Little Things

For the first time, I don’t want to explain. I feel the usual urge to scream at your face and make you realize that you are wrong whichever way you look at it. But I know it’s useless. And I don’t have the energy. What, go through it all over again just to show you how every second of it was hell for me? No, thank you.

It was a weird feeling, to be so mad and hurt (but mostly hurt) that I wanted to puke. In my mind, as I puked, I watched whatever remained of the little respect I have for myself go down the drain with that night’s dinner.

The people you love best can hurt you the worst. I learned that the hard way that night.

You know what happens every time you say things that hurt people who love you? They love you a little less.

I have seen you hurt the people who love you with the sharp end of what you say. It pains me. I cannot imagine how they could hold out. You snap at anyone about the shallowest of things. You ruin even the best of times. Your mood swings are impossibly unfathomable.

You are difficult. You don’t care about how people might feel. As long as you have your way. And you believe that if it’s not your way, it is not the way.

Everyone gets to be cranky and obnoxious sometimes, and we understand that. But with you, any nice conversation could turn into a nasty exchange of hateful words. Thanks no less to your endless bickering about things that displease you in the littlest way.

There are always better ways to say things. We may all fall for the oh so tempting urge to snap and yell at a person sometimes, but even the nicest and most understanding people can only take so much bickering.

And you know what I hate so much about your constant bickering? Is that it is often completely unnecessary and uncalled for.

It can’t be a way of life, can it? This quick temper, this disposition, this failure to realize that it’s not okay to say spiteful things to people even on the nicest of days? Are you going to live the rest of your life breaking people’s hearts with your tongue-lashing? Imagine all the feelings you are going to hurt, imagine all the great times you are going to ruin.

Sometimes, you get on my nerves so much that I want to scream at you to friggin’ shut up. But, no, I can’t bring myself to do that, because that would mean doing the very thing I hate you doing.

Please stop hurting the people who love you. Love transcends patience, bravery, and the physical, I know, but you’re draining them of their love for you. Don’t turn their oceans of love into deserts. For your own sake, please don’t.

Ina emailed several questions for a feature article she’s writing about our team for the company newsletter. My answers are terribly long; don’t know what I was thinking. Most of them will probably be edited out, so I’m copy-pasting some of my original answers here.

What is the soundtrack of your life?
I’d love to say Alanis Morissette’s "Not All Me" because I sooo love that song, but, no, I must say it’s the Diane Warren-penned Walter Affanasief-produced Tina Arena song "If I Was A River". It speaks of giving nothing but unselfish, unconditional love and care to a loved one, of giving that person all you’ve got. I can also relate very much to Alanis’s "So Unsexy" and Jewel’s "Near You Always". But one of my favorite lines from a song ever is "I hope I love you all my life" from that mushy song by Daniel Bedingfield.

What was your best subject in school? (ie, where did you excel)
Would you believe, Chemistry?! I completely don’t remember my periodic table now, but I topped one departmental exam in NatSci I in UP. I’m not exactly proud. Yuck. What a nerd. But I loved Film 100. I read "Film as an Art" from cover to cover… twice! I did okay in a few of my major subjects, but I forget all of them now. Sorry Prof. Umali and Prof. Mamaclay! Hehe…

What’s the best advice anyone’s given you?
"Kamayin mo na lang" — by a resource person invited to talk about sex-related crimes in one of the completely useless LES sessions in college.

What Simpsons character best reflects your personality?
Lisa, according to my cousin Telly, who is one of the biggest Simpsons fans I know. I, too, have always thought that I’m like my favorite Simpson character in some ways, although I’m tempted to scour all of Springfield to look for a character that reflects my personality even better than Lisa does. Anyway, Telly says I’m like Lisa because she’s smart. I don’t know; you tell me. She’s resilient; she keeps her sanity even with her lunatic dad and brother around. She is also precocious and very nice, and has just enough evil in her.

Did you cry when Littlefoot’s mom died in "The Land Before Time"?
No. I remember it saddened me very much, but, no, I did not cry. I would not cry watching a movie until I’m much much older. "The Cure" and "My Life" come to mind. The very first time I cried in a movie theater was while watching a Lualhati Bautista adaptation. But the two movies that made me shamelessly cry my heart out in a theater are "Big Fish" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

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We were to submit photos for the article. Thanks to Letlet’s incredible talent with lenses and Miray’s incessant begging — no, more like demand — that we do a nude photoshoot of sorts in UP, my shift was able to come up with these: