Guilt Over Hiding The Truth

I was supposed to write something with a happier tone. I was in the mood this afternoon despite the fact that I got the urge to write after reading some of my old and, kind of, depressing entries on Facebook. I guess I was able to extract some positive energy out of them... Until tonight...

As I typed in the title of this supposed entry I was about to start, I thought, "Is that the right one?" So I decided to just leave it as it is until I finish everything... The problem was, I really couldn't start it... I couldn't even get the first phrase right... Then I admitted to myself... I am bothered... Bothered by a lot of stuff that's happened before the Christmas break began... And this entry is about one of those things...

The last 2 entries I've posted were about these 2 people that I like and how I've come to like the other one better... Yes, I've made my decision and I've finally chosen this one guy... The second guy... This guy who's in the same world as I am. The problem is... ME... I like this guy so much that I get so intimidated by him. We BARELY talk... Though, last week, I think he broke that barrier... But that's another story to tell for some other day... But, yeah, before that, we really do BARELY talk... And this is why I keep doing what I'm about to admit..

This other guy... The first guy... The one that I "did not choose." I keep finding opportunities for us to see each other... It was because of feasibility. The whole week last week, I was studying somewhere else. And that somewhere else was near his workplace. As the week passed, friends of mine came to know my "thing" for this guy and started thinking that there was really something going on... Let me tell you now...

THERE'S NOTHING GOING ON...

Reasons?

1. He has a girlfriend. I'm NOT the kind of girl who will ruin a relationship. NEVER WAS and NEVER WILL BE because I don't want the same thing to happen to me.
2. I like SOMEONE else... I like him A LOT...!

I think those reasons are enough... But I can't help but feel guilty because I keep letting him know that I'm in the vicinity when he's there working. Actually, there's this one time when I didn't tell him but my friend wanted to get something from where he's working so he saw me and told me, "Hindi ka man lang nag-text. [You didn't even send me a text message.]" C'MON! Confuse me much, why don't you? I mean, even if I already like someone else, THAT still made me feel quite giddy. But that feeling died fairly quick because I've already set my mind and MY HEART on the second guy. 

The whole week, though, was a huge guilt trip. I felt like I was putting up some kind of charade... No... I WAS putting up some kind of charade to hide the one I had real feelings for. I think somebody should give me a best actress award or something for being able to live through the whole week acting like I still liked the first guy... Oh, God! Please forgive me! What I've been doing is shameful...

It's easier just to cut all ties with him, I mean, maybe just lie low for a bit... But even before admitting to myself that I like the second guy, the first guy and I already made plans to do some stuff over my Christmas break. I don't know if I've already mentioned this before but the first guy is my jam session buddy. We've already planned to do some music-related stuff so I can't just back out. It would be like turning my back on music, which is something I dare not do...! So I've decided, it's going to be nothing but music for us from now on...

Oh my... God, I'm so sorry! I can't help but ask for His forgiveness in the middle of writing this... I've never done anything like this... I feel like I've gone astray out of frustration because the second guy and I BARELY have any kind of communication. It's like I'm projecting my frustrations out on the first guy... No... That's EXACTLY what I was doing... Well, NO MORE!

The second guy... He's the one I chose... Someday, he might read this... I have nothing to hide... This is what and how I feel. I am just so protective over how I'm feeling for him that I don't want just anybody to know about it. Like I've said to my closest friends, this one is serious... And as long as I feel like I'm still in the dark about him having something for me, I will conceal my truth...

The Wall That Used To Exist

I know I've said this in my previous entry... But I'm just too overwhelmed with things that it deserves to be reiterated...

My walls are down...

My walls are DEFINITELY down...

Amazing how one person took them down... So that another person can come through... Smart person... The latter... Without effort, I let him in... Didn't take too long for me to realize that I really liked him... There are no reasons how I got to this point... It's bewildering... But I told my friend/adviser/confidante that he was on my radar all this time... I was just keeping quiet about it... Maybe because I wasn't used to liking 2 persons at the same time, and, I guess, with the same intensity... I was in denial with the latter... I was building the first one so much that I was afraid to admit that the other guy was actually the one I liked better. My friend even told me that he liked this other one better, that he felt like we were a perfect fit... I hate to admit it but I do agree with him...

Things have changed... My world has changed... I don't know, though, if I can keep up with these changes... Yes, there are changes but I feel like I'm back in a very familiar situation. I've been here before... I swear... The last time I was here was more than a year ago... It ended up in heartbreak... At least, for me... And this is why I'm scared... I'm scared that I'm finding myself in the same place... Or so I think I am...

