The Paostian Deal

I watched and laughed at The Devil Wears Prada this afternoon. I was hoping to get inspired to jumpstart an article for the magazine, but nay, I was instead saddened.

Between the chuckles and Meryl Streep's lines, I realized that I am still somewhat bound by the fear of becoming a cold practitioner who has no friends ot hang out with on a free weekend. I have religiously done everything I know to prevent such tragedy from happening, but each day I only feel it coming closer and closer. I'm worried.

I'm worried that time will come when I won't "have a choice" but to say yes to work and no to a free movie. Worried that one day I'd be putting a name of a bank as my "In case of emergency" person on some survey about healthy lifestyles. Afraid that I'd be succesful, but only in terms of touring the world with my work team and not in bazaar-hopping with my long-lost friends. I really don't want those to happen. Not even if you take me out to dinner and a movie with Johnny Depp or have Angelina Jolie call me to explain her and Brad Pitts' adopta-thon.

I need an emotional retirement plan.

I'm still the most stubborn procrastinator of all. For crying out loud, I'm getting my 12th even-number age in a few days, but I still really haven't let go of that hobby.

And there's no valid excuse either. Sure, all hell recently broke loose at work and annoyance still reigns at my normal habitat a.k.a. "family house" a.k.a. "boarding house." But they don't really take up MUCH of my time.

I just don't feel like "jotting" things down lately. It's a bit too much for me. I think I'm scared to record things no matter how much I want to... because it only allows me to view my past self along with the mistakes I did and kept repeating. Deliberately. More than that, I'm mortified: to think that at this age I'm ridiculously going through something like this again when I vowed never to when I turned 16. Goodness, I sound like a dumb, over-face powdered colegiala!

Some nine years ago, I destroyed my journals. All five of them. After I religiously wrote everything down since the third (fourth?) grade. I was writing on Beowulf (yep, that monster. i named my diaries after supposedly fictional characters from the Unpublished Book of Fairy Tales, circa 1990), when suddenly--out of irrational rage--I LOST IT and started brutally murdering Beowulf's middle page. The next thing I know, my journals were aflame.

I never started another "serious" journal again. It was very late when I finally "understood" why I massacered Beowulf and his siblings. To put it bluntly, I got scared to look at my past through my journals. They're strong proofs of my weaknesses and stupid mistakes, and as one who had to survive almost all all on his own, surprisingly I had no courage to even browse my younger years. Shamefully, it was the most stupid-est thing ever--I haven't even turned it into fossil until today. It was a gaddamned reflex, but yeah--don't ever try it at home.

At the end of college, I resolved not to be that stupid again. I have kept pseudo-diaries, but mostly they are living creatures I learned to trust even without money involved. My secrets--but not all of them--are all over the globe. Some of them, on bus tickets. But not once have I seriously returned to authentic diary-ing. Apparently, even after all the self-affirmations, I still have that fear...

One of my favorite TV shows said, sometimes we don't want to admit things because they sound ugly. And that's not even about writing it and being able to see it over and over and over. Things like, that teenage coward is still inside me. Or, I'm too slow with my career I might have chosen the wrong course in college.

Or, a best friend is going away and I can't stop him...

Sometimes, it sucks to have a heart.