Category: X-Archives

Blue has always been my color

Rhiza15 Comments

I’m moving back to Caloocan in about *counting the days in my head* two weeks (wow, time flies!), and with the construction of my new room happening this week, I had to pick a color to paint my walls with. Why thank you, Carrie Bradshaw, for having such a fabulous (fictional) apartment for inspiration. Yesterday, I finally chose my color swatches, deciding on a color that’s familiar and comfortable, not to mention I love: Blue.

Check out these photos of Carrie’s renovated apartment in Sex and the City 2. (Segue: do writers in New York City really earn so much that they’re capable of keeping a pad as snazzy as this one?)

carrie-bradshaw

carrie-bradshaw2

My love affair with blue

Growing up with two brothers, my juvenile interests leaned towards boy stuff — watching PBA, collecting basketball cards, playing roller blades, engaging at pusoy dos marathons with my brothers, wearing lose shirts and baggy pants, and preferring non-feminine colors like black and blue. I was 16 years old when, taking over my Lola’s room in the second floor of our house in Caloocan, I decided that I wanted to paint the room blue. To be overly redundant, I asked my Mom to buy me blue curtains and blue bed sheets and pillow cases. Turning 18 years old, my parents threw a debut party for me, and it didn’t take me a minute to decide my color motif. Perhaps the only blue thing that I wasn’t crazy about in college were UP’s blue books, lol, can I just say that those little exam booklets were the bane of my college existence??!

Blue books aside, it came to a point when blue, to me, became a safe zone, hence, when I started moving out of life’s little comfort zones, I started exploring a bit on my color preference too. Pink, brown, red, green, purple — my color dateline, in that order, representing eras of my life. Invite me for coffee and I’ll share my color story with you. ;)

And now it’s blue again.

You know how it feels like when you’re back with an old love affair after exploring and testing other options, realizing that he is still the love of your life, maybe you didn’t even stop loving him after all? Forgive me for the tacky illustration, but that’s how blue is like to me. Home, puppy love turned love-of-my-life, the color that I want to wake up to in the morning, surround me the whole day, the last thing I see before I close my eyes. I’ve seen all the other colors, but it all comes back to blue. I can’t wait to see how my blue room is going to look (and feel) like.

I’m getting to know a whole new version of myself lately.

That version of me who welcomes the idea of settling down, who chooses the warmth of the familiar over the thrill of taking risks, who prefers being surrounded by family rather than party-loving friends, who labels things according to whether they’re temporary or eternal and chooses only those which will last.

Choosing blue, somehow, feels like a representation of all that.

And and and.. I’m doing that thing again where I over-analyze on trivial things like color preferences and being all melancholy again about getting old(er) and wondering again about things like, if they say quarter-life ends at 27, does this mean I’m, at this point in time, having mid-life crisis?

What’s my point again?

I forgot.

Oh, and thanks, Carrie Bradshaw.

Life is too short to be so afraid of Friday nights

Rhiza

Friday nights are supposed to be spent with someone, I always thought. I call it “Friday night sickness,” the cure for which would be a bunch of friends for company, or, in the absence of companions, an impulsive shopping spree with lots of cash to spend. At one point in my life, I considered being caught dead alone on a Friday night as one of my greatest fears, next to my macbook crashing and not being able to have babies.

But I realize now, as I’ve been spending more and more Friday nights by myself, that it’s not so bad spending nights like this just being quiet, watching droplets of rain trickle down glass windows while cars pass by in the background like little bokehs, and listening to the hushed voices of lovers and friends chatting inside coffee shops.

It’s Friday night, I’m alone, and I’m in love.

In love with life, in love with NOW, in love with the promise of things to come. I want to remember these days, these Fridays I get to spend alone. I want to dry them up, like rose petals placed in between the pages of a hard bound book, and preserve them until they’re old and yellow and forgotten. And then maybe one day, accidentally or on purpose, I’ll come across these memories, remember how it’s like, and laugh at the silliness of it all.

Tonight I realize that I need to chillax and learn to not be so afraid of being alone.

(Thoughts that are too long for twitter. Posted from my mobile phone.)

The sad thing about movies

Rhiza2 Comments

I like watching movies, often by myself, sometimes in the company of friends. See I’m not that autistic! Like the other night, I watched Sex and the City 2 with Joni and Maemae (don’t you just love repeating one-syllable names twice?), and okay, I confess I already saw SATC2 by myself last week but thought I’d watch it again because I like watching movies more than once like that.

If my life is a movie

Photograph taken one October day at Universal Studios (LA), 2008.

