Just had to say this.

People think I’m such an insensitive, ungrateful bitch of a daughter just because I refuse to let my parents run my life, just because I assert my independence too much. Well, maybe those are not really just-becauses but I am entitled to my own decisions, aren’t I? I wanted to live the way I see fit so that I wouldn’t regret anything someday. I wanted to learn from my own mistakes, because I know that’s the only way I will really learn. I wanted to try things and like or dislike them according to my own discretion, not just because I’m told to. It is a rebel spirit I have, people say. I prefer to say I’m independent.

But don’t get me wrong, I do love my parents in my own way. I’m not showy, and most of the time, I’d rather not go home to see my family. But I wouldn’t say that I don’t care. It’s just that at this point in my life, I’d rather prioritize my own perspective, my feelings, my life. It is only now that I’m starting to learn what the world is, how to live in it, how to live with it. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop for anything right now. Partly, my parents are part of why I work so hard, of why I strive so much to be someone they might be proud of. But mostly I want me to be proud of myself. I want to find somewhere I will belong, somewhere I wouldn’t feel such an outcast in. Somewhere I know I’m good and happy at. I want to be someone I will respect, someone I can say is worthy of all these sacrifice. And perhaps then I could make way for others to really be a part of my life.

Of sisters and happy birthdays.

If there’s one thing I’m absolutely sure my parents did right, it’s to raise my sister the way they did. I mean, I’m glad with where I am now and how my life turned out to be, but it’s my sister who’ll always be the daughter any parent would want to have. That much I can say without any grudge at all. After all, it’s just the cold hard truth.

I’m the eldest, and we all generally know that firstborns are experimental children. We are our parents’ first foray into real responsibility, their first take to being accountable to another human life. It is us who were unintentionally mishandled, or perhaps handled too carefully, just because they do not know the real deal with parenthood more than what they see in the television and movies. It is us whose decisions about they stumble blindly upon to make, the trial-and-error children. Perhaps, this is why I turned out this way and my sister the other way; they already know what to do with her.

I’m not saying I’m basically a bad kid. It’s just that I’m too independent to their liking and tend to do things the way I see fit, which clashes with what they see fit most of the time. So they just let me be, let me do my own thing or learn from my own mistakes.

But my sister, she’s the proverbial daughter. Studious, homebody, active Christian. Totally opposite from what I am. And that works for her, I guess, in a way it will never do with me. We’re totally two different peas in a pod.

But don’t get me wrong, I do love my sister and have no issues whatsoever with how she chooses to live her life. She seems happy anyway. To each her own, as they say. We’re different, but she’ll always be my sister and I wouldn’t trade her for any other.

So here’s to the only girl I know who was strong enough to be the best daughter my parents have, who’s more diligent a student and more faithful a believer than I’ll ever be. Happy birthday.

Of graduations and pent-up emotions.

I won’t be a hypocrite and say that I’m perfectly okay that I’m not yet graduating this year, because truly, I am far from being okay with that, with the fact that I will still have two years at the least to don that sablay all UP students aspire to and all UP alumni are proud to wear. I will not pretend that I’m content with where I am right now. There are stil times where I think that perhaps I shouldn’t have shifted courses, until I realize I wouldn’t be graduating anyway had I stayed in my past course. What I am, honestly, is envious. And disappointed with myself. I would have liked to bring pride to my parents, not add to their burden. But instead, here I am, bumming around with no clear path for my future. :(

"And suddenly, I become part of your past. I’m becoming the part that don’t last. I’m losing you and it’s effortless."

- Over My Head, The Fray

HOORAY FOR BACON!

"But now I’m seeing we don’t live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It’s an infinite playlist."

- Nick (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist)