Realizations

It's been such a long time. I bought a book today at my favorite bookstore with all the second (or third) hand books. It's about diaries of women, with excerpts to show their feelings. It's mostly about emotions, and I was moved. I haven't finished it yet, but I intend to. I love my weekends! I have plenty of time to think, and to read! And I love reading, and thinking and reflecting about what I've just read. And these women! They have real emotions, with depth and breadth and with no attempt to pretend or conceal any of it. And I recognize most of them! The dreams, the loneliness, the tempers, and all the little peskiness "normal" people would dismiss as petty.

I wanted to write this entry here, and not in my Steve blog. That was for him, and I have to have my own identity. I longed and still do, long for someone to be able to share my thoughts with. I usually imagine myself talking to someone explaining my side of the story, with my conjured up scenarios wherein I'd prevail as the one more experienced, more interesting, more exciting of the group. Just to be able to think! It makes me think of reasons I would have never thought of just thinking on my own without imagining conversing with it with someone else. And I do long to have a real person whom I can share those imaginary conversations with, with a resulting enlightenment and happiness on both sides. But with Steve, our relationship is still quite new. We are just starting. It may seem as if we have fastforwarded some events as a couple, but I suppose with the distance we are learning how to slow down and get back at the start. So we are starting anew each time, and discovering more about ourselves I hope. I want to learn more about him, but I'm quite afraid that if I bombard him with my personal thoughts, he may be overwhelmed and he may think he should respond in the same way. It might cause him to shut down and remove me completely from his system. And I know I cannot go on without him...at this point, that is. So for now, we'll take it slow. As I am not a person of subtlety and gradualness, rather a person of extremes, with no comprises in between - this is a rather taxing occupation.

I've been thinking what I have done so far since last year. You see, 2009 - I graduated from college, took the CPA board exam, and went to Singapore and Thailand. This year, 2010 - I started and ended 3 jobs, and went to Vietnam. At present, I've come to realize life has been moving so fast. That if I'm not careful of being at "present" and holding on to my dreams, if I'll just let society (not life) move me - I will go on forever living in the office cubicle. It would have been by far, the MOST CONVENIENT way to live life, isn't it? With a nice cubicle, a good job, good environment, steady pay and long-term benefits so you won't worry in the future? Was I living on a payday-to-payday basis then? Working just to pay my bills? Was it all it meant to be an adult? Keep a job to pay the bills, and manage your temper. Days just zoom by, and before you know it, it's been weeks...and months! What have I accomplished these past several weeks? I don't think I have enjoyed the working days half as much than my weekends - where I felt free and limited at the same time. Free to do anything I want, but limited as to time.

Did I quit? Was it considered quitting? I would like to think more if it as Pausing. Trying to stop time for a little while, just to think and see how far I've gone and chart my future. I can't go on just because. I want to be able to dream again, and believe in my dreams. I may be naive, honey. But imagination keeps me alive! I wanted to have and feel that passion again - the passion to do something, feel the love for something. Office job makes me feel dead. It's killing me. Other people are fine with it, some even bloom I suppose. But I don't. It's just not me. I would like to start my mornings with coffee and newspaper, do some reading and writing, and then do (not work as it implies something dreadful and grueling) something I really want to do! Something I'd wake up for!

I don't want a job with only the end in mind. To feel rewarded and happy upon achieving something, and be totally miserable and stressed the whole time on the way to that goal. I heard that Life is a Journey, not an end in itself. I want to enjoy the way, like traveling. It's not just from point A to B. It's the whole trip! Of course we can't have happy moments all the time, as I've also read that you can't differentiate happiness and sadness if you're just feeling one emotion all the time. But we can Choose our general disposition.

And about Steve, have I been making illusions of him as my knight in shining armor? Someone who's gonna take care of me so I won't have to work? I've got all these disney fairy tales in my mind - prince charming and happily ever after. It's like there is a fork in the road leading to 2 narrow paths - 1 successful independent career, and 1 happy romantic marital bliss. Can I have both? Independence as my own person, and Marriage (or Companionship) with my soul mate. Would it be compatible? I have been thinking lately they are quite exclusive of each other, and to choose one would be to ignore the other. Maybe it will work, as soon as I find and develop my own person.

I want to work - doing something I know adds value to the human society, as a whole, as the net effect to everything and everyone in general. Not limited to the family, the country, or whatever group society has demanded service for. I commute to work everyday, and I see the faces of my fellow commuters. They are dead, retired as someone else said. Some are pretty and wear makeup, but most are plain and dull and boring...as if they live a boring life. Because oftentimes a face is a reflection of your soul - with your eyes and the smile. But they look like zombies just going to work because they have to and have been programmed to. Maybe they appear so because they're using the travel time to reflect and think about that day or other issues? But the end matter is...they don't look happy. They look totally devoid of life.

But I want life. I want emotions, passions, expressions! Fine, even tempers! Those goody two shoes girls I met makes me wonder if they have really experienced enough in life to have the depth and breadth of human emotions. Why are they so limited, so controlled? ...so narrow. It's not good to judge people, but it's not bad to reflect about their lives so I'll know what I want and don't.

I like Steve precisely because he's got character, and his own personality. And he reads. He isn't afraid what people might think of him. He's got his own mind, and I think that's what makes one a Man or a Woman. Though he's happy when I take the lead sometimes, with his permission of course. It makes him relaxed. But still, he's his own person and he won't bend for anybody. And neither of us can claim having controlled the other. With guys my age, they seem captivated by me and my mind and whatever it is I've done or planned to do. I have conquered them, and they haven't even conquered themselves.

Quite ironic now that I'm hearing a lot of young women wanting to marry their Prince Charmings, stop working, and live in their castles forever. And this after decades of women fighting for freedom and equality. :)