goodbye ayman

On the eve of the first birthday I spent in Paris, I met a guy. I was giddily excited and announcing to anyone who would listen that it was my birthday in a couple of hours, to which he quietly shared that it was his birthday, too.

I thought he was kidding, but an exchange of IDs later, and it was true. I was halfway around the world, and I had just met the first person I knew who shared my birthday, just as the clock was about to strike midnight.

Every year since that day, he would greet me. You're allowed to be self-centered on your birthday, but this was a guy who took the time out of his own birthday to greet me. "How is it possible that every year we celebrate our birthday together?" he would write.

Just last week, with May looming soon, I was thinking I should try to greet him first this year, because he was always so good at remembering.

Except I won't be able to. He died today.

Apart from the shock, there is an even greater grief knowing that up until now we had spent exactly the same number of days on earth. But here I am going on with so many future plans, expecting a bright future ahead of me. Yet, for him, it is over. How is it possible for life to be so short for some? Just a month short of his next birthday! Why wasn't he given more time?

I wept.

Because I realized that after all, we are not the masters of our fate. We can plot and plan all we want, but our end is still nothing we can control. If it was my time to go tomorrow, would I be ready?

Rest in peace, Ayman. Thank you for sharing my birthday, even if just for thirty-three years.

land's end

And so, after almost seven years in Europe, I have reached the edge of the continent: Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe.

There is something poignant about setting foot here, something that tugs quietly at my heartstrings, and whispers that yes, perhaps, it is time to move on.

"Aqui, onde a terra se acaba e o mar começa... (Here, where the land ends and the sea begins...)" - Luís de Camões, Os Lusíadas

[Cabo Da Roca-Ponta Mais Ocidental Do Continente Europeu]

it's a choice to be happy

Sometimes, I worry a lot.

I worry about life, or work, or my health, or whatever struggle it is that I think I'm facing that day.

But today, I received an email from an ex-colleague in Israel, after I had checked in on him and the team. Instead of me being worried for them, I ended up getting teary-eyed as I read the email. Speaking to someone who is there, caught in the crossfire, but still trying to make life as normal as possible, was sobering.

It really put things into perspective. When they ask me how I've been, how can I possibly respond with something as mundane as, "Well, things have been so-so, I've been a bit stressed because of recently."

So a note to myself, when I think I'm going through a rough patch: Everyone is going through their own struggles. You are safe, you are healthy, you have enough food and a roof over your head, you have family and friends you can rely on -- you already are much, much luckier than most people.

It's a choice to be happy.

melancholy

the blue moon shining on new year's eve
[tilburg, the netherlands]

They say that things just cannot grow
Beneath the winter snow
Or so I have been told.


They say it's bad to start the new year on a sad note.

They say the new year brings with it another chance to start over.

They say you should welcome change, because with it comes growth.

They say many things. You think that perhaps, with all this imparted wisdom, you would be all the wiser when life happens to you. You think you will be smarter. You think you will be stronger. But when it finally happens, none of the things you've heard matter.

It's still difficult.

It hurts just as bad.


I still believe in summer days
The seasons always change
And life will find a way.
- Winter Song, Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson

4am

There is something about that time of night, that time when a peaceful calm hangs over a city, that time after everyone has finally drifted home from the bars and the clubs, that time before the early birds begin to stir and start another day.

That time when everything lies still.

Nothing can happen. Everything can happen.

And no matter how people always think it's crazy, I often find myself in these nocturnal wanderings. I always think that perhaps, when the world has come to a standstill, I finally may be able to grasp the mystery of life.

I never do.

Tomorrow will come another time, another stillness.

Perhaps then.

*****

It started in Toronto: my habit of wandering around in the middle of the night, while the world sleeps.

Seeing this awoke a sense of nostalgia in me.

It's been three years, today, since that trip ended. I remember how shattered I was then, how I felt that everything good had ended and the world would come to an end. I thought then, with all my youthful dramatics, that I had lost Toronto forever, and I couldn't come back.

Yet, three years later, these streets look exactly how I left them.

