36 - Life stories are meant to be told slowly.

Over the course of the past week, I have had a lot of thoughts on what to post on this blog but I haven't had the time to do it because of school. It's a shame, really, because now my mind is drawing a blank and I suppose it's just a result of using too much of my brainpower doing schoolwork. (Boy, I miss those holidays.)

So, as I sit here, cross-legged and hunchbacked on the end of my bed with my laptop, I'm thinking about my life (as I always do) and it feels like my life has stretched on forever. I know I will repeat this statement some other time. I know when I turn sixty, I will think to myself, Seventeen-year-old Michael, boy, you really had no idea how long life could be. But right now, I think I have the right to say that and think that. I feel I've had it longer than most seventeen-year-old people, and to me, these seventeen years feel like they've been going on forever. (I'm still not sure what I want to talk about in this post.)

Yes, seventeen years has been a long time. You see, that's just the thing. Where do I even begin to decide what to post about in this one? Who says one episode of my life deserves to be shared more than another episode? There are just so many episodes to choose from, so many of them interesting for readers and close to my heart.

I remember this one blogger whom I met when I first launched 'Do you hate it too?'. She was a girl, fifteen, with a somewhat dark and mysterious display picture. What struck me as odd and interesting about her was the way in which she laid out her entire life in bullet-point form in a single post. In that one entry, she stated that she had crappy parents, gotten pregnant, self-harmed, taken drugs and moved from place to place. I knew she was looking for answers by saying all that. I knew she was looking for someone to listen, maybe even to help. But to get help we need to know how to ask for it.

You see, I could do that. I could lay out my life in a single post. I'll do you one better: I can sum up my entire life into this paragraph: I was born in 1991 and my parents got divorced in 1993. I spent a year in Canada with my mom's family, then one year on the beach with my dad. Then I moved to my maternal grandparents' apartment, where I currently reside. I was clever and happy in primary school, and during that time, my mom brought me on many travels while my dad got remarried and had three daughters. I entered high school in 2002. I got suspended for theft in 2003. Someone pushed me out of the bisexual closet in 2004. I got expelled for theft in 2005. I was half an hour away from committing suicide on June 17, 2005. I entered a new school (the school I go to now) and there, I found friends and myself. My dad got divorced again and I won't forgive him. I like reading, watching television and blogging. Now, I'm clever and happy, just like in primary school, but even more so. I go to university soon.

You see that? You see how easy that was?

But where is the emotion? Where is the complexity in these issues? It just isn't there. And that's why I think that people need to learn how to stop moaning, complaining and throwing words like 'drugs', 'divorce' and 'suicide' around like they don't mean anything deep. Surely, they are the words you use to refer to these events, and I'm not discounting the fact that these things didn't make a huge impact on your life, but those words don't make up your life and they do not define you.

I take my blogging seriously and I know things need to be told slowly for people to welcome you, accept you and want to hear about you if you have a personal blog. I wonder if that girl still reads my blogs because I haven't seen her post anything or leave comments at all since the end of last October. But I hope she knows now that she can't expect people to listen if she overwhelms readers like that. Those who have been following my blogs for some time know what I'm like. People who know me in real-life know that 'bisexual', '17', 'teenager' and 'Asian' don't and cannot describe me well enough.

Those words are understatements of what it truly feels like to be those things. And it's about time some people learned that the true value of people's stories are in the ideas they put forward about their thoughts and feelings, that their life story's value does not lie in the bland words people assign to life-changing experiences. Otherwise, I would comprise a bunch of labels, like 'that boy with the divorced parents', 'the kid that got expelled', or 'that dumb blogger with that hate blog'.

So, anyway. That looks like a post so let's end it there. I look forward to learning more about all of your lives slowly and I will continue to take my time in introducing you to mine.

26 - Reflections on 2008.

It's been a very, very long year, to say the least. This is the first time I'm doing one of these reflections, so I hope it helps in bringing me closure, so that the new year can be approached with another year of life experience to support me. How should I format this?... Hmm... Oh, I know! I'll just make a list of all the major events and talk a bit about each of them. (The last one is the most relevant to you guys. :D)

(Jun) Father got divorced again: He tells me my stepmother cheated on him with another man. Not just any man. A 63-year-old man. And I believe him, but I think that if Dominique and their other two girls appear to be fine, then my stepmother and the old guy are fine. Why does my father have to exaggerate everything, I don't know. I agree with him and sympathize for him to an extent, but the fact is: he was the less committed one. I'm a lot like him to be honest... especially in relationships. Over-confident when we really don't have a damn clue. I think I'm working at it. I don't see that in him. All in all, he's an ex-husband twice for good reason.

