Saturday, October 08, 2005

Bottled Up

What’s worse than being mute? It’s being able to talk and not say things right.

I find it repressive to feel all sorts of intricate emotions bottled up inside me and not be able to share it like it really is. I can describe them a bit. I’ve tried, and I’ve been talking about it for the past 15 years. Some people, well, they tell me they understand, but how could they? I don’t know what I’m saying either, and I know I haven’t said it right.

Then the feelings pass, buried in a time capsule – who knows if they will ever be revealed and understood for what they truly mean? I value these things, these things that constitute the essence of my life, the meat in the sandwich, the drama between commercials. If I can’t capture them, remember them, they could as well be myth.

This time around, when I’m dizzy and aching in this whirlwind of emotions, I want to try harder to capture it. Like all the great songs, poetry and stories of those who are lucky enough, I want to make my own attempt.

The challenge I suppose is capturing this chapter in my story. This must be something unique – so many stories have been dissolved by time, forgotten, but there has never been a record of identical lives.

So I’ll try – not to immortalize this moment, just to make it real.

I’m going through the point in my life where one foot is buried at home and the other is wandering through places, venturing towards scary, exciting and unknown things. I’m in the middle of a tug-of-war – between melancholy and bliss. Wising up a bit has made me feel this way. I’m getting used to being pulled back and forth. I’m getting used to appreciating what I have, thinking that happiness is made and not found, that this is just a phase, and knowing there’s more… and the next minute losing hope in myself and getting lost in the humdrum of everything, losing meaning, losing purpose, disappearing into zilch.

I catch a glimpse once in a while of something great inside me, something that could make a practical difference, and sometimes there’s something that’s intricately, cold-bloodedly evil. Yes, there’s a Jekyll and Hide in me, and more. There must be 10 of them in me, all wanting to dominate, wanting to emerge in different ways, which is not improbable, being different that they all are.

Let me introduce some of them:

There’s Romantic, sweet in taming everyone, writing poems and building sand castles with the one, loving every color and scent life has to offer, finding a good reason for anything that could go wrong.

There’s Neurotic, so inwardly-oriented, chattering away with everyone and with no one, thoughts of damnation and evil mushrooming at every corner of this consciousness, so reckless in wanting to take over, and so is always caught off-handed by….

The Genius, calculated in each move, planning forty years ahead, what needs to be done to get there, in the next twenty, fifteen, ten, five, three, two years, next year, next month, next week, tomorrow, now – all the little details mapped out with premises, finances, secret formulas, factors and determinants.

There’s Bum, almost non-existent for its almost absolute absence of thought or movement, indulging in but not enjoying the bed, the couch, the driver’s seat, reality slipping away in between snoozes and trances.

There’s Gypsy, cussing and cursing and guessing other people’s fortunes, dancing wildly, spinning in a reverie for weeks and months, making up riddles and stories about the mystery of life, and then moving on towards oblivion in an instant.

There’s Heroine, defying the domineering ruling class, defending the oppressed at all costs, all-giving and selfless for the sake of common good, strong in war but weak in self-preservation tactics.

There’s Conscience, weighing the summation of all good and evil, a constant guide for what must be thought and done, almost smothering, always flooding the heart with guilt and repentance.

May they all emerge, cancel out and eliminate each other, and may the best me win. I’m placing all my money on Neurotic, if only he’d be a little more like Hannibal.

When only one has emerged, at least I’d know then, they all existed once upon a time – now.

Posted by xam :: Saturday, October 08, 2005 :: 0 Comments:

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