to talk with, somebody to carry the load for a while as i rest and renew my self, somebody to share my joys and pains and fears with, and be understood and loved and accepted and cherished by, just as i am, somebody to hug me and hold my hand and tell me that i'm good, i'm doing okay, that everything will turn out okay after all. it is scary and lonely being alone sometimes and seeing everybody else with somebodies of their own, you know.

but then looking at my self and my needs and my goals again, do i really want that now? am i really ready for it now? or are the few precious friendships i have enough to satisfy the need for companionship and comradeship, for now?

i am beginning to suspect that the real answers to those questions above are a no, a no, and a yes. just basing on my internal feeling of readiness.

i never dated before i met and married my ex, so i guess i must've just been making up for lost time learning and exploring the world of life, "love" and men these past 2 1/2 years or so, mostly from a safe distance, here on the net. with all the adventures and misadventures i've had, i am glad it's only been on the net! ; > at least no permanent harm has been done to me bodily or to my reputation!!! heehee.

but oh how i have grown, and oh how i have learned! (this will require another separate blog... hmmm)

maybe for now, where and how i am now is actually best for me, that i am exactly where and how i meant my self to be.

life has meaning for me now (since the sep actually) because i am handcrafting my life the way i want it crafted, on my own terms, in my own time. it's a difficult but rich life. and im getting there, to that place i mean for my self to be.

so stop bashing your self and pulling your self down by paying too much attention to short-term disappointments which might even actually be helping you towards your long term goals, dear heart.

as Rainier Maria Rilke once said, "be patient towards all that is unsolved in your heart... try to love the questions themselves... for someday you will most likely stumble along into the answers", when you're ready for them, and when it's time.

Little Blessings

kolzen's virtual friendly support started it all.

after i went back to sleep, my 6-year-old son sleepily turned to hug me tight and mumble, "you are the best, mom!" :)

when i woke up in the morning, although i was still feeling groggy and tempted to call in sick from work, i forced my self to get up, shower and look not only my usual good, but gorgeous best. that dash of very, very red lipstick (i call it my war paint) sent me off in more upbeat spirits for the day. :D

i am lucky i work in an environment where there are many people who greet each other with a nod or a smile in corridors. getting to my office nodding and smiling to so many students and colleagues made me start to think that THIS is my real life and that other life which caused so many depressing blogs is the unreal one!

in between classes, while checking email, even my astroscopes agreed with my more positive mood:

from Astrocenter.com - So much affection could be expressed towards you today that you might want to pinch yourself and see if you're really awake. Don't think this way - you've earned it!

from Astronet.com - The turmoil and drama of recent events will fade, and your life will suddenly be grounded, stable and secure. There. Now take a deep breath, pat yourself on the back and allow yourself to enjoy what you've accomplished.

amazingly accurate, huh??? ;D

the rest of my day yesterday went on with me in better spirits. accomplishing a lot at work and feeling perked up by my lively and affectionate interactions with my students helped to dispel the last of the dark clouds from the days before.

in the evening, an old old trusted friend and i chatted, and it was comforting being surrounded by a good friend's steadfast cherishing all over again, reminding me of all the good things i am and all the good things i have in my life.

today, another old friend cared enough to scold me offline, telling me he read my blogs (so he's been visiting my profile!) and "to stop the drama, i am too intelligent, etc." hahaa, okay T, even in your gruffness i sense the affection still. thank you.

needless to say--
i am back.

hello again, world! : D

A Pleasant Little Surprise

so there actually exists not-too-self-absorbed life in this Blog Planet!

after sleeping almost all day yesterday -- well sleeping and weeping (blush, blush!) -- i woke up at 2 a.m. to log on and just check mail and reread my blogs again.

i was pleasantly surprised to see 2 comments on my latest blog posted. it's a nice, warm feeling, for one's existence to be acknowledged, at least. and i think kolzen is very kind, to get out of his way to read all my blogs and even link my blog to his site.

because frankly, last night, i was even starting to think of how it would feel like to just go to sleep and never wake up again! :( ... except that i fell asleep as the thought was just being formed. (see how soul weary i am! i can't even finish a suicidal thought ... )

from one human being to another, thank you, kolzen!

M

i cried so hard while watching "The Notebook". it brought back memories of my own kind of "love that awakens the soul."

he is everything i wish for, and everything i wish he weren't.

he challenges my mind, draws dark whorls in my heart and brings them up to the light for clarity, understanding and healing; he calls my bluffs and won't suffer any of my nonsense, yet he is the quickest to understand why i put on the nonsense in the first place.

we have the biggest fights, but i am learning now that the deepest kinds of loves bring that on, need them in fact, and can withstand them anyhow. i have stopped counting the times i've decided i'm done and over with him, that i'm moving on. he keeps coming back.

and when he's taking so long, i am the one who comes back.

his bluntness and hardheadedness smacks right into my brutal honesty and stubborness. he calls me his personal mental laundromat; i call him my personal emotional vacuum cleaner. but in the end, he is good for my soul.

he makes me see the falseness in my self and all around me, and he helps me become my truer me.

when the world distracts me too much, and i get lost in my own little detours and misadventures, i come back to him for a much needed sitting down and talking to; he is both my lighthouse and roadmap.

he puts me in touch with my deepest loves, fears and passions; and because of this connection, he puts me in touch with my writing again, over and over, when i have forgotten how to write from the heart and soul.

he is my perfect match,
except for one thing --

he is already married to another.

