To my daughters: Come to know me by taking a look inside of me. This is my ultimate unveiling. The core of my being exposed — the deepest recesses of my heart and mind, where I am strongest and most vulnerable, where I hold what is really of value to me. Borne out of love for you, through this, I offer my gift of self.
This is about my life journey. Inevitably, it’s an
auto-biography of sorts, written for my daughters, Kim and Kitkat –
the two most important and most beloved people in my life.
This is my way of sharing with my children some of my experiences and, most of all, my most personal thoughts and feelings. So they can come to know, not who I am but what I am. So they can discover what is me, with their hearts — not by what other people may say of me and not by any exterior or physical appearances or manifestations, not even my own spoken words and actions during particular situations. Sometimes, what is seen or heard simply belies one’s inner reality or is meaningless when not put in the context of what we are.
Hopefully, my children will learn from my experiences, somehow. Though human beings are notorious for not being able to learn from other people’s experiences — I know I didn’t — but who knows?
First an introduction…
I have an Intellectual IQ of 130 — it was even higher when I was younger. Nevertheless, I could do such silly things. Just take a look at my webpage - there’s a recent example. By sheer will and resourcefulness, because I’ve had no formal training in this, I found a way to put images on the top corners of my page. The image on the top left corner was an animated gif. It covered my face. which I didn’t mind if it didn’t make me look headless, so I resized it. Sadly, it’s no longer animated and I need to find a way to re-animate it. The image on the right is too pretty to re-size but I need to do that or find a way to move it because it covers some links — I can’t even log out now. But, these images do make my page look prettier and more reflective of what I want so I had decided to leave them as they are, for now. See, I’m smart-silly.
I’m also sort of schizophrenic. Really, there was a time in my life when I seriously needed a psychiatrist and even told my mom about it. But since we couldn’t afford one and it would be embarrassing to see one, I opted to cure myself. I don’t know how many psychology books I read — I even had to self-study speed reading to cope with the amount of books I had to read. Now, I know I still have at least nine personalities inside of me. But, they’re no longer uncontrollable like they were; now, I just call them my mood swings. Let me clarify that. No, I don’t consider myself insane, I’m not, but I did stand at the brink of insanity at one point in my life. You know what I learned when you find yourself in such a state? You choose — you really choose to be or not to be. I chose not to be insane; not to give in to paranoia, