A Christmas away from Home...

I was in deep slumber when I heard a shrill sound (No, it wasn't the jingle of the bells on Christmas Day but my hand phone ringing). My best friend called me up to remind me of tonight's itinerary. It's Christmas Eve.

I hurriedly went out to do my last minute shopping. We are celebrating tonight at another friend's house along with other fellow Filipinos who wants to enjoy Christmas in the atmosphere that we are used to, inside a Home. It has been a first to most of us gathered there to spend Christmas away from our family. There was a mixture of sadness, melancholy, anticipation and excitement.

"on the street at the strike of midnight"

By 11pm we went to attend mass at the nearby church which ended us on the street by the stroke of midnight. We haven't even realized it was already Christmas until we glanced at our watch. The street was pretty quiet. There were no lights that illuminate from inside of houses.
Where are the people? I guess, they were either asleep or outside partying.

I got an SMS greeting from my Singaporean friend so I asked her how she is spending her Christmas Eve. To my surprise, she replied, "We don't celebrate Christmas." That made me clearly realize that I'm not in the Philippines. And as I watch my friends talking on the phone with misty eyes, I can't help but wish I was back home. I miss the hustle of cooking the Christmas feast, the excitement of everyone in opening their gifts, the blinking of Christmas lights everywhere, the constant playing of Christmas songs, and most of all the loud and beautiful display of fireworks that encompasses the night sky.

our humble feast...

We still celebrated Christmas with the traditional exchanging of gifts and a feast on the dinner table(albeit minus the lechon!) I guess, we have to make do with what we can and what we have but still there is no place like a Christmas at Home...

Postscript:

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Love's Complexities

Recently, I found myself surrounded by the overwhelming bittersweet effects of a grand emotion we call LOVE. Mind you, I am not directly involved in it.

It has already been an almost daily happening to find my friend in tears or in a state of zoning out from reality. I could somehow understand the inner turmoil that she is in now for I am not an amateur on this situation but seeing her going overboard and slowly destroying herself is too much for me to comprehend the logic in her actions. I do know we are only humans and thus are susceptible to weaknesses and mistakes. Based on my understanding of Love, it can be a person's weakness or another person's strength. It only depends on how you let it rule over you. I guess, my friend has made it the center of her life for when it came crashing down, she went with it.

For me, LOVE is neither good nor bad. It can be a strong motivational factor or a pillar to ones success if used properly. Many say that LOVE should be unconditional and infinite. Most say you should love with all of your heart to be able to grasp the happiness that it brings but does that mean you should love him more than your life? Does that mean you should pour all your capacity for loving on it? How do we know the right way of loving someone? If there is even a right way. When do we know that the emotion we perceive as love has unconsciously turned into poison that slowly eats up the soul of our being? I guess if you are not directly caught up in it, you might be able to spot the slight changes but for the person involved, it might take them a while or probably never. For when you are too occupied with the present and has the shadows of the past, you don't have time to look beyond (or some people just refuse to do so).

LOVE is like a double edged sword. It is bittersweet. It is Heaven and Hell. I can go on with all the adjectives but the bottom line is --- LOVE is inseparable to PAIN. If this is the case, the best we can do is to try to lessen the pain Love brings. How? It all depends on you. All of us have different ways of coping with pain.

Considering all these, I go by a principle. "LOVE UNSELFISHLY" then you will still be able to feel happiness amidst all the pain for in shedding our selfish nature will we be able to love more and appreciate the beauty it brings.

Postscript:

LOVE is too grand an emotion. It is too complex to decipher and understand thoroughly.

So, let us just welcome it, embrace it and feel it!

It's one of the things that makes us Human!

Cheers!

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Limbo

For more than a month now, I have spent my Friday and Saturday nights clubbing. I actually don't know why I keep on doing this when half of the time I'm not really having fun and I'm in no mood to "meet" people whose names I tend to forget the second after it was mentioned. I think it's a waste of money, time and a good pair of sandals!

Just now, I came from another clubbing spree with a few bucks lighter, a sore pair of feet and an alcohol-induced uncomfortable feeling but as I thought it over, if this can make my troubled and lonely friends vent out their frustrations in life and feel lighthearted afterwards, then I'm willing to go through the same boring pattern over and over again.

Every Friday and Saturday night is de javu. I's been like clockwork. At 9pm I begin to get ready. I'm out the door by 10 and inside the club by 10:30. I start my night by ordering a drink the minute I arrive. After a few round of drinks and drumming along the beat of the music, I start to dance (I guess, this is the only time of the night that I'm really enjoying... when I'm dancing!). This goes on until around 2am or when I think that my friend(s) had enough to drink. This would be my queue to drag them out and hit the door fast before they start pouring their hearts out in the middle of the crowded floor. More often than not, I get to lend them my shoulder and a pair of ears along with a packet of tissues.

I don't know why I'm surrounded with friends here who are laden with woes (It makes me miss more my carefree friends back in Cebu). I thought I was over the "relationship" problems when I decided to stay unattached. I guess, you can never really get rid of it completely. You are either in it or surrounded by it. Although I'm only a spectator this time but it still bugs me. Worse thing is I don't know what I can do to help. I guess, that is why even if I'm stuck with this useless way of spending the weekends, I will still continue to do so just to accompany my friends on the lowest point of their lives.

Sometimes, when I think about why I keep on turning down the prospect of a relationship is because of this. Seeing my friends so broken and down is enough to last me a decade.

I really hope that they are going to pull themselves out of this limbo fast before my body breaks down from the constant clubbing or worse yet become totally jaded on my views on love.

Postscript:

Hahay! LOVE. It's Heaven and Hell combined.