This Weblogging Thing

this is the first time in my life ever where i've made my very private thoughts and feelings public.

i've been writing on my personal journals since i was 13; i have like around 23 volumes now, more or less one volume for each year of my life since then.

a year or so ago, i came across blogger.com, and once or twice, friends have actually sent me links to their own blogs. but it always struck me as an exercise in public laundering of private joys and pains, a waste of precious web resources (who actually bothers to read them all???), a narcissistic form of telling one's self how good one is -- well at least, that's how the blogs ive read so far (and still read) sound like to me. i even read one blog by a student who had nothing else to write about but cataloguing what he did since he woke up, minute by minute!

but i should know better. me, who has kept at HANDWRITING in private journals for 23 years!

more than anything else, journal writing in any form helps you reclaim your self, discover and maintain your own voice, find out who you are and are not, even if the writing output is initially about seemingly trivial concerns. journal writing is actually the most seditious act there is, i've always believed.

but writing on my blogs now have an added benefit: as a writer now seriously intent on improving her craft, blogging -- because of its very public nature -- necessarily forces one to think and write in a more disciplined manner, even in just the kind of words and grammar used. you cannot afford to be sloppy with words and grammar when you know somebody else MIGHT read you; it is like a personal writing workshop at the same time.

i know, i still have a long way to go. i do not actually stop every time and edit my self; that would hamper the whole creative and free process of journaling. but from time to time, after i've produced a blog, i go back to it a few more times and i notice writing errors and inconsistencies, so i improve them as i go along.

i explained to a new friend what writing is for me-- a way of talking to my self, to keep my own voice alive. and i liked his comeback: "so you talk to your self, too, huh? be careful! some people might try to sedate you!"

and that's the point of it all-- to keep from being sedated, whether journal handwriting or this weblogging thing.

Do-It-Myself Stress Debriefing

ive been acting strange these days; not at all the usual cheerful, can-do, Pollyana-ish me.

suddenly, i am always tired and sleepy... and weepy. i feel like i'm a big walking gaping wound; somebody brushes me accidentally, i might just bleed over all over again. i even feel unsexual, when im normally feeling sexy and naughty, even with just my own company. :(

so earlier at 4 a.m. this morning, after a bathroom break, i logged on and checked out "post traumatic stress" in google.

i guess i exhibit a lot of the symptoms--

emotions of guilt and self-blame, insecurity about one's self-worth, bleak feelings about the future, social withdrawal... cognitive experiences of intense self-doubt, inability to concentrate on even minor tasks, feeling extremely tired and sleepy yet waking up at odd hours, eating erratically...

and the suggestions for self-help i'm trying to do now too--

self care, lots of it: lots of sleep and rest, healthy eating and exercise (well, i haven't gotten around to resuming my looong nature walks yet), doing things ive always loved to do again (like reading and writing and watching films), even indulging my self for a spa massage and some beauty-parlor pampering...

but it all feels like a steep uphill climb, still.

right now, i just want to disappear into the pavement cracks or be blown away like smoke, naturally disintegrating, being one with the earth yet being no one at all.

shit.

those two months with the pedophile must have really meant something huh. for a while, long-buried hopes and dreams were reborn again, and i was starting to ease into trust again...

oh shit. why do i get my self into traps like these?

why do i fall for the wrong people?

sometimes i wish i had no heart. like most people seem to be.

Mirroring Me

reading and re-reading the four blogs i posted yesterday is starting to feel like reading somebody else.

and right now, although this somebody else amuses me and amazes me with her funniness and fire and spirit despite all that has happened in her life, i also sense a running thread coursing through her four blogs so far--

is it anger? but anger disguised as wit and sarcasm?

where does the anger come from?

pain. deepseated pain.

Narcissus

*****

once i met a man
who was so proud--
he accused me of all
the darker things
he was.

now he surrounds himself
with women
who reflect back to him
all the brilliant things
he thinks
he is.

Sad Stories

*****

these stories started out as being told in a cheeky, sassy tone in my head, even with the title "Infantile Men, Foolish Women", but now they are just sad to me.

maybe it's my mood, or maybe it's the time (it's 3:30 a.m.!)... or maybe they are really sad.

i learned from a cousin yesterday who texted me that my sister told him that "the other woman" insisted on taking watch over my brother-in-law at the hospital in the mornings.