A different person... Yes, he's different... I don't want to expect too much but I'm really PRAYING and HOPING that I'll get a different ending this time...

More Than The Usual "One"

Amazing... Truly amazing...

FYI... I have 2 pending entries right now... I haven't finished both of them because somewhere in the middle of writing them, I lost the words to express these pent up feelings... And now, I got them back... But they're for a-whole-nother situation...

I reviewed one of those pending entries to see if I wrote the next few statements which I'm about to say... I did... So before truly diving into "the matter at hand," here it goes...

I've said this before and I'll say it again... I've had my guard up for the past year or so... I had a hard time moving on... I literally experienced crying myself to sleep for, maybe, a little over a week. I sacrificed a friendship... Because of that experience, I knew I had to take better care of my heart. Until a few weeks ago when someone else from my past came back. I don't know when I started getting reckless again. I guess I was caught off guard. He came in from my blind side...  Then one day, I realized... He was slowly tearing down my walls... And, brick by brick, I think I let him do it...

Now that a part of my wall was down, things are starting to gush out and come in all at the same time... I, somehow, admitted to a couple of friends that I think I have my eye on someone else... Another guy... I told them I wasn't sure but there's just something about him that caught my attention...

So... This other guy...

I've been silent about him for the past few months because, like I've said, I wasn't sure if I really was attracted to him or something. I just feel this connection with him even though we haven't had a decent conversation... ever... Then, the other day happened... For the first time, we got to talk... Nothing serious, though... Just a simple conversation... It was nice... He made me laugh... I'm not sure if I made him laugh... But I remember making him smile... His smile... Wow... It could really brighten one's gloomy day... Anyway... I guess that conversation pushed me into admitting to my friends that I think I have something for this guy... I guess I just couldn't keep it to myself any longer...

"Keep your options open," one of my friends told me a few weeks ago. That one just keeps echoing in my head... So weird... I was never like this... I mean, nothing's happening, BELIEVE ME... I'm not assuming nor expecting something will, too... But I feel like I have to get myself ready for anything that MIGHT happen... Again, so weird... I'm preparing myself for a number of heartbreaks... Maybe that's why only like one person at a time... Because I know that I won't be able to take more than one heartbreaking experience at the same time. It's too late now, though... I've decided to live by the "philosophy" of my friend...

Now, here's my admission... I told my friends I wasn't sure if I'm starting to like this guy... Right after I told them, I felt like slapping myself on the face because I knew that was a lie... Yes, I like him... Somehow, I feel like I've been lying to myself, too, since that day this guy got my attention... And to make up for that lie, I will tell my friends the truth when we see each other again...

"Truth only means something when it's hard to admit." Yes, I agree with Nicholas Sparks... It's hard to admit... Not that fact that I like this other guy, too... The fact that I'm starting to "like" again... I hate that I'm afraid... But I can't blame myself for feeling scared... I've been hurt so much before... Sometimes, I do wonder how I got through all those painful experiences. Of course, I have my friends to thank for that but majority of the "moving on" work was usually up to me...

I guess I have to brace myself again... Like I said, I got reckless for letting the first guy tear down my walls... Now, I feel like I'm on the defense... And I have nothing to protect me...

TALES BEYOND THE CUP

PASSION:

I've always enjoyed writing. It's the perfect outlet for me to let all these feelings out and to indulge my obsessive-compulsive side without being too obvious (because I re-read my stuff and edit them long after I've posted them). These past few years, I've blogged a lot less than before. Reasons? Well, there's the lack of time (med school... Always blaming it on med school... Sorry...) Then the lack of inspiration (As I've said before, my heart needs to be broken before I can write something of substance.). Once in a while, I give myself a chance to write again even if I feel like the content's a bit BLAH for me. As long as I can keep writing, I'm good.

PUSH:

The other night, a batchmate and I were getting to know each other. She was telling me about my brother and his artistic gift. My brother can draw... He does it REALLY well. She asked me if I, too, can draw. I laughed and said that it was the gift that I wasn't blessed with. Then she pointed out that WRITING was my gift. I humbly and modestly agreed that it, maybe, was my gift. She also implied that she got to read one of my blog entries and gave me an unexpected feedback. "Wow!" she said. I've never had someone tell me something about what I've written before. I was flattered... REALLY... Then this next statement... "Maybe you should start a blog site." I already have a blog site but I think I knew what she meant. She meant something like the ones that people often visit to get advice for something, read reviews of some techie gadget thing, or learn more about life by getting immersed into the stories of others. The problem is... Like I've said before... LACK OF INSPIRATION... People like to read about life... But I don't think they would want to read something with heartaches and failures all the time... It's hard to admit but... My life is pretty boring without the broken heart...

