I bought one of Moleskine’s amazing diaries in an attempt to go back to old school writing. The actual pen against paper writing. I remember one of my professor’s mentioning that the mind retains information better when information is written rather than typed. For some reason, I chose to believe that too.
But the problem is I haven’t written anything in the past couple of weeks, making my thrust to have a better chronicle of my life go somewhat halfway down the drain. I mean, sure there is blogging, but let’s admit it: there are certain parts of your day that you aren’t really open to abundantly sharing to a public.
By definition, a chronicle is a factual actual written account of important or historical events in the order of their occurrence. Not that my life is a historical event in itself, but you get what I mean. There are so many times in our lives when we just trackback and rebuild our history, catch up our files to make up for the times when we failed to update them. Is that still essentially chronicling? Because technically speaking it’s no longer in the order of their occurrence.
Maybe I am just desperately justifying that I still have a penchant for the old. My life goal still includes acquiring a typewriter and using it for my mail (yes, I still visit the post office, even if they have failed me so many many times). Or maybe, like most of us, I too have abandoned the bittersweet manner of writing and successfully adapted new technology, in spite of my firm belief that nothing beats the lovemaking of pens and papers.
Am I a walking contradiction or what? How about you? Is the old still more romantic, more applicable to you? Can a person truly embrace the old and the new, and use them in perfect symphony?
Because I sure am not using them that way, even though I wish to.
I feel so bad knowing I’m about to complain about my week when I go to a great school, I have a stable job, I eat more than three meals a day, I have the liberty to choose whether to feel cold or warm at night, I hardly suffer the pains of commuting, and I just visited the art repository of the world. Oh and I have the most romantic partner ever.
So in essence I’m quite blessed. When I think about it, my problems right now are not even problems. Am I saving enough money? When is my next travel? When should I take advanced photography classes? Are my running shoes still clean? Can I really afford a computer when I’m planning to take another trip soon?
And then it slowly takes a turn to confused. Am I supposed to really be working on this? Why do you have a book on something that goes obsolete every six months? Where am I supposed to go after this? Is there leftover food for me? How is this even possible when I clearly remember not supporting this endeavor? Should I really be responsible for this?
Sometimes, it’s even depressing. Will it make a difference if he was here? How will I explain this to my future husband? Where do I go after this? Is my time here enough to leave a legacy?
Don’t get me wrong; I love my life. In spite of my internal demons, I honestly believe my blessings outweigh my struggles and I openly admit that. I do my best to not take those good things for granted. More importantly, I make sure that I always give it back, pay it forward, or do something that will somehow give back to the world because it has sincerely been good to me.
There are just those days when you wish sleeping in is the only thing listed on your to-dos.
Thank God for the weekend. Finally some me time.
Oh wait. I have class tomorrow.
I have avoided writing about that day like the plague. I would like to think that in the year that has passed, I have mourned my father silently. People who are very close to me have handled that topic with a certain kind of delicateness and to be honest, I am yet to decide whether I should be thankful for the sensitivity or scornful that I am treated with so much vulnerability.
I cannot blame them though. Each time the topic of my father’s passing comes to mind, I am confronted with my inadequacies, every single one of which slapped across my face on that day — my disobedience as a daughter, my insufficiency as a sister, my lack of self-awareness. And I say these not to demean my person; my father had taught me long and good to never do that. I say these as a matter of fact because on the day he passed, I was all these.
There should be some sort of progress though. It has been a year. There has to be some form or semblance of forgiveness, for the instance, for the misfortune, for the people. But I will not act as if I’ve reached that level of self-actualization. Today, even after a year, I am still unforgiving.
But is that something bad though? I don’t think so. And I’ve said this a little too often, these things never get easier. Every day is still hard. Every day we are still fatherless. Every day we are still lacking. Every day we walk the floors and the walls of avenues and still have that nagging feeling of never being whole again. These things never get easier. You just get used to it.
I still sleep with the lights on. In France, there was an attempt to be in the dark again, but it pulled me deeper than it should have. The darkness never used to scare me, but now it does. I wish I can say I’ll be over it soon, but I can’t. I miss my father and in the dark, I am reminded of how little I gave to him on the days building up to his passing.
And that is one demon I can’t seem to outrun.
There will be no father-daughter dance at my wedding, and I will be attending so many more unions with the bride crying silently on her dad’s shoulder as he slowly lets her go. I will never be able to reconcile with that fact. But I will try. That’s the best we can all do anyway.
Try.
the salt of your skin 