Secrecy and normalcy

I was watching "Sex and the City" last night, there’s this scene where Miranda told Mr. Big that both Carrie and he are crazy for deciding to get married.

And then, Mr. Big got cold feet and never showed up to the wedding.

Then Carrie’s best friends being her best friends, took her away for vacation.

Then six months after on Valentine’s Day, Miranda finally confessed that she may have said something that may have had a significant impact on Mr. Big’s cold feet demeanor.

Carrie was perplexed that Miranda did not tell her sooner. Miranda said she was waiting for the proper timing and Carrie told her that she should’ve tried to tell her every day. Carrie mentioned, “You know what hurts the most, it’s not because you told me six months after, it’s because you kept a secret from me when I never kept a single secret from you.”

This line… I could relate 100%.

I am conflicted with the idea of friendship.

At one point, I think that secrets go with the kind and level of friendship that we have. Of course, we do not expect someone to share his/her life story with a mere acquaintance. But when we take someone as one of our best friends, we expect openness with each other. We expect that there is a mutual understanding of not keeping secrets from each other. At least on my part, that's my major friendship takeaway.

However, if we add personality to the mix, the result may be different. If someone is secretive, asking him/her feels like we are prying into his/her affairs. It makes us feel as though we're exercising some sort of control over an unwilling participant.

Serious conversations demand honesty. We own our truth.

Like any sort of relationship, friendships operate in mutuality, in reciprocating what we receive. We do not take and take and never give anything in return, that’s not friendship. That is behaving like a spectator on someone’s life if not (and sorry for my term) a leech.

If truth be told, I have yet to find a balance between these kinds of friendships. I know for sure that I can’t change a person’s mind, but I can change mine. I am yet to explore the ideas around it. There are options to filter me and my truth OR not put much weight on this type of friend.

In any case of misfortune, I may have considered them my best friends but clearly, they may not have considered me theirs. I am not sure whether to take it at face value, leave it as it is or leave it and never look back.

"Sex and the City" has never made this much impact on me until last night. Was it for good or for bad? I don't know. 

Forums

I admit I am a fan of Reddit.

It takes me back to a time when forums were the first form of social media interaction. If truth be told, I was once a member of Sarah Geronimo’s fan forum. LOL. No kidding! Yes, I did that.

The forums are interesting. It feels like a community of people sharing information, getting answers to their questions, or just people broadcasting their admiration for something or someone, somewhere.

Anyway, so I am not a regular commenter on Reddit. I am more of the silent lurker type. However, last night I had the burning curiosity to type in a question. It was a wholesome inquiry into places here in Vancouver.

Being new here with limited transportation options, I have not been to many local places. I wanted to explore this city and get the most out of it. I do not want to be a tourist even after years of living here. I wanted to know the inside information, somewhat like the local guide to sumptuous meals, hole-in-the-wall places, etc. I was surprised to have received so many comments. There were so many places I have never even heard of.

Most comments were mentioning dining alone and taking a spot in the bar. I was curious. I have never taken a spot in the bar, much more, alone. It made me think about doing it. I have read somewhere about the importance of challenging oneself and taking on things you thought would be uncomfortable, and I think I just got the lead!

Let’s see how it goes, for now, I have to say, I am taking notes on these places hoping to visit some of them in the nearest future!

Forums, are they helpful? Well, I’d say depends on what you put there!

Gratefulness as an option

“When gratefulness is an option, always choose it every time.”

This was the line that struck me in Anne Hathaway’s magazine interview.

Life is a series of decisions. Sometimes, we make good ones and stumble upon bad ones. Some bad decisions, we know from the start and still pushed on, and others, well, we thought it was good until it went bad, OR it was good but ended up bad. Because of life’s unpredictability, we try to forge paths never really knowing what happens next.

But it is in this unpredictability that life becomes life. We either rise above the occasion, stay safe, or get let down. When we understand that nothing stays permanent, we do our best to go with the flow. No amount of happiness nor sadness stays forever.

The same is true with our experiences. For mine, I have had thoughts about how something I really wanted never materialized. It’s like having all the ingredients and all I must do is boil them together. However, by some twist of fate, the stove had malfunctioned. I was left disillusioned and probably regretted why I never started it earlier. But as I look back and really digest what happened, it was not meant to happen at all, I was meant to be invited to a four-course dinner!

I realized that the little mishaps and the frustrations were nothing but a slice of spice. In the grand scheme of things, those that I thought I lost were not mine to begin with. What’s funny is that the things that I thought were near impossible to acquire, I got them.

Circling life, I have built an attitude of gratitude. I believe that what’s meant for me will ALWAYS find me, no matter where I am in life. And although sometimes I miss the signals, I always try to pause and detach myself and recalibrate what is important to me. I am grateful for the missed chances, all my “almost” and my wrong turns because they prepared me to be the woman I am today.

It would be a lie to say that I don’t get consumed with negativity when I am going through difficult times. Most often, I would be swallowed by it. However, I try to remember that diamonds come from the rough. It achieved its shine by going through a rough process to smoothen its edges.

When there is gratitude, we try to look at life through a different lens. Sure, it is not all the glitters and gold but the values and lessons that I have learned after every downfall, heartache, heartbreak, and failure carried me through life. 

The nice one

I hate that I must be the nice one.

Nice, as in, the recipient of trivial gossip, the person who can always be a target for anything and everything unbelievably insane.

I’ve always shied away from gossip. I don’t want to get myself involved in useless conversations where the main objective is to create a story about someone else – the goal would be to tell it in the most creative way possible – unfortunately, the worse, the better. I don’t like talking about a colleague, an acquaintance, or a friend of mine in a way that makes me question my own loyalty.

I don’t like being name-dropped in malicious conversations. When the message has been relayed and they single out who was the source, I don’t want it to be me.  I just don’t like how it makes me feel – cheap and village-y.

I have packaged myself with the dignity and competence of a grown woman who can hold her own. I have always thought of myself as someone who can say a thing and be completely honest and accountable for it. I made sound decisions that could propel me to, albeit slowly, put myself ahead of my tribe. I have made goals and challenged myself to make them come true.

I pride myself as independent, level-headed, and competent. I don’t need smearing campaigns to gain something. I already gained everything I ever had from doing hard work, sheer luck, and without the need to bring somebody down. It’s never my MO. Somehow, I made who I am by my own strength – without hanging the possibility of progress over someone else’s resources.

But because I am tagged as NICE – I get targeted by people who can never accept that their own fate is their own doing. I get annihilated because they think I don’t fight back.

Firstly, I was not born yesterday. Secondly, I got to where I am now not because I ALWAYS chose to be safe. Lastly, I choose my battles.

You could say I am nice, but no one is ever too nice if push comes to a shove.

Waking up

I remember the horror I felt.

I was strapped into a hospital bed and made ready for the vaccine. The doctor, with his white lab coat, grabbed the vial and plunged the syringe into it. Laying down, the lights were blinding, and my vision was full of whites. “This is just a booster”, exclaimed my mind while my hands tried to be free. The weird thing was, “how come I would be injected in my left middle toe?”

 I calmed myself down until I felt the syringe deep into my toe. The liquid might have done something to my system. I was shaking uncontrollably and was hyperventilating. At one point, I was there panicking with short heavy breaths. “This could be my last”, I resigned to the fact.

“When I wake up in the morning, love…” There goes my alarm!

Whoo! The relief! It was just a dream.

I slowly got up and said a little prayer. At that moment, I was enveloped with gratefulness.

Waking up is always a miracle. Sometimes when you feel like your current life’s chapter becomes dragging, don’t dwell on it. Remember that not everyone gets the chance to see another day.

The most valuable reject

I’m no stranger to rejections.

Rejections are something that I must go through to grow.

There are rejections coming from personal relations where the first cut is always the deepest. Rejections start during childhood – when my only friend got a new best friend or when my group realizes they don’t need me anymore. It could also be the time when my playmates decide to kick me out of the game. As I grow, rejections evolve into something more. It hides in the face of my ultimate crush finally getting his first girlfriend. It manifests in the relationships I almost had. Rejection is also when, no matter how hard I try to patch things up with someone, things just don’t work as they are supposed to.

 And then, there’s rejection coming from my professional experience. I’ve probably had countless interviews that I failed to pass. For what reason? I have no idea.

I’ve done the good and the bad when it comes to interviews. Good is when I scan and browse the company’s website. Read about what they do, if not what makes them special. I do my research, take notes, and get the context clues for when the interview deepens, all those little details come in handy.

