Sharing Heartache

Ryan Andreas's fantastic soulfully rock rendition of one of my all time favorite songs by Sarah Mclachlan, "Angel." 

I've got so much to give but no one to give it to. 

I've just resigned from my position at the company after slaving away without getting what is due to me, let alone a bit of appreciation for all my extra efforts from my immediate boss. I have treated my colleagues as family, only to find out that they have ostracized me and thought none of my welfare, though it was professionally obligatory. These hurtful realizations slapped me in the face so hard that i found myself reeling and totally disillusioned. Finally, after almost four years of toiling my butt off, i decided to turn a blind eye at their many demands and walk away without looking back. 

These days i find myself frequenting my FB page for three reasons: to play Sims, to see if my sweetheart has poked me, and to look at the posts of my friends--browse through their photos and absorb their ideas in their shoutouts. It has been quite a while since i last posted a blog here. The past few weeks has been one hell of an emotional roller coaster ride. After more than a month of battling the frustration, i climaxed with a most disrupting emotional explosion, thus ending the chapters of my life spent in the company for good. 

It's all history now. 

Funny how resigning from my position felt so much like breaking up with a beau. I have been married to my job, in love with my work. Though i am much in love with Stephan and heartily pine for him and pray for him every single day, a part of my life revolves around other equally important matters involving my family and yes, my job, my passions. Resigning from my job opened my eyes to hurtful realizations that i have longed turned away from, albeit unconsciously.  And the underlying truth unifying them despite their diversity is this: I feel myself slowly slipping away to nothingness. 

I need someone. 
Someone to love. 
Someone to take care of. 
Someone to dedicate myself to. 
Someone to make happy. 
Someone to give meaning to my life and make it worth living. 

Looking at my friends' pictures with their families--husband and children or just child or children at times for the ever-strong single moms or dads, brings tears to my eyes, breaking my heart in a most profound way that no words, despite my being an experienced wordsmith, could aptly describe. "How i wish i too would have my own beautiful family, a husband to back up and share myself with and lovely kids to raise and take care of. " As my family, rest assured that i would not bat an eyelash in offering up myself, even my own life if needed be...just to make them happy. 

Below, the angelic Debra Romer doing her painfully beautiful rendition of "Dreams" by Priscilla Ahn.

Having celebrated my 36th year in this world five days ago, i could only shake my head at how things have turned out in my so-called life. Youth has a way of suffocating your thoughts, making you think that you are immortal. Back then, the world was but a dainty and artfully decorated chocolate cupcake to enjoy as i pleased. In my mind's eye, i was this geeky princess whose beauty and youth would never fade. Though i have always struggled to stay confident, having been raised to be self-effacing to the point that i was led to think myself no better than anyone else, from the very start, despite all this, i have an inborn awareness of my good fortune: i have serious God-given talents. Period. 

My father never made me feel good enough. Not once have i seen him show appreciation of me as his daughter regardless of how far i go out of my way to prove myself--and yes, despite all the talents i have been bestowed with, including the artistically cruel hand he handed down to me via genes. But i won't hate him anymore. Nope. I would just never talk to him that's all. If i have to put up with him, being my father, i would do so thru a silent protest, refusing deliberately to pay him no attention, unless he really needs my help that is. This is as much as i can do to hold on and preserve what little respect i have left for him. But through all this, i still credit my old man for giving me the right to claim my wings, and be the best i can be in spite of his troubled self--and this is despite the fact that he still thinks i'm his moronic daughter of a bitch up to this day. 

I look forward to the day that my prince charming comes and whisks me away to our new life together, hence starting our own family. I've always wondered if doing so would be jumping from the frying pan straight into the fire. But what is there to fear? My family may have been as imperfect as the Simpsons, but i still came out a good person. A good woman with nothing but clean intentions. Honest to a fault, disillusioned from all the pain, but nonetheless still standing tall, hopeful of what tomorrow would have for me. 

I do hope and pray it is Stephan. But being the adults we are, we know deep inside that certainty cannot be claimed by mere words or wishful thinking alone. I am in love with him--that is the truth. As to how or why  this is so given the fact that we have not yet met personally, and he has not yet experienced "me," all i can say is that reasons this profound, evade logical explanation. But isn't this one of the many unaccountable mysteries surrounding the nature of love? People in our lives may raise their eyebrows at how our little love story came to be. I just shrug it off and laugh at them. Let them be. For all i care. 

From the start and until the end, whether or not my beloved sweetheart and i are meant to be, it all boils down to the two of us. Not them. Not anyone. It's our relationship. Our love. Our decision. And it is my decision to hold on, stay true, and keep the faith for the man i love. My friends had warned me against falling into the same trap of giving too much of myself away too soon. Well, it is not that soon though(i think), but i am really into him. Many times, i have been advised of the need to look out for myself by not putting all my eggs in one basket, meaning i should have a spare guy waiting in the wings. But two-timing has never been my game, regardless of whether or not he is physically with me. Though obviously the most practical thing to do given the heartbreaks i have had, i still cannot make myself cheat no matter how hard i try. 

Having been broken and left for dead emotionally several times has not clouded my conscience and faith in all that is good one bit. I may be depressive and broken in many places, but i have always sided with the truth.  I have my dark side like everyone else, but i also have a good heart, a good soul, and by God's immense generosity, also a good mind. There is a purpose and reason for everything. And if there is one very good lesson i have learned in all my 36 years of walking this somewhat-pathetic yet still beautiful world, is that i do not have to understand every one of them, really. These reasons are not always a walk in the park. From experience, more oft than not, they always make you end up feeling like you're tightrope walking or dancing on live coals. But they are the truth nonetheless. And like i've said over and over again, i would rather swallow the truth and die from the pain, if necessary, than force myself to live with an illusion for the rest of my life. 

Even if i somehow manage to give myself a wee bit of credit for my merits as a person, as a woman, at the back of my mind i have always been nagged by the thought that i am no good and never would be. Hard as it is to shake this off, i have had it with being neurotic. Foolish as i am, does it really matter? I haven't cried in front of anyone, not even once. But in my solitude, the tears come pouring down on their own. It is particularly hard during the wee hours of the night as i struggle to fall asleep. In the privacy of my room, i am reduced to this little girl choking on her own sobs, doing her best to keep her heart from bleeding too much and dying eventually from it, stifling her cries as she does so. 

I know i should be grateful. I am. Yet there is no denying that i too have my pains--and pacifying myself by comparing my plight with others is pure hypocrisy. Being told about how better off i am compared to those who are dying of hunger out there or suffering  miserably due to the floods, is like being forced to deny the existence of a benign but perpetually bleeding wound. Though not fatal, this wound can eventually drain the life out of me if ignored and left to bleed continuously. 

I know that all too well. And though i think i have no family or kids of my own to whom i can dedicate this outpouring love or whatever goodness i have welling up from inside me, i would always fight to live. I could get disillusioned a million times, killed over and over again, but i would battle to get back up on my feet and forge onward. Courage and truthfulness are all i've got now to keep me going, and i would not waste them in any way.  

"Thank you God for everything." I mean this, not as a cynical expression of irony, but as an utterance of sincere gratefulness coming from the bottom of this good bitch's heart.

"Attention" by Debra Romer. "Crush my thoughts. Kill my faith," she croons. Could there be any other song that could better cap off this lengthy melodramatic ranting than this one? But seriously, i did not intend to rant this way if only to kill my faith. Everything is pointless if not for it.