Anywayy, J, M, and I — we love talking and analyzing movies (and TV series) whenever we get together, among other things. We can dissect Lake House to no end and still have more to discuss the next chance we get. Sometimes, we would talk about fictional characters as if they’re our friends, and contemplate about their fictional lives with a passion. And that’s just the thing with movies. They move us, wimmen (maybe not all, forgive me for generalizing), into feeling as if we’re somehow involved, making us analyze our own lives in comparison.

But what really makes me sad (or frustrated) about watching movies is the element of time.

In movies, 20 years is something that can be jammed into a 4-minute video montage ala music video. (Think Ellie & Carl’s life together, my most favorite 4 minutes in the history of Pixar). In movies, you only have to endure 2 hours to know what’s going to come out of a story. Letters sent back and forth over a period of three years while trying to keep a long distance affair (ala Dear John) are made to look endurable. Ten years in Carrie Bradshaw’s life becomes a mere 2-minute narration.

In movies, it’s easy to just insert a blank screen with the words “after [so-and-so number of] years”, and conveniently leave out those years off the story altogether. But truth is, that transition, that part which gets cut off from the movie, is the most agonizing of all.

I kinda feel like I’m in that part of my life right now — that blank screen. I know I’m heading towards my “somewhere, someday,” but waiting and working for it is soo agonizing that I sometimes wish I have a golden thread so I can skip through parts, or, just like the movies, pull out that transitional blank screen. Except that this is real life, and one life can’t be all defining moments happening one after another, it has to have the long monotonous moments in between too. I mean, sure I don’t want to skip through 10 years of my life and miss out on actually living it. It’s really just the transitions that make me anxious and impatient.

And this, my friends, is what I mean by Hollywood’s way of making me over analyze things. And frankly, I’m quite not sure yet if that’s a good thing or not.

Also, I blame this to the hormones, poor defenseless hormones. And the coffee.

Take it from me, I turned 27

Rhiza14 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post an obligatory birthday blog. It has been a tradition I didn’t realize I was doing, documenting my birthday year after year after year since 2003 (and no, I’m not going to link back to my tabulas and blogspot days anymore because the older birthday posts are just too embarrassing).

I did write a birthday blog two weeks ago, but I posted it on a more discrete place, and well, maybe I’ll link back to it next year when I’m ready. Right now I just want an excuse to post these photos, hee.

27 Years!

I guess what set this year apart from the other birthdays was, this time, I wanted to lie low on the celebrations. And yes, contrary to the photos you’re seeing, I really did plan on just having a quiet day at home where I can work and contemplate on the past 27 years of my life (srsly), my only wish being that baby Isaac spent the day with me. But then my Mom, being the mother that she is (why thank you, mother!), couldn’t stop herself from preparing a surprise (and quick) birthday lunch for me, before she went out-of-town with some of our balikbayan relatives. Other highlights include dinner with Kuya Nate, Ate Imy & Isaac, the usual after-dinner coffee with Xai & Ivy, a bouquet of balloons delivered by Mark the latte boy, a pair of Nike slippers from my New Yorker cousin, a happy birthday serenade via Skype, and a humiliating photo album posted by Kuya Nikos in Facebook.

I can’t think of anything else I haven’t said already in my past birthdays, about growing one year older, leaving the past behind, being thankful for what you have, and how, when you turn a certain age, it would feel like your life is never going to be the same again. (Reading my old birthday posts, I find it funny now how I would say those very words every year!)

A word to those who are turning 27

Ahh, just.. keep it cool. When you reach this age, you will feel all sorts of pressure. See, your age is closer to 30 now, and if you’re like me who still doesn’t have a kid at this age, everyone will keep reminding you of your biological clock. Be ready to answer questions like, ‘when are you getting married?’ or ‘do you have a boyfriend?’, or ‘what are you waiting for?’, you’ll encounter lots of those on a daily basis. Prepare a standard answer, practice your smile. Keep your composure, there’s no need to feel anxious.

By this time you would have experienced how it’s like to have your heart broken, found success (or failure) in your career, enjoyed your independence, made countless of mistakes. That’s fine, what doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger, we often hear and say. At 27, you will always find yourself drawing strength from your past experiences and realizing that with God’s grace, you have, indeed, become a better person.

Sure, you will have to make decisions that will alter your life forever, but what I’ve come to realize is, whatever choice you make, or wherever God places you when you turn 27, you will be okay. Whether you choose to pursue your career, or settle down and start a family (or whether you’re already raising a family!), know that not one choice is better than the other. You will do fine, either way. And God.. God will remain faithful no matter what, you’ll just have to keep trusting and believing that He’s got the rest of your life in His hands.

I blog this in behalf of Love

Rhiza8 Comments

And I mean that two ways. (1) In behalf of my friend, whose name is Love; and (2) In behalf of this thing you won’t dare try to define because every definition would seem to fall short; this thing that brings two people together to take the leap and journey their lives as one.

With Lovelle <3

Meet Lovelle, or “Love” as friends call her. We knew each other from UP Diliman but her family migrated to Sydney shortly after graduation. When I went there in 2008, Lovelle was among the few friends I got in touch with. I honestly can’t recall the specific details anymore, but I do remember that our quick lunch date then was a meaningful exchange of stories and prayers between two crazy, lovestruck dreamers. These photos are from that beautiful afternoon in Paramatta, we only had a few, oh how I wish I took more!

It has been a while since I last heard from her, and since she last updated her blog. And so I was pleasantly surprised to read this short and sweet blog comment she left in one of my posts, which lead to an exchange of happy emails between two giggly, still-lovestruck but now-2-years-older-and-wiser dreamers.

Here’s an excerpt from her email, her response to my demand for details:

Last Sunday night after church, we were having our goodbye hug but this time, he didn’t let go straight away, instead he whispered, “Will you marry me?” So I had to step back and get him to repeat the question. Haha.

It’s so funny coz all day, even at church, he was agitated and always sulking but he won’t tell me the reason why. At that point, everything dawned on me that he was really scared/tensed/about-to-die coz he didn’t know if I’m gonna say yes to his proposal.

When he asked the question again, I said YES. :)

He didn’t even get a ring coz he’s not too sure of my size so we went engagement ring shopping just today and I got to pick the style and the cut I want. :D

I’ve heard all sorts of engagement proposals, ones which had all the grandeur and fireworks, and they’re great, no doubt about it. But there’s something about simple proposals such as this one that tugs into the deepest portions of my heart. I love the quiet, the simplicity, and how they happen at the most unexpected of times. I can just imagine Lovelle’s joy.

It inspires me to hear stories like these. Of lovers taking the path to marital bliss. Of couples being blessed with babies after years of praying for them. Of high school classmates passing the boards and now having an “Atty.” attached to their names. Of friends leaving their comfort zones, and successfully establishing their careers abroad.

Like I told Lovelle, stories such as hers are living testimonies and constant reminders that God stays true to His promises, and that He is who He said He is — Faithful, Perfecter of our faith, Author of love, Maker of all things beautiful.

Happy is an understatement, Lovelle. My heart soars for you, and the love of your life, and the exciting journey you’re taking together. ♥

New York, movie nights with myself, and the universe throwing signs my way

Rhiza12 Comments

So I accidentally-on-purpose found this old photo of Time Square I took in 2008 with my Holga, and oh my wow, I just.. meh, I feel like my love affair with New York was cut too short I have to go back and pick up where we left off or else I’d spend my entire life counting whys and what-ifs.

Times Square, October 2008

Times Square, October 2008

You see, I’ve been watching movies lately. Last full shows. By myself. And if you must ask, it’s not that I don’t have friends to watch movies with, it’s just that I recently discovered that it’s therapeutic to watch movies alone. For one, I get to freely choose how I want my popcorn and have it all to myself (sour cream with extra salt, please). Secondly, I get to pick which movie to watch without the fear of being judged for my preference (chick flick which doesn’t require too much thinking, please).

It’s my third movie date with myself tonight. The last two movies I watched were Remember Me and When In Rome because the options were either way too comedy or way too action for my taste.

I really don’t want to discuss in length how I thought Remember Me was too depressing to be watched alone, and how confusing it was to see Edward Cullen, James Bond, and Ellis Grey all together in one film; or how mediocre When In Rome was and how, the only interesting part of it was the fact that some scenes in the movie were shot in Rome (You’d think, with that title, that the entire film took place in Rome. Nope.)

I’m going to say my point now, people, my apologies for talking way too much.

What I’m saying is.. What really made my heart leap in both movies was how they brought me back to New York City and wooed me with beautiful moving images of Manhattan, Times Square, Central Park, Staten Island ferry, Brooklyn bridge, those yellow NYC taxi cabs, pigeons flying all over the place, and empty subway stations, so much that it starts to feel like there’s this void in my heart that only New York can fill.

I’m bound for New York again, I know it. I just don’t know exactly how in the universe it’s going to happen and when, but I am so going to be back there.