INSPIRATION:

Then... Last night happened... I realized that I've already posted a couple of moments that I've had with the baristas of Starbucks FEU-NRMF... I must say, those moments really made my day. And those moments gave me that spark to start a flame...

TALES BEYOND THE CUP:

It's a blog that I started just last night... Well, I started it today, a few minutes past 12 midnight. Since I became a regular at the Starbucks FEU-NRMF store and became friends with some of the baristas, I became fascinated with their work. At one point, I even asked myself, "Why didn't I think of becoming a barista before?" Honestly, I am interested. Maybe because they make their job look so much fun. Plus, the interaction with the people... I guess that's the best part. It's amazing how they could keep their energy up for 8 to 9 hours a day. Sometimes I wish I could stay at a store and just watch them work a whole shift. 

"Tales Beyond The Cup" is dedicated to:

1. The baristas who became and will become my friends. Big things come in small packages, sometimes. Though I don't get to chat with you longer than the usual counter conversation, I thank you for for the small talks. Those became my inspiration to start something to further feed my passion for writing.

2. DK... I guess that conversation really started something in me. It didn't take long for me to find the missing pieces because you pushed me to search hard and search deep. Though we just recently became officially acquainted, I want to thank you for giving me that push... I really needed that.

http://talesbeyondthecup.blogspot.com

The Hurtful Moments Can Become Life's Gems

It's 12:18 AM... Weird how I suddenly got the urge to write something at this hour after such a LONG time of not writing... I've been on a downhill ride since, maybe, last week and this last thing that I saw (out of curiosity) just triggered me to let these thoughts out once again...

I had a pretty traumatic experience yesterday getting "yelled at" by our group's proctor during our case discussion in ward class. My groupmates said that that was still nothing compared to the other times that they've seen her really grind a student. True, somehow, because I was expecting something worse... I really can't blame her for "yelling" at me because I knew what I wasn't confident about what I was presenting. No excuse nor explanations were accepted... It's okay... I knew I deserved it... But still,  it left me, somewhat, speechless and feeling like I needed more room to breathe. I guess the weight of that horrendous moment wasn't really totally lifted off my chest. (THIS wasn't the trigger, though... Something else pushed me into writing once again.)

As I got back to my dorm room, I started thinking... My mind wandered off into the common theme of my previous entries... PAIN... HURT... HEARTACHE... Then I asked myself, "Why didn't I write about the good times that I've had? Why do I keep focusing on the bad stuff? Have I become a pessimist since the day I experience real emotional, heart-wrenching pain?"

I consider myself an optimist, as someone people can turn to if they want some encouragement. But I do have a hard time being that source of encouragement once I start dealing with my own demons. Well, the demons being getting hurt by people... Okay, getting heartbroken... That has always been my problem. Once that happens, I'm done... What's worse is that I keep reliving those painful moments over and over again in my mind, trying to find the answers that only the other person involved could give. Unfortunately, I'm not brave enough to confront them... By saying "them", I mean all the people (okay, all the GUYS) that broke my heart. Well, I had this one experience... It was pretty liberating... But I don't think I could go through that again... (The good thing that came out of that experience is that we're still friends to this day... THANKS for the friendship, man!)

Anais Nin once said (or, maybe wrote), "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrrospect." --- I read this on Facebook and this gave me the drive to write again... I just needed something to write about... Until yesterday happened...

That saying also gave me my realization as to why I keep writing about the painful stuff... "To taste life twice... In retrospect..." I guess I needed a reminder of what went wrong and where things started crumbling to the ground... Basically, I created my own manual... "The Things You Should Learn From" A manual of my life's mistakes that resulted into heartaches.

I've always thought that I never learned from my pit falls... Until recently when I realized (yeah, these realizations just keep coming to me) how EXTRA CAUTIOUS I've been for the past year or so. The conversations I have with myself in my head have been, "Why did he say that? What does that mean? Does he mean... Nah! He's just friendly." or something like, "Why did he do that? Did he do that because... Nah! He's really just like that." Yep, the once "conclusion jumper" has become "the automatic dismisser". There's no such term but for me, it exists... I did post something on Facebook about having my walls and defenses up... Fairly true... After what I endured almost a couple of years ago, I think my heart needed (and deserved) a break... (To the guy who broke my heart more than a year ago, THANKS A LOT! I think you just scarred me for life! *sarcastic*)

There's just one catch... Having my guard up kind of scares me... I've never been this guarded with my heart before... What if I've already missed an opportunity?  There's NO WAY I could get it back... I've been busy keeping myself from getting hurt that the chance for getting the happiness that I've been waiting for has already passed me by.

I guess the only thing I could take away from this is, AT LEAST, I had no idea what I could've missed. I mean, yeah, there's that chance for happiness... But maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the kind of happiness that I deserved. I've endured too much pain from different people that, maybe, someone amazing was meant to give me happiness beyond my imagination.

I'm still hopeful... And I guess I never really lost the optimism towards myself...

One Year

So... After months of struggling and fighting to stay afloat, I lost my battle to Pediatrics 3A and Medicine 3A...

Today was the first day back in school... Losing that battle now makes me part of Batch 2015... What a heartbreaking, heart wrenching academic tragedy...!

It's times like this when I keep tracing back steps to see where I made the wrong decision. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine over lunch about it. It was the first time I heard myself say my thoughts about it out loud. I'm not sure if it was kind of a validation but I knew some of the choices I made wasn't for myself.

She asked me if I've already come to a point of doubting my decision to become a doctor. I told her that taking up Medicine's ok... Though, sometimes, I do think about it as something I'm doing because people expected me to do it. In other words, there's a part of me that thinks that I did this not for myself but for others. That's actually not a problem for me... I told my friend that it's ok for me to take up this post-grad course... The problem's my decision on which school I'd go to. I ended up going to my 2nd choice even if my 1st choice already called me up to say that I got in... Turning the latter down was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made.

Making that decision was backed up with all the wrong reasons which I don't want to go into detail anymore. I already heard myself say it. I don't think I need to write it down to constantly remind myself of how stupid I was. Let's just say that the reasons are selfless... But I've come to realize that when it comes to big decisions like the one I made, it's not so bad to be selfish once in a while...

I've lost myself... I miss my old self... My situation has crushed the old me down to the ground...

Everybody Needs An Introduction

First and foremost, I want to say that I don't know why I have this account... I "discovered" this today when I decided, out of boredom, to "google" myself... To my surprise, I've had this since May 2011...! So since I've decided to become active on Google+ today (I've had that account for quite sometime because of my YouTube channel but don't check on it... Ever...), I guess I could do the same for this account...

Welcome, me!

I've been blogging since my Friendster days... It's unfortunate, though, that I didn't get to retrieve my entries when the founders decided to revamp the site... With that, I've deprived myself some look-back-laughters and cringe-worthy readings... I've continued writing my, ahem, experiences on Facebook...

But over the past few years, my blogging have been diminishing to almost nil... Why? Well, the primary reason is my studies. I'm a 3rd year medical student... 'Nuf said... But to those who are unaware of what happens in med school, well, here's a gist... It's a VERY demanding experience... Academically-speaking. It's study, study, study... And in my free time, all I want to do is sleep and do things that are less mentally-demanding...

The second reason I've realized when I read my past entries... Most of my blogs are about matters of the heart... So, as I have observed, I become "blog-active" when I realize I'm starting to SERIOUSLY like someone and the heartbreak that comes afterward. Publicly airing out my heart problems seem to work because the more I talk about it, the more I realize the mistakes I've made and the easier it is to move on...

So what does this first blog entry on blogger.com mean? Hmmm...

Okay... So I'm thinking about starting to talk about what I "love" talking about... Please refer to reason # 2 if you still don't get what I mean... But I think it's too early to talk about that subject... I'll be easing into it as the days go by... Or if I have the time to right about it after this...

I should be studying right now, actually... I just can't seem to focus... Things are running through my mind... And I keep checking back on my social networking sites... The weirdness of me... I guess that's one of the effects of medical school. You get so tired of studying that you find yourself doing things that don't make sense anymore just to escape your books and handouts...

Anyway, since, I've, somehow, unloaded my thoughts, I guess I could get back on what I should be doing...

This is my intro... My foreword... And I've barely begun to scratch the surface...

My classes start at 7AM... It's already 1:40 AM... Time for me to get back to business...