Suddenly I realized, that I will never lose Toronto. Or Aix-en-Provence, or Turku, or any other place I have lived in for that matter. These places will always be there. I'm the one who has to move on. I have to grow up and become a different person.

I have to grow into the person I am supposed to be.

*****

Three years ago, I asked myself why good things had to end, why I had to leave.

I understand now.

encore provence

"Memory is a notoriously biased and sentimental editor, selecting what it wants to keep
and invariably making a few cosmetic changes to past events. With rose-coloured hindsight,
the good times become magical; the bad times fade and eventually disappear,
leaving only a seductive blur of sunlit days and the laughter of friends."
- Encore Provence, Peter Mayle

Was it real?

Sometimes I have to ask myself that, when I think of the time I spent in Provence.

I look at photographs I have, and I am hit by a staggering realization of how beautiful it was. I cannot believe that I lived there -- walked those weathered streets, laughed, loved, cried there.

Provence feeds the soul. It's like one of those melodies that haunt you -- even when you think you have forgotten about it, it creeps up on you and surprises you with a memory so vivid, so potent, that it feels like an oddly enchanting dream.

And the memory keeps playing again and again, forward, in reverse, in mometary pauses, until it overwhelms everything else and only the music remains.

au revoir france

I waited inside the bus at Gare Routiere, looking outside wistfully as the last leaves of autumn clung to Aix-en-Provence's trees.

Outside, a couple was saying goodbye to each other, with whispers and kisses and longing glances. The man must have said something funny, because at that moment they both laughed. But when their eyes met, I could see how scared they both were, how hard both of them were trying to be brave enough to say goodbye.

It could have been me. It was the exact feeling that I had-- the sorrow of leaving and knowing this was it. The yearning, the wishing that I had more time.

But the world will spin madly on, even when you feel like standing still.

The bus started and I watched as they said their final goodbye. As the man boarded the bus, he pressed his hand against the window, staring at the woman even as the bus pulled away.

The bus rounded the corner, and for a moment I caught a glimpse of La Rotonde, its waters glistening in the morning sun.

Then it was gone.

The man ran to the back of the bus, waving to his girlfriend as the bus passed her solitary figure on the street.

But soon she faded away, along with my last vision of Aix-en-Provence. All that was left was the sound of the man crying softly to himself.

That was when I started to cry, too.

yellow light

I miss time.

One of the things, perhaps, that made me so happy when I was living in Toronto was that I had time. Maybe it was the 9 to 5 schedule, or the late sunsets, but for a moment there, I had something I hadn't given myself in such a long while.

Time.

Nowadays I have fallen back into my normal routine. I wake up with puffy eyes complaining of lack of sleep, yet I'm ironically late for my entire day. I rush to work, downing a thermos of juice or a hastily-made sandwich with my right hand as my left haphazardly navigates my car throught the madness of traffic. On stoplights, I try to squeeze in a text message to someone at work, or prepare my parking fee so I can speed through the parking booth. I rush through the rest of my day, juggling Sametimes and meetings and emails and people who stop by my cube. I stop only for an hour to run the rest of my non-work errands and to gulp down the next meal I can catch. Most of my meals recently have been sushi because... well... I can eat it in six bites and get on with the rest of my day.

My life has become toxic, and it's out of control.

Because acceptance is the first step of recovery, I am writing that down here.

I know this lifestyle is bound to kill me -- not just because of the stress of always being in a hurry, but because I know it will make me miss out on the good things. I have always been the type of person who likes to live life slowly. I stop to watch sunsets, or to feel a breeze rippling through the air. I stay in my car long after I've parked to finish listening to a song I like. I eat my ice cream with my spoon facing downwards so I can taste the sweetness of the ice cream and feel the tingling coldness as it melts on my tongue. I take long walks so I can feel the sun warming my face, or the night wind calming my nerves. I sit on park benches for hours so I can watch everyone scurrying along while my time stands still.

Simple things, but countless moments of introspection have made me realize that it's these moments that make me happy.

I want to live my life in slow motion.

I need to live my life in slow motion, because that's what makes me feel grounded. I need to stop for the little things, no matter how strange or illogical it may seem for others. I've stopped trying to do what people expect me to do. We all have different standards and different definitions of happiness, and I have chosen to define mine in the most simple manner I can.

