Eternal Blue Sky

I hardly write this aspiration on these pages. Maybe, I have dropped a line or two on Twitter, where random thoughts are easier to publish because there is no need to create narratives to support the idea. In my deepest yearning, if I were to choose a way to live, I would like to be a travel writer: someone, who creates vivid images with words and paragraphs to describe what the eyes can see. To this day, I refuse to part with the idea, knowing too well that I may never have the clarity of thought to tell a story that pleases my taste. For I have this habit of artistic self-flagellation, of finding this odd pleasure of looking down at my own works, ashamed to let it out in public. 

This thought is just between you (blog) and me (writer), and you know what is strange? I never had this doubt before, when I can still switch between writing in Filipino and English, sometimes, even mixing the two languages together in one essay. I guess times have changed, and I am paying the price for setting up the benchmark too high, that my own free time cannot afford it. With instant gratification I enjoy on social media, and more work asked for the raketship, I have little reason to believe that long-form artistic writing - for pleasure - is just a memory. If I were to endure this literary eclipse, I will have to change my storytelling style to something closer to once was the less uptight writer in me. 

With two successive posts published this November, it is my hope that the time of de-flowering has again resumed. 

The Breakup Letter

November 7, 2014

For the past days, its been a roller coaster ride for me. Sobrang daming pangyayari that needs to be addressed with, office, personal, health and career.

Pinakamabigat sa lahat ay nung tumawag ang Canadian Embassy sakin last Thursday at 2AM. Nagapply kasi ako ng work for Canada last year. i had my final interview last January 2014. I presume that time na hindi ako nakapasa kasi hindi nako nakareceive ng feedback sa kanila until nung Thursday nga. They are now considering again my application and was advised to visit the embassy for additional information. kaya ako nakaleave today. They gave me the list of requirement that i need to submit within asap.

I'm sorry but in order for me to finish this, there are some sacrifices that needs to be established. I'll be asking a break muna para maasikaso ko to. Feeling ko kasi magsasuffer lang tayong 2 if I continue.

Once all has been settled. I'll talk to you personally.

Nagfile narin ako ng leave sa office para matapos ko lahat.

sorry din for the short notice. Kasalanan ko to.

Maraming salamat!

---

I never knew him as someone who wakes up at 2 in the morning. 

Once, I tried, and it took him almost half an hour just to answer the phone. I am not even sure if calling a potential applicant for an offshore job interview - at the dead of the night - is standard practice. 

I never tried looking for work abroad.  

There were already signs that our love was losing steam. Just a month before, we already broke ties after he refused to patch our differences. It all started with his non-texting that lead to a silly fight. He never spoke to me for two weeks. Refusing to reach out and make amends, I sent an SMS telling him our relationship was over. His tepid response had sourness all over it. If not for his text asking for a second chance - a month later - we would never make light of what happened.  

We were a couple again in less than an hour after he reached out and said sorry. 

Weeks went by and I felt again the growing distance. He would never talk to me for an entire day, saying he was busy at work. He would never reply to my SMS when I checked how his day was. The ex, a term I find difficult to use for association, had more time at the gym, and when I show up to join him, he would make comments at my expanding girth. I brushed off his remarks believing our relationship was never skin deep.

But who knew his words were laced with warnings.

At a hindsight, I was beginning to think half of his stories were fiction. He would tell me about his well-off family, and yet, it doesn't show in his tastes. He would share some good EDM videos, but when I invited him at Time in Manila, you can see in his face his disinterest. This, and a lot more anecdotes, which I am too ashamed to tell, slowly eroded that suspension of disbelief. When he sent the email, I was less heartbroken, knowing I might have saved myself from his charlatan ways.

---

The Gundam Pilot will go down in history as the shortest romantic relationship that I had. In the four months, we have been a couple, I never knew where his home was; who his parents were; not even the friends he keeps. He chose to omit those details while having free access to my room. To this day, I am still befuddled as to why he had to write a short email asking for "breakup muna," when we were supposed to meet the next day for a movie date, and for all his self-promotion that he doesn't plan to go abroad (he broke up with his ex because he doesn't believe in long distance relationship) he suddenly came up with this silly story about a pending job application to Canada.

As a partner, who have probably spoiled him in ways no other ex of him did, I would have supported his aspiration to go abroad, had he asked for my support. I would have even accompanied him to his interview, brushed up his English conversation skills, or reviewed his documents before sending them to his employer as my parting duties. But because the story was made-up, his excuse, ill-advised, and that, he had literally abandoned me without ever explaining his real reason for breaking up, I remember our tarnished past, as a footnote to what was, us.

One year later, he still rants about his work. Unloved and still trying to impress those who bother to pay attention, he will never find his name, or his memory on these pages again.