 I have done the bad. Scan the website nonchalantly. Expect nothing more because, from the get-go, my efforts were nothing compared to my competitors. As time passes by, I learned when to expect rejection and when to keep my hopes up. Sadly, sometimes, they just don’t seem to add up. It hurts most when I have given 100% and end up not getting that promotion, not even a step closer to the proverbial ladder of professional success.

 In hindsight, rejection offers awareness. I realize how fate is being played out, it’s unpredictable. I am aware that things may not turn out the way I expected them to. When I confidently say, it’s in the bag, a few seconds after, it really is not. I realize how little details affect the gravity of the outcome. I can determine that in my pursuits, although I have given 100%, it may only amount to 5% in other people’s eyes. Do I have a hold on that? The answer would be a flat no.

 As time goes by, I have learned how rejection offers the opportunity to try again. When things don’t go out as planned, I won’t mope around the idea of not being selected, for the whole day. (Or okay, I may mope for an hour and be done with it) Rejection means I have attempted something and this something may move my mark one step closer to the goal. The mere attempt is already growth because along with it are the virtues that I mustered to make that single attempt happen. It also teaches me perseverance. Do you know that feeling when your shoes are new? You get blisters but the more you wear them, the blisters disappear. You get used to them. It’s tricky to say that I would get used to rejection because that’s not the goal. The goal is always to stand up after every rejection.

 I remembered a dear friend of mine back when I had a really hard time. I asked her, “what made you this strong?”. She replied, “You know, I had so many family issues to deal with when I was younger. The problems I have now do not necessarily compare!” The pitfalls were what our storylines sound more compelling. With rejection, one rejection would not kill you. With plenty of rejections, you either decide to give up or continue and make those your ticket to the long-shot ride to success.

With rejection comes acceptance. This has got to be the most difficult part of the rejection. When you assess what went wrong, what you lack, or what they failed to see in you. With acceptance comes humility that we may lack something or is not the person they were necessarily looking for. With my rejections, I learned to accept that while I may not be enough for them, somewhere, somehow, I may be more than enough for someone else.

Thinking thongs

Invest in experiences, they said.

I just think that this does not only apply to having grand holidays or trying out culinary masterpieces. It also applies to the most basic, most mundane, and most ordinary ways we conduct our business. For me, it happened to be the intimates.

For the grand scheme of superlatives, I would say “conservative”, not plain (because plain means dull and empty and I am neither of those.) I have a rather conservative approach to the things that I’d usually go for. I normally go for the safe fashion. Plain white Ts paired with jeans and a reliable pair of sneakers. Of course, it stretches to common underwear. The type of which you’d mistake it for your grandma’s. But for the first time, I have tread on a rather adventurous style. I have tried thongs!

Never in my wildest dreams, did I spend a minute wondering how I would look in it.

I tried wearing thongs for curiosity. I found it funny, bare bum and all. But thongs, I quite realized offer a different vibe. For one, I never felt so empowered while wearing it. It’s as though I have reached a new level of kickassness. It's like when someone tells me that I wear the same turtleneck every day… Who cares? Underneath it is my dope thongs! Two, wearing a thong gave me divine confidence. I have never been the type to dwell in the mirror and look at my body. I think that my curves are not in the right places, so to speak. But for the first time, I have never been more interested in my bum. I thought to myself how it’s not so bad as I pictured it in my mind. Lastly, thongs gave me an opportunity to be grateful. I have a body and that’s what matters!

Through my thong-wearing activity, I pondered how we think of ourselves as though we’re two-dimensional characters. Like we only ought to be measured by two faces. We allow people to have a say on how we do or look- front and back. Most regrettably are that we allow them to affect us in ways that we begin to doubt who we truly are. We often forget that we are beyond their initial understanding. It is essential to look at ourselves and realize that we amount to something more than what they picture us in their heads. More importantly, it is imperative to understand that we are more than that person in our heads, boxed in the limits of what we are capable of.

We are often guilty of self-sabotage. We compare ourselves to those we think have more than what we have. It’s a constant cycle of looking at other’s plates as full and highlighting our plate’s lack. We refuse to see that having the plate is already a blessing. My thongs taught me to appreciate that I have a body to which thongs can be worn. Isn’t that amazing? 

I guess it really doesn’t take a thrill-seeker to hike Kilimanjaro or dive the great barrier reef to be in for the experience. The same guts are required to try out new undies! Are you up for the challenge of potential discomfort or remain comfortable with your conventions? You decide.