: O!


i immediately forwarded my cousin's message to my sister and texted my sister too: "when the choice has come down to between keeping your man and keeping your self-respect, isn't the choice clear? you owe it to your self and your children."

a little while later, because i felt i had to say my piece still, i forwarded my cousin's text to my brother-in-law too and then texted him with my own message: "no matter what transpired between you and my sister, you still owe the mother of your children and your own children RESPECT. im sure you are man enough to put your foot down when enough is enough."

of course my brother-in-law didn't reply but i thought i'd just give him something to think about.

but my sister texted back to say that she will handle it her self and that be assured that God is working, and to give her husband all the love and support that he needs, blah blah, etc.

okay.

i told her still: "well, when people give you garbage, nice doesn't work. and the love you have to give should be tough."

in the end, she thanked me for my passionate love for and protectiveness of her and i told her i just won't let people treat her like that.

we ended with a joke, my own little bad joke-- i said, "uh-oh..... i just realized.... i told him to be man enough to put his foot down.... i forgot he only has one foot now!!!"

that was supposed to be the cheeky part.


*****

the other day, i was feeling so tired and harassed, that i went out to the cafe in front of our university and bought my self some cold mochaccino.... then i read this flyer about some discount by the spa upstairs so i went up and signed my self in for a two-hour aromatherapeutic massage.

anyway, as the massage session went on, the massage lady tried to make small talk and as is wont with women, we got to talking about the men in our lives. well i didnt really talk about my men (what men?) but when i told her i was separated and she asked me how that happened and i told her i just decided i didn't want to take garbage i do not deserve anymore, she told me this story:

she has neighbors who live in a weird set-up. the man, his wife, and the other woman all live together in one house, with all the children.

: O!

i said how come? she said it's because the man lost his work, the wife just stays at home to take care of the house and the kids, and the other woman works to support them all.

: O! :O!

then we got to discussing how people could get into situations like these, how sooo very low self-respect has fallen, that the women had to settle for this in the first place.

my masseuse said it's both funny and sad-- one time she saw the family going to church. the man drove their tricycle while the children rode in the sidecar attached to the tricycle. the other woman rode by the back of the man in the tricycle, while the wife WALKED to church.

and they all go to church like this religiously, every Sunday.

:O! :O! :O!

the fact that they even go to church, and together at that, is the funniest of all for me.

*****

of course, i know it is never any one's place to judge what other people do. people have their reasons, always, and they always believe they're doing the best that they can.

considering that i let my self stay up late to talk to a suspected pedophile for two months i should even say, "look who's talking" huh.

but i try to learn, always. from my own experiences and other people's.

and right now, it just makes me all sad.

it's all so simple to me: when you love, give it all you've got, be honest, be open, but be self-respecting most of all.

but why is it that people who love like this get paired up with people who are not as sincere in the first place?

sometimes, i am beginning to think that the world really sucks, that all people (all men?) are really just out to screw other people around.

maybe it does.

but i refuse to give up. if i think that way, too, i will really start to die and my spirit will shrivel up.

maybe i will just stay away from the game for a while. for a very looooong while.

hmmm.

Karma

*****

strange how life can suddenly turn full circle sometimes. when my sister lost her left breast to cancer, her hubby started acting up and screwing around. for more than a year now, i suffered for my sister too, tortured at what he put her through.

an interesting thing happened last tuesday. her hubby had a freak vehicular accident.

it was so freakish his right leg got cut off instantly, with only the tendons hanging on to still attach his lower leg to his thigh. so the doctors had to amputate the leg quickly.

funny huh. he left her when she got only one boob left. now i believe the universe is handing him a dose of his own medicine by making him experience what it is to have only one leg left.

he's lucky though; my sister is still sticking by him. and where are all his women now???

what goes around, comes around, indeed.

Why I Broke Off with P

*****

from the start, what hooked me was his keen interest in my kids. he asked about them, what they liked, how they are. i thought to my self: "finally, maybe he is the answer to my prayers! a man who will love my kids as if they were his own! it doesn't matter if he loves my kids more than he loves me; my kids deserve a loving father at last!"

so that's why it went on for two months of almost nonstop chatting.

but i wondered why he wouldn't give me his complete home or work addresses or phone numbers... uh-oh. warning bells! deja vu!!!

then, as it went on, the questions about my kids took a queer turn. like: is it okay if he's so casual at home that the kids will see him in just briefs and tshirt? is it okay if he washes my hair and my daughter's in the bathroom together? is it okay if sometimes the kids climb into bed with us and find him naked down there? is it okay if we all bathe together like a normal family does and the kids see him naked?

and the conversation was like that almost EVERY time we chatted. the other times, he liked to talk about my butt. for two months. butt talk or bathing with kids' talk. all packaged in the context of sweet promises and future dreams as a family, of course.

UH-OH.

now that i'm free of him. i see it more clearly now: i must have dated a PEDOPHILE!!!!!