(Jul) Stopped talking to my dad: Nobody else will understand my perspective of things, that's a given. But let me just tell you: if there's anybody I hate more, it's people that are narrow-minded, unforgiving, who fail to look at things in other people's perspective, who don't even try for a second to walk in another person's shoes. That is all I ever do with my life, every, single, fucking, second, of, every, single, fucking, day. My father is radically different in this aspect and I hate the way he is so arrogant about everything. I look at him and I see the smoking, the drinking, the two divorces, the negligence toward his three other children, the prostitutes in Shenzhen, the lousy dead-end job of a private investigator, his knucklehead friends, especially her (who he's exploiting at the moment), the pervy uncle, the grandmother who always fed him what he wanted, the spoiled brat inside of him that never grew up from over thirty years ago, and at the time, before July, I didn't give a shit about any of that. And it's a testament to how much I know about him, the dreadful, honest truth about him. What does he know about me? Nothing.

Next year, all he will know is that I went to holiday this winter, because he needs to give my mother permission to bring me out of Hong Kong. He will also know which country I'm going to next year for university, only because my mother will tell him. When I grow up, he will know what I do for a living, but only vaguely, only a little bit, only because my mother will tell him. That is all he will know because he never cared to get to know me or the details of my personal and academic life, that as a student and a teenager, are very, very, very important to me.

I am not going to be all melodramatic and say I won't visit his deathbed, go to his funeral or visit his grave. But when those occasions come to pass, all father-and-son sentiments will be lost. There's no space available for me to forgive. My mind does not have the capacity to and my heart is not functioned to forgive a father who does not care to hear about his son's 'lifeless' day. I have been through more than any of my family really knows. This isn't a contest to see who's been through the most, but he should stop boasting and pretending to know everything that I don't. Piece of shit father.

(Jul) The last outing I had with Dad: I went to the beach I grew up on with my father, my grandmother, my uncle, my cousin, my two stepsisters (all on my dad's side, of course) and one of their friends. We had this killer mashed potatoes with tuna and raisins that serves as one of my grandmother's signature dishes. Filipinos know how to make the best comfort food in Asia... We were at the infamous Pui O beach, the word Pui (貝), meaning 'shellfish'. Buried under the sand are hundreds of clams. I had a fun time swimming with my stepsisters. I had a fun time barbecuing with my dad like we used to when I was a kid. When I was out there in the ocean, I dived down and managed to find a clam the size of my hand (around 15cm in diameter). My dad soaked it in beer to wash out the sand and placed it on the fire. I ate it and let me tell you, big doesn't necessarily mean tasty. ;)

It was a good trip, a good final trip before I vowed to ignore him and avoid him at all costs. Why he had to ruin that week is beyond me. His impatience got the better of him and will serve him well.

(Feb) Fell in love for five days: I fell so deep and so fast. I was so darn lonely, to the point where I just didn't care about anything else. They were like another family, to add on to my list containing six or seven other families. I took a leap there, and they caught me, they let me know that life was okay, is okay and will always be okay. Sisters, brothers, father and uncle. Oh, Michael, you're so pathetic.

'Cause the shame in these five days is that they came all the way from Oman. They were only here for a week but I was totally immersed into their group of friends. I will always have a special place in my heart for them but I think that's very useless now. It was there for five days, and now it's gone.

(Dec) Came to a decision: I have found a solution to the problem at school I've been having for a year now. It's time for a change and the new year will bring on a good one. It's been a long, treacherous journey with these people. They've pissed me off more times than I can count and I'm sure I have gotten on their nerve many times as well. I will never forget any of the good times, but hey, there weren't that many to begin with, and they weren't that good at all.

(May) Birthday: My birthday always happens when other things are happening. It was quite a lot of fun going out that night after the Graduation Ball, but again, I drank alone, I danced alone, I went home alone. Why is it so hard to find somebody? Why is it that the four of them stuck together? Why is it that they were a couple? Why do they go home? Where does it ever leave me?

No, that's not the right way to think about it. It's precisely about me on my birthday if I am willing to believe it to be. Besides, I have made a decision to stop caring about them. I had fun on my birthday, and it was a considerably good one when compared to my birthdays in previous years. I won't forget it and next year will be even better.

(Sep) Mid-Autumn Festival: I've never been to the beach on that night. I had no idea that loads of people actually did that. It was good, though. And I got the chance to see her, so it was nice. The moon created this mysteriousness amongst us. I wonder if we would ever find ourselves in that same spot again.

God, why do I always think I'm alone? People will always tell me, no, you're not alone, but heyheyhey. I really am by the end of the night. I think I have to make peace with the fact that I will be more alone in the next few months. Yikes.

(July) Family trip to Toronto: Now, this was a really good time. A time that I pretty much forgot about until I looked at a calender to remind myself about what I was doing in those blank two weeks in my head. I went to Toronto with my whole family (save my mother and my aunt). We went to eat crazy-good steak, and to see all the attractions that I could now look at in another, more mature, light. I love Toronto. I will live there at some point in my life. And although I can't say I love time with my family, at least they never, ever make me feel alone.

(Jun) Last week of school: I had to stage manage a concert, as well as perform in a lead role of the senior play. To be honest, I stage managed better the previous time. This time, I was breaking down, I didn't care about these people and I couldn't do my job because I let these people get to me. Not all of them were bad. I don't want to say it goes to show how tired I've gotten of them. I think it's just me again. Pathetic, emotional me.

For the school play, these people were cool. Actors are nice people. Never really bothered me much. Oh, how could I forget about him though. He was a pain up my ass. Oh, but at least the lot of them were sitting in the audience, far, far away. The show went quite well and everybody clapped for Andrew, Bea and Chas. I want to do more professional stuff, though. The stuff I had in my old school, as opposed to this mini-production. Oh, the life I could've led... It's my own fault for bringing that upon myself.

(Aug) Cheung Chau: Here in Hong Kong (I start an awful lot of my paragraphs like this, don't I?), during the holidays, a lot of young people like to rent a house on one of the outlying islands for a few days to enjoy life outside the city for a change. We can go biking, go to the beach, eat lots of junk food and even bring our laptops, our Playstations and even our electric guitars to the house to just relax and be lazy (or in my social group's case, work and study :P).

This year, five people came to my house thing that I rented. Last year, twelve people came, so I was a little let down. I was happy that the four 'right' people came to accompany me. Especially the couple. Both of them lightened up my time there... It wasn't all smiles, but I was content. However...

(Aug) Loneliest I've ever felt: It was a strange night that night. They were asleep in the room and I didn't want to wake them (well, I did. And I texted them). I stepped outside, went biking for a while, bought a drink at the store at two in the morning, but gosh, the emptiness inside of me felt so strong, it was unbelievable. I sat on the beach, frantically, desperately trying to call everyone I could. Nobody would pick up their phones. I had no computer to go online. I was overwhelmingly sad and it was cold and it was dark and the beach was empty.

The beach is a place I usually go to sit and think about life. Beaches have always been comfortable for me. I find it nice when there is sand in my shoe, caught between my toes. I like the feel of my jeans drenched in seawater. I can have a good night's sleep on the sand, falling asleep and waking up to the sound of the waves. For some reason, that night just did not work for me. I was restless, lonely and miserable. I cried that night very, very hard. It brought back thoughts of my suicidal incident four years ago. It brought back memories of all the pain I ever experienced with either parent, with my friends, with my heart that's fallen in love so many times, so deeply and so wrongly. I just wished that someone was there so badly.

But I was considerate enough not to bother the couple. They had enough on their minds at the time. It came at the cost. How big of a cost am I, really?

(Oct) Started blogging: I didn't believe that blogging was therapeutic. I didn't think that I could entertain people, or that I could touch people's hearts with my writing. I just thought it was a leisure activity, where angry, depressed and/or talkative people would bail their hearts out and talk about the most insignificant things. I don't know why I felt this way, because normally, I'm usually a person that's very open to new experiences. But, in a rush of emotion one night, just because I was bored, I created Do you hate it too? and wow, I had no idea that people from the States, from Brazil, from the UK, from everywhere, could be so welcoming, and could give a damn about what I had to say.

I used to be mightily unhappy around my friends and family. They would piss me off to no ends. But if there's something I must thank them for, it's for doing exactly that. Driving the living Hell out of me with their annoyances so that I could start my blog and enter a whole new realm of socialization. I cannot express how grateful I am to all my followers and all the people who have such fantastic, inspirational, equally and differently opinionated blogs for me to read. Blogging is still not therapeutic (in fact, it gets stressful at times trying to come up with topics), but I think I can be confident in saying that it has brightened up my mood and cheered me up after a year that has been so eventful, stressful, troublesome, miserable and lonely. You are all like family, and I cannot wait to grow up, travel the world and meet all of you in person perhaps, visit the places you mention in your blogs, meet the people you talk about in your entries. Blogging is the biggest and the best part of my 2008.

*update: I forgot about the Presidential Elections,the Olympics and other big news. Goes to show how self-centred Iam...*