life has to have an upgrade

It's a quarter past eight in the morning as I type this. And before I start this very eclectic day ahead of me, I want to jot down a few thoughts here.

Woke up and did what I usually do: scour the social media networks I have for messages of friends or news from my girlfriend. One such message surprised me as my Fil-Am superfriend K led me to news about another superfriend of ours also in their side of the planet. And it just saddened me to hear that this friend got into trouble, anew, again, for the nth time. And when we say trouble, we don't mean your garden variety girl problem or dyke drama heartache or family squabble or whatnot. It involves law enforcement. And this really made me sad, and yes, also irritated.

If a person is such a brilliant and gifted individual, it is okay to stray a bit sometimes, discover their dark sides, be influenced by negative elements around them. But that has a limit, and there should be signs and signals coming from all over, alarm bells that will mentally ring and kick in, when moments like these need to be stopped. Sadly, our friend always refuses to listen to that ring, that alarm, rejects the signs that the universe sends her way. So sad. And yes, so maddening. 

At certain points in our lives, we all know that we need to have some kind of upgrades, yes? Life upgrades. Like this damn technology we are so enslaved to, we ride with each upgrade they come out with, change our gadgets as soon as the newer and better model arrives. We acquire. But with life? I don't know, for the life of me, why certain people refuse to get upgrades, even just a tad bit.

Superfriends still collide once in a while in this side of the planet. 

And we discuss our own life upgrades during these moments.

[May 2012 at Adarna Resto QC]

One of the persons I dearly love in my life right now had some sort of self-doubt about these things lately. She mentioned that she felt "worthless," that she thinks she is still "worthless," and that because of what she did in her past and how she let her life run in the past, she still feels "worthless" today. This, after one person, only one relative, maligned her and reminded her of this, compared statuses with her, saying she is far from the status of that person in life. I got enraged when I heard that, since this is one person I love, and she is one person that is loved by other relatives, and one person that is loved by many friends, and admired by co-workers, and supported by other people in her immediate life. But she chose, for that moment, to listen to that one person, that one negative person only, and let that person's words poison her heart and soul. So sad.

I truly wish she is okay now. I truly wish she could see that that one person's words is nothing compared to another person's love, to three small people's love, to a handful of loyal persons' support, and a whole congregation's faith, friendship and support. That tips the scale big time! I do hope by this time, she has tipped the scales to her favor and have stopped thinking that she is "worthless" -- because she is not. We love her and that is enough. Besides, we all have negativities in our past. We have done bad things that we are not proud of. And seeing the way she has overcome her own self-traumas and life obstacles, people have been saying that she is on the way of paving a better path for her. And I can see that, and that is why I admire her so, and why I love her dearly. If only she knew how much I admired her so, just because, after all these years, she is still standing in front of us, so strong, so determined to have a happier life. Yes, happier, because it already is happy; upgrade lang. And this is why I and a host of people who love her are willing to be participants in this newer path she is steering her life into. Let's go for the ride, honey. Never kill the engine of that car.

When you know what you are looking for, people will be there 

to help you find it. Trust them, they do this because they believe, 

and more importantly, they care, even if you think they don't.

 [July 2012 somewhere in Marikina]

Now that's what you call life upgrade. To realize and know that you have to leave something old, something in the past, to move forward and discover what else life has to offer. But this superfriend? I don't know what happened to her. Descent is the word. To what form of abyss we don't know, and we don't truly understand. It's one thing to be so decadent, so wild, so nonchalant about life, laws, rules and all that. Heck, it's even hip to be bad -- but only to a certain extent. Whether we like it or not, and whether we realize it or not, we are not Peter Pans, darling, and we eventually grow up. We still have pixie dust, why not? We are still magical. We can still fly, if we want to. But we also have to grow up.

It's a fallacy to reach for the moon. We will never get it. 

But we sure as hell could look up to it every night and smile at its beauty. 

And that's such an equally wonderful feeling, don't you think? 

[supermoon-ing 2012]

This is a friend who is a little younger than me, and I am already 39 as we speak. I could understand if all these things are happening in our 20s. Heck, we all did this wild thing bit during our 20s indeed, even our early 30s, but I think once you hit a certain age, we have to leave our respective Peter Pans inside a glass cage and let him remain there for good. And then, still with pixie dust, we live our life with magic --  as grown ups, as adults. Now isn't that a great life upgrade?

Recently, I also talked with a really old friend (in age and as far back as we go) and we discussed another common friend, one I used to term as super, too, until she decided to cross lines and go beyond them. This one is way older than me, but she still flitters about as if she is still in her 20s or early 30s. Our old friend said that she thinks this flitterer is also wasting her life because she still wants to have this bohemian lifestyle, to be an artistic anti-establishment nomad of life who wanders with whoever, so to speak, and that this friend still hasn't found her purpose, whatever that could be. And you know what? I think our old friend is right. It's one thing to feel like you are a victim of circumstances but it's also another thing to remain being a victim. Really, my dear, we have to grow up eventually. Like now na.

 Every day is a chance to reinvent yourself. 

All you have to do is wake up. 

[June 2012 in front of my closet]

And this, listening to these news and thinking of these thoughts, while I am also at the brink of making life-altering decisions that will hopefully give my life upgrades to reboot for a better path to take, I am just overwhelmed that I have already managed to shrink my own Peter Pan into a pendant-sized little fucker and was able to string it away and ideologically wear it around my neck -- a reminder of who I was, the kid who grew up, and that grown up who could still get amazed at the world in a child-like demeanor. I'd like to believe I have rebooted myself into that being, and am perfectly excited to have more reboots of that kind soon. 

And these are my signs from the universe, and I am reading them loud and clear. And I do hope that these friends of mine also do read the signs -- and get their own reboots, soon. And to that one soul whose thoughts need tipping, hey, no matter what was in the past, people love you in the present, and will continue loving you in the future. So let's head there, shall we? Let's head there.

Yes, let's all do.

Still so many things to do, so many places to see. Let's go.