Privacy

How important is it to keep a sacred space where you can relax and not worry about other people's opinions, or thoughts, or their eyes on your innermost thoughts? Is it so important that even your significant other has no allowance?

It's a double-edged sword. On one hand it's vital to venting and creativity. Privacy creates the comfort of knowing you can say and write what you want with no judgments passed, no possibility of a future argument where a quote might be brought up, or emotions tinkered with. You can let everything hang out: the good, bad and proverbial ugly without consequence.
On the other hand, to your significant other, it can mean you're keeping a part of yourself closed to him.

I feel I've learned my lesson with blogs. I had a traumatizing experience with it, that involved sharing blog passwords with an ex-boyfriend, then subsequently reading private posts that divulged innermost thoughts and emotions in the months after the break-up. I knew it wasn't healthy, but it became an obsession to me. So much, that he had to change his password... it was a lengthy ordeal, and we both underwent the sad separation that changing a password meant. It was like a breakup all its own. I took a break from blogs for a long time after that. I've even forgotten the password to that blog, which I had also changed after he changed his. It took me a lot to start this, and I started with an agreement to myself that it would be a safe haven for me. One that not even the closest person to me could see... the only person I don't mind seeing this is my sister.

But it's two-sided for me too. On one hand, I want Rob to learn everything about me. I want him to figure certain things out without my having to study what I need to point out about myself in order for him to understand me better. But on the other, I believe that timing is everything, and that things eventually float to the surface when it comes to relationships.

I almost let him see this blog. I divulged the address.
But we spoke about it...and I decided I didn't want him to read it. If he saw it, it would mean an end to this sacred haven. And while he's worth it, I was scared to regret it one day. I decided it would be better for him not to read it. And I trust that he won't, even if he has the address on his GChat.
I trust him.

People telling me what to do

I don't deal well with people telling me what to do. Or, scratch that. It's all in the way they tell me.
It's not easy for me to waver in the face of someone who is so definitive in their approach, who acts as though what they believe is the only thing, who doesn't ask me what I might think. Although I'm not the best collaborator, when it comes to something that involves me, I'd like to at least be consulted on some decisions. Or if not consulted, I'd like to have my own suggestions approached with a sense of openness and consideration.
But really, I just hate know-it-alls.

All good dreamers pass this way someday.

Been on a Joni Mitchell kick since I decided to take the CD's Rob gave me down from their shelves and into the old CD player. I wonder why I haven't tried to get her music sooner... her first album is reminiscent of Jewel's first (or vice versa, actually).  Now the comparison is clear. 

I listened to "Both Sides Now" on Wednesday and just wept. There is no other song that could destroy me and redeem me at the same time. I don't know what it is. Just the honesty, the surrender to humanity, the kind and patient melody, the tired but emotive vocals. It kills me but it wakes me up too.  Fantastic.

Thursday night was Charlotte Sometimes' 21st at Angels & Kings. Oh what a night. It was a new experience, especially hob-knobbing with some industry people. Alex insisted it was my "good looks" that kept them hanging on. I'd like to hope it was my engaging personality, but alas... even I am not always a dreamer. As long as Alex has his point proven, I will continue to be nagged to wear heels and keep my appearance up, at least when meeting other industry-folk. I met the presidents of Crush and Sam Hollander, also Juan Patino and a marketing guy named Jeff Mann from Universal. The last two I spent a good chunk of the night with... Alex said he was impressed. He didn't think I'd last all 5 hours at the bar...he thought I'd be ready to call it a night after one. Little did he know. :) I think our NYC escapades are bringing back the social-butterfly/party-girl side of me that I haven't visited since late October 2007. 

We started the night with cucaracha burachas at Burrito Loco and closed it with watered-down espresso at Cafe Orlin. Yuck. I should have stuck with their fries.

Friday night I was out until 4:30 at Julio's goodbye party. My sis and I went to Fat Black Pussycat... I reconnected with Beda, which was new yet familiar. Yes, we still have the indelible attraction, but there were no more preconceptions this time around. We were just friends that were reconnecting after a long time. In that sense, though, nothing had changed. It was the coldest night this year, yet we were hopping from place to place. My sister, Beda and I drove up to the karaoke place and eventually got some Korean BBQ while waiting for the others. Somewhere in the night we also met some good-looking Colombian guys... too bad there was little we could say to each other, ha! We topped the night off with some silly karaoke and I wished my friends were closer, so we could also have nights like these. I went home and had a long talk with Rob.

I was supposed to go to Foxwoods with him and his friends. But, as Alex says, it's the suburban way... the men stay together and the wives... well, they allegedly hang out (not in my case).  Rob really wanted me to go... partly because he truly did, and also because he knew he had to prove to me that I could still hang out with his friends even when no other girls were around. I was upset with him Friday night, asking for assurance that it would be ok for me to go. I had been having second thoughts, worried some of the guys might resent me. But Rob couldn't give me assurance either...so we argued. And the next day, after a talk with my mom and in the midst of terrible grogginess, I told him I wouldn't go. He had texted me the night before that although he wanted me to be there, it would be "less painful" for both of us if I didn't. I think that more than answered my questions. 

He went on to tell me he just wished I had come; that I should have come. But he never offered me assurance beforehand... and no matter what he says, I know it would have been different had I been around.

Besides, I hate to gamble and I'd had enough of hanging out late..

though I did spend Sat. night out at some Teaneck bar with Joyce. Oh Bergen County clubbing - what an awkward ordeal. 

Anyway, that's enough about me. To bed I go...