Because living a life miserable and unhappy is living a life unfulfilled.

I don't know where to begin, and I know I am a long way from living the quality of life I yearn for, but I know this. I need to start making time for the most important thing in my life.

Myself.

Full speed ahead for that one.

do one thing everyday that scares you

"...the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long.
You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you

sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of..."
--"Breakfast at Tiffany's", Truman Capote

It's been three weeks since I got back, and I'm still lost in the madness of getting my life back to normal. Wake. Eat. Work. Sleep. Wake. Eat. Work. Sleep. The routine is madness; yet I find myself thrown into it by forces of expectation & feigned responsibility. This is normal because this is what everybody expects of me. This is normal because this is what a mature, responsible adult would do.

I swallow this like a bitter pill.

It rained miserably the first week; the dark clouds settled over Manila the way they had over me. In the midst of warm hellos and welcome backs, my smile quivered at the edges. It terrified me. Here I was with the people I called my life, yet the thing I wanted to do most was to bolt and run away.

I was home, but this was no longer home. Nor is Toronto, nor New York, nor anywhere else in the world.

I no longer had a home.

*****

But I am okay.

It's nice to say that, even if only to myself. I am okay. It hasn't been stellar, but life goes on. There are still days when I wake up and feel that emptiness; where that part of me I lost when I left used to be. But if people can survive wars and deaths and nature's catastrophes, surely I am strong enough to survive this.

Toronto. That life seems so far away now, I wonder if it had only been a dream. Sometimes, in the middle of my daily rush, I catch myself standing, transfixed, before the poster of Toronto on my closet door. It's an aerial shot of the city, something I had tacked there years back not knowing how much the city would mean to me one day. My finger traces the outlines of the buildings, until I end up on Queen Street West. And, for a moment, I almost see myself walking down the street again.

I remember what it was like to be happy.

*****

Do one thing everyday that scares you.

I am scared as hell, but I promise to go on, because I know it will be worth it.

Life doesn't have to be this way.

a new york state of mind

I woke up this morning to the sounds of birds chirping, and a car idling next door. I had tossed and turned last night, and every time I woke up in the middle of the night, I kept expecting to see the calming city lights of downtown Toronto through my windows.

But there was only darkness and the wind rustling through the trees.

*****

The rain was pouring when I got into New York last night; it seemed the skies mirrored the way I felt inside. It's funny. I’ve always said New York was my most favorite place in the world, but as I sat there in the taxi watching New York in all its big city frenzy, all I could think about was how much I missed Toronto.

And suddenly, New York no longer held that surreal magic I thought it had. I was disillusioned, like the way you would feel when you realize a love affair had gone bad.

I had fallen in love with Toronto without meaning to.

*****

The sinking feeling is gone, but in its place is an immeasurable sadness. It came with the reluctant acceptance that I will never see Toronto that way again, through my bedroom windows. I will never have a chance to relive those memories, for even the places that could bring those memories back have started to turn fuzzy.

Someone told me that I still have three weeks -- New York will still have a chance to work its magic with me.

Maybe.

Right now, all I’m praying for is just to have the courage to move on.

one

I woke up with a start.

Then I remembered today was my last full day here, and I felt my heart sinking again. I hate having to wake up every day feeling like this; yet the thought that I will no longer have to feel this soon does not bring any relief.

Today, I will ride the subway to Sheppard and back one last time. I will look at those subway stops we pass and wonder why each stop looked the way it was, and realize my question will never be answered. I will go to the office, attempt to work, grab some lunch at Sheppard Centre, and pack up my things for the last time.

Tonight, I will walk around Toronto for the last time. I will walk down Yonge Street looking into the colorful store windows one last time. I will walk around Queen Street West, which I have come to know as my village, one last time. I will sit by Nathan Phillips Square and allow the place to calm me one last time.

Then, I will go home and watch the street from my bedroom windows.

I will try not to sleep. If I don't, maybe tomorrow will never come.

***

Sometimes, I wonder how my life would have gone had I decided not to go on this trip. A few months back, I almost gave this up, but for some reason even I could not understand then, I chose this.

I understand now.

I was supposed to do this.

***

In ten years, I promise to return to Toronto.

A lot can happen in ten years. Who knows? Maybe I would be living in Toronto by then. But, if not, I promise to return here, so I can remember who I once was.

And, maybe in ten years, I will understand why this happened. Maybe my future self would be able to tell me now, "See? That wasn't so bad, was it? Now, do you understand why you still had to leave?"

In time.

two

7 am. The early morning sun reflects on the cars and the buildings of downtown Toronto, sparkling as the rays hit the shiny surfaces.

I watch all this from my room. It is cold and dim and cozy inside, and I feel like snuggling back under the covers.

I am still sinking.

****

I wish someone from the future would come back here and tell me what lies ahead.

Tell me everything will be okay. Tell me I will be okay.

Because right now I can only see darkness.

****

And on the last Thursday of my last week in Toronto, we hold our final meeting for the project that brought me here. It was the last time I would work with some people on the team.

Everyone is saying goodbye.

****

Someone placed a flyer on my desk today. At the top, it read: What are you doing this weekend?

I am leaving Toronto.

I am flying to New York, but strangely, I cannot muster an ounce of excitement. All I can think about is leaving.

Damn, damn, damn. Deep breaths to keep the panic from rising.

****

At lunchtime, the tears threaten to well up, so I got up and walked out of the office. I ended up on a swing at Avondale Park, near the area where I spent the first two weeks of this trip. I still remember that day clearly. The world was whirling in the blustery winds.


This was where it all started, perhaps this is where it has to end.

****

Just when the catterpillar thought her life had ended, she became a butterfly.

I wish I was a catterpillar.

thoughts on the shore

The lake was still and peaceful, like I had always imagined a lake should be. I sat there on the beach, running my hands through the sand as I watched the water lap gently against the shore.

In the silence, I found myself straining to hear the familiar sound of waves crashing against the shore. Suddenly, I realized that I missed the ocean.

And the Philippines.

If it is true that all the waters of the world will converge at one point, then perhaps these waters had come from home, bringing with it a reminder that there was indeed something I had left behind.

I don’t know why I am here, or what comes next.

But I know this: I am supposed to come back.

***

Someday, I will find myself sitting somewhere on the shores of the Philippines, watching waves rolling on the shore. Perhaps these same waves will be there then, bringing with them a memory of Toronto. Of a time in my life when I knew peace.

And perhaps one day, like these waters, these two lives will converge, too.

that's the way it is

yonge street in a blur

You’re walking down the street
You see faces you’ve never seen before
You realize
That most of them you’ll never know
And that’s the way it is

The process of saying good-bye is a long one.

I've been wandering the streets of Toronto aimlessly, without any destination. I walked simply to surround myself with the city, as if assailing my senses with its sights and sounds would somehow make this moment last forever.

Each place I pass, and each thing I do, almost breaks my heart with the knowledge that in two weeks I will never do this again. Even the everyday task of running down the subway steps feels heavy, because I know that once I reach the bottom of the stairs, another minute will have passed. Another minute of this experience gone by.

Another minute towards the end.

If it's possible for my heart to crumble into pieces at the amount of sadness I feel, it would probably be fine dust right now. Until now, I never knew it was possible to feel this much sadness. Every time the reality of leaving hits me, I feel like bawling and begging the heavens to freeze time.

The funny thing is, I don't even understand why it's this hard for me to say goodbye. It's been an extraordinary experience, but there are even more things and more people waiting for me back home. So why do I feel like this is the end?

Maybe Chasky was right in saying that just when I have everything happening the way I want it to be, I'm going to lose control again. I'm going to lose this place. I'm going to lose the people I've grown to love. I'm going to lose the person I was when I was here.

Forever.

Perhaps that's what makes it so hard. I know that when I say goodbye to this place and these people, it may be forever. The finality of it cuts sharp and deep.

But forever is a strong word, you say.

