In the meantime, my life floats aimlessly. Like fallen, dry leaves led to a dance by the wind.
Day after Christmas 2002. Sometime this week I called for fever and I was figuratively sick of work. The next day when I tried to get my medical clearance, the doctor informed me that my blood pressure is shooting up to 160/110. She prescribed some medicine. With such high blood pressure at age 21, I was alarmed by my deteriorating health.
I’m a cardiac arrest waiting to happen.
I can imagine how the arteries and valves of my heart are clogged with cholesterol, animal fat from all that bacon, all in all forming human rust in my heart.
Stirred both by what was happening to my body and my attitude towards life, my subconscious began to feed me strange and unpleasant dreams. Until now though, I have not deciphered what the message is. One day I had a dream of finding a live pig when I opened the bathroom door. One day I dreamt of an airplane crash. From flying above the clouds, the plane tried to decrease altitude. In the extraordinary geography of dreams, the space between the clouds and the water disappeared, or that space has also been covered in clouds. Thus, when the plane moved down vertically, it plopped straight into the water. One day I dreamt that an epidemic hit the city. Many people were half naked, and everyone coughed out in pools and puddles of blood. I was on my way to the hospital. One day I had a dream about a train derailing. I dreamt that a short train ride was constructed, like a train shuttle service, from Ayala Avenue to Greenbelt. I was in the train together with some friends and family. Some angry workers led it off track to an under-construction part of the rail. The train fell. Everyone in the train died, except I. I had a magical ability to defy gravity. I found myself crying hysterically in my mother’s shoulders. Last night, I had a dream about playing soccer again. I scored five goals. The word “Talent” kept appearing in that dream.
My dreams, and my failing health, agitate me awfully. I feel that I am paying the consequences of my over indulgence for food at those pricey restaurants and at fast food chains. I could say that I even minimized drinking during the last two months --- but the bottle is most probably --- also a culprit. My work, of course --- is always a great deal of stress.
My ever tautological issue thus strikes again. The issue of whether I should resign or not, or to regret or not to regret later on, never comes with a smooth and sleek answer. Say I resign. I still wouldn’t know what I want out of life anyway. Say I don’t resign. Can I even continue to live my life this way? This issue never seems to run out of steam. The more I delay a decision with finality, the less I’m likely to arrive with a better answer.
In the meantime, my life floats aimlessly. Like fallen, dry leaves led to a dance by the wind. In this season of supposed merry, this has been a sickening, sad dance.
Somewhere in Italy, scientists have discovered a unique gene in the DNA map of a family. The Italian diet includes a high amount of cholesterol. This family apparently developed a gene that allows them to have a higher than usual quantity of cholesterol without risking heart disease.
How I’d love to have this gene. We do evolve after all.
Despite all of this I'd like to believe that life's all right. It’s December --- and happiness is almost a given. I continue to dwell on my self-indulgent pleasures, although I minimized the more heart-ailment-prone ones. In this “season of conspicuous consumption,” (as it was so accurately termed in of the Jeanette Winterson books) I spent some dough for presents. I also got myself some simple gifts such as pirated DVDs that you can illegally acquire in Harrison Plaza. They are: Dead Poet’s Society, American History X, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Madame Butterfly. I was also able to spend Christmas with my family this year, and got a few more days off after Christmas. I treated myself to a massage treatment, and read a couple of books. The best Chillout CD buy I got this month was Ministry of Sound’s Chillout Annual 2002.
It’s even surprising how some officemates bothered to give me gifts. Thoughtfulness is as rare as interesting women to date.
This year’s Christmas greeting goes (from Jessica Zafra): “In a season packed with fake plastic trees, Styrofoam snow and false cheer, I hope you find something real.”
Something real, eh?
And what is my reality?
I’m twenty-one. When I was thirteen, until I was around nineteen, my greatest fear was to become mediocre. Now, I’m even afraid to quit my job and step into a more meaningful pursuit.
“Oh to struggle against great odds. To meet enemies undaunted.”
As matter if fact, I have the faintest clue of what a meaningful pursuit is, or where to find even a smidgen of significance in life. I just slack around a lot.
“To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports.”
I once proclaimed to have had my truth, my beauty. I embraced the determining finality of Nothingness, and seem to have understood what it all meant at that time. Now, I cannot get to convince myself to even believe anything. I just drift, go on living, unknowing of what I want out of life.
“Oh I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave.”
Often, I’m afraid, or just mere lazy, or lethargic… to do anything.
“To mount the scaffolds. To advance the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance.“
Sometimes, I am shallowly happy.
“To dance, clap hands, exalt, shout, skip, roll on, float on.”
I thought I had something, a verse to contribute. Nowadays, I’m having a hard time to get fresh ideas for my journal.
“Oh to have life, henceforth the poem of new joys.”
I am mostly alone. However, I seemed to have had the “perfect idea” that God (both of which is highly likely not to exist) would’ve been jealous of. What a fucking consolation.
“To indeed be a god.”