Sunrise

It's probably the last week of the holiday madness. The goodbyes begin tomorrow when Dad leaves for L.A. Then Greg on Saturday. Then Mom. Then Julio goes to Japan for a year about a week afterwards. That post-holiday wear and tear will rear its melancholy head. Rob said goodbye to his apartment where he'd spent four and a half precious post-college years, stretching out the joy of youth and alcohol. I am saying goodbye to the paralyzed me of 2008. I'm reminding myself that the wheel continues to roll, and I'm better off driving its speed than just letting it take me with it. I always preferred being in control anyway. 

God's plan is the perfect plan. I am trying to stay on course. Even when it doesn't feel good, or when it's daunting and full of doubt. I have faith that at the end of 2009, this will all make sense somehow, and my restlessness will have its purpose - whether it is what I hope, expect or do not even consider for a second. 

Independence

After church today, I drove down to Jersey City to check out Rob's new flat. It's a one-bedroom near Journal Square that's about $695 a month. Sadly, a dream come true around these parts. I took the drive with a bit of apprehension - after all, I'm notorious for getting lost anytime I'm in the Jersey City vicinity - but I popped some David Ford into the CD player (nothing like some angst-ridden 90's singer/songwriter to get you through anxiety... they've always got it worse than you), and got my mind off things. I managed to get there with little drama. The neighborhood was quiet, and a long line of quaint townhouses stretched down the street. Christmas lights peeked out of one spacious window; cozy bedrooms exposed themselves from attics above. His apartment is in an old brick building on the first flight up, and the three rooms that make his abode are quaint, charming... they have character. He's got those old-school steam heaters and the walls look cardboard-thick with slathered paint - the kitchen is a pasty sort of yellow/orange and the bedroom is velvet red. We ate pizza and drank tea, letting the loneliness of living alone immerse us. We only spent an hour and a half there, but there was really little else to do. It was the first occasion that time passed slowly when we were together. I was fascinated by this and kept calculating the time from when I parked my car to when I began following his Volkswagon back to the turnpike. 

It'll certainly be an adjustment now that he's got some new digs. 

We sat for a time in the kitchen before he walked around the table to embrace me warmly. 

"I wouldn't have done this if it weren't for you," he said.

Though I knew this somewhere in my mind, the words were still startling. 

"What do you mean?"     

I meant it.

"Well.  You were the one who encouraged me to do this. If you didn't, I never would have."

I think it was his way of saying that my nagging actually did a bit of good. 

I smiled and kissed him again.

Somewhere in the recesses of my veins, it made me nervous to think that I had influenced such a big decision. What if I was wrong? And what would this mean for me anyway? In all my "encouraging" I hadn't yet stopped to think about it.

Maybe 2009 will be a year for many new beginnings. 

2009

Cleaning my room is like sifting through the pieces of a history museum. Here and again I find old writings that remind me how I once used to think, stories that remind me of that question, "Are you really the same person you were before?" I am detached in many ways, but I know I am still deeply entrenched because sometimes these pieces make me cry. Maybe I'm just sentimental. This being the case, it takes a great deal of courage to delve into the artifacts, nervously awaiting the instant I find a chilling photograph, or a memory I once tried to sweep into my consciousness. What I found tonight was moving. Aside from the fact that it reminded me how sentimental I can be (to a fault), I remembered that I was once a good writer. And I mean that. It takes a lot to recognize myself as good and perfectly talented, but indeed... I once was. Who knows? Maybe it's hindsight that allows the past to glitter. 2008 will seem a gleaming year, even though at the moment I allow myself to fill with "should haves" and "could haves." I also remembered Isabelle, quietly chastising myself for not having the gall to call her up and say hello. My petty excuse? I've yet to research the word for "newspaper" in French. Lame. 

  I think I really loved her those months I spent with her. It's the memory of that love that haunts me now. This is why my heart is heavy when I think of our short time together. Deep inside, I still hope she is the same. Or better... I pray she is still alive. Even if she waited for Jean-Charles patiently, those slow days she'd spend tending leisurely through her routines. Water the garden. Mow the lawn. Do the wash. Shower. Dry her hair. Sit with Pepette and watch the Jura in the distance. How did I not realize what an impact she'd had on me during that semester abroad? I noticed Grace Princesa's influence before Isabelle's own. 

  The point is, I've allowed myself to wallow in some kind of self-pity ever since the catastrophic-break-up-of-2006. That break-up that left me wondering if I was still a good person. The one that revealed how much I clung to a false self-imposed image of "goodness" and perfection. The one where I learned why Redemption is so powerful after all...so powerful, I couldn't bring myself to understand that it was available even for me. And since then, I've let things slide. I haven't been honest, I haven't written to the best of my ability... I've "let it go" in a sense. The tiny but daring observances of everyday had just wilted to daily routines. I miss the days of wandering through New York and finding inspiration everywhere, even through the sensory overload. I don't even watch things anymore - I just sort of see them. How pitiful, I think. I am so good at wallowing, these post-college days. Wallowing that I'm not in a good-paying job. Lamenting that I haven't figured my life out yet. Crying over spilled milk. Fear and self-loathing breeds stagnation. This was a life I would have once refused. And still can. 

  I think of Jon Nabo and how he inspires me. He reminds me what there is to live for. That even though we all die the same way, we are not here for naught. We are here to be human and to live utterly complete and painfully emotional lives. Not just to sail and be content; not just to let our pay stubs define our status and mold our self-images. We're here to live because we were blessed with life on this unique Earth. In 2008 I missed that somewhere. I let myself fall into remission. With my retreat into seclusion, I also retreated from myself. 

Not this year.  This year everything changes.

I don't think I'm meant to return to how it used to be.  But I know it can't be as it has been.