If not forever, for a long time. Even if I am lucky enough to be able to go back here, I will never regain what I have lost. The place will have changed. I will have changed. And the people who made this experience what it was may no longer be here.

Things will forever be different.

Do you believe
That with just one little smile
This whole world
Has changed a thousand times
Yet in a breeze
This whole world can be gone...
I believe that’s the way it is
--You'll Never Know, Richie Havens

grange park

The park was almost deserted when we got there, save for the occassional couples strolling through the park, or some people taking a shortcut through the grass.

I ran on the playground with the reckless abandon of a toddler making a new discovery, flitting from the swings, to the slides and the seesaws. The sand slipped through my toes, and suddenly I was a child again. Out gurgled a laugh I had not experienced for the longest time -- a laugh that captured the essence of being happy as is, without knowing why, or how.

I closed my eyes and I was alone, just me on a swing and the vastness of the universe. I felt the warm breeze whisper on my face, and I strained to hear what the moon and the stars were trying to tell me.

But they were silent.

I wish I was a kid again, when I knew all the answers.

in the still of the night

Tonight, a fit of depression almost sent me over the edge. Alone, a thousand miles away from home, I found myself wandering the streets of Toronto at 1 am, searching aimlessly for a direction.

I didn't quite understand how, or why, I got here. A few weeks ago, in what feels like another life, I was happy. Maybe it was a combination of the little, seemingly mundane things that drove me here. Or, maybe I just reached my tipping point, and I, without warning, fell.

More like crashed.

I don't know what scared me more -- the fact that I was walking out on the streets in the dead of night, or the fact that I was in such despair I needed to get out just to keep myself from losing my mind.

I found myself looking at the night sky, repeatedly murmuring "Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight" under my breath. It's funny how I wasn't even making any wishes at that time -- I just drowned myself in the rhyme, trying to calm myself down with the hopefulness of that phrase.

It's crazy, I know. Sometimes, I think I really may be crazy, too. I'm so good at pretending, and at hiding things, that I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know if my emotions are real anymore. I don't know if I want to exist anymore.

I suddenly realized how alone I was. I existed in a world where most of the people I talked to were faceless names behind a computer screen. I walked these city streets as another anonymous face in the crowd. I lived a life of solitary existence, where only I knew I existed.

Twice, I passed a homeless man standing on a street corner, baseball cap outstretched for spare change. Strangely enough, he didn't ask for money when I passed him. Instead, he looked me in the eyes solemnly and told me "Nice to see you again" as I passed him the second time. I should have been scared, but there was something in his gaze that enveloped me and made me feel safe again. I found myself smiling back at him, and in doing so, we acknowledged each others existence.

Somehow, that smile meant a lot. Here we were, two souls unknown & forgotten in the place we lived in. That brief moment meant that I wasn't alone, even if it was only a homeless man who could see me.

Tonight, I felt small and insignificant, but that smile was a single ray of hope for me. And I hope that if I hold on long enough, one day, I will no longer need someone else to be able to smile again.

*postcard from PostSecret

a million little pieces

you are the loneliest girl in the world
taking your hits as they come
you are the loneliest girl in the world
and tonight you’d fall for anyone
it’s in the way you fall down to bed
it’s in the way you cry when he’s not looking
you are the loneliest girl in the world
i’ll watch you die a thousand times again
-loneliest girl in the world, cary brothers

I watched you as you stood there, looking out the window.

I wondered what you were thinking.

I waited silently for you to say something that would somehow justify all this, something that would make me understand why we were here.

Finally you turn and say something.

Something.

Something so inconsequential that I cannot even remember what it was you said. All I remember is that I froze at that moment, and a blinding realization hit me.

This is not what I want.

Then, as time started moving again, all I could remember were the voices, consuming me. The gaping hole inside me started expanding, gnawing at my insides until they could eat my soul away.

I watched as you walked out the door, and I remember I said something, but what it was I could not remember.

Then I curled up on my bed and stared numbly into nothingness.

Waiting for the voices to consume me completely, until I shattered and broke into a million little pieces.

tonight i can write the saddest lines

I have never felt emotions as strong, or as painful, as this before.

Four months.

It's gonna be hard to let go.

up on the roof

They sat out on the terrace, two bodies huddled against the cold night.

It was drizzling slightly as they watched the lights down below. The city, awash with all the lights and life. The sound of shouts and laughter drifted up slowly, along with the pum-pum-pum sound of bass coming from the clubs nearby.

They were silent even as they talked, two strangers sitting in the dark. Their conversation was littered with small talk, punctuated by a swig of a cocktail, or by a shiver in the wind.

It was nothing then.

But, for a moment, she felt a terrifying stab of fear this night would mean more than it was supposed to.

hello, world

Hello, world.

I have never met a person working in the IT industry who has not encountered this phrase at least once in their lifetime. On the contrary, most people in the industry would laugh fondly upon hearing these words, and would reminisce at the significance these two short, seemingly meaningless words hold for them.

You see, for an IT person, this phrase marks a beginning. You remember the day you typed these two words on your keyboard, compiled, ran... and watched in awe as these words scrolled across the screen. It's almost bewildering, how you made that happen. The cursor blinks expectantly, challenging you to do more.

And so it begins. You are sucked into the whirlwind, seduced by the prospect of how much you can do.

And so this essay begins.

In two days, I will turn 24. The past twenty-three years of my life I have never given much thought to turning a year older. I always thought of birthdays just as any other day in my life; thinking of it as a special day seemed to put too much pressure on people. On me, too. I didn't like how on birthdays, you were expected to be happy, as if all the problems in the world would cease to exist just because you were born on this day.

Yet this past week, I've found myself mulling over my birthday. Not on purpose -- somehow the thought just seemed to creep in during those split-seconds the world would pause to let me breathe. Perhaps it's because I'm halfway around the world right now, away from the comforting familiarity of home. Living here has allowed me to view my life in Manila through a looking glass – it’s funny how that can put things in a completely different perspective. My problems, worries, and anxieties seem to have grown infinitely smaller, and sometimes I wonder whether I really should have spent that much time and effort on them.

I got to thinking of the past twenty-three years, and what I have done with it. It all started out rather ordinarily -- I went to school, got a degree, and got my share of those adolescent moments that we always look back and smile giddily about. Then, real life happened.

It has been a roller-coaster ride ever since. The past three years have been spent with me trying to carve my own niche in the corporate world. I have worked feverishly, but I have also been the slacker. I have been the eagerly helpful employee; I have been the haughty worker at the other end of the line. I have been the over-achiever; I have been the mediocre wage-earner. I have fallen madly in love, and I have fallen out of love with my work.

In a moment of clarity, I realized how much IT has influenced my life.

Some would say that's a bad thing, how I let my career shape who I am. Sometimes, I believe them. Maybe it is true. Maybe I have concentrated too much on my career that I have allowed the other aspects of my life to flatten out. But I think of where I would be today if I had not taken IT -- and I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

In this past year alone, I have experienced so many things I never would have thought I could do in a single year. I have had the chance to travel and fall in love with cities that previously had only existed in my imagination. I have had to make big decisions on which opportunities I would take, and which opportunities I would let pass me by. I have had a chance to live independently in another country, and I have learned so much about myself and what I am capable of doing. I have crossed paths with people from places far and wide, and it has broadened my horizons so vastly that I cannot think of living life any other way.

I guess, somehow, that fate just had a roundabout way of making things happen. I always dreamed of this life, but I never expected I would get it this way -- in a rush, when I least expected it. But it's here. I'm here. And I don't think I would be as wondrous, and as grateful, as I am now if I had not gone through all the past twenty three years of my life in the manner that I did.

So what do I do next? What lies ahead?

I don't know. Like many other twenty-somethings undergoing their quarter-life crisis, I am lost as ever. But, for the first time in my life, that doesn't scare me. It only means that my life isn't over yet. There are more moments to experience, more challenges to tackle, more mountains to conquer. It's okay not to have the answer, because sometimes it's the question that matters.

I don't know where I'm going, but I know I will get there, one day at a time. And each day, I will face life with all the optimism I can muster, and say the words that a computer has taught me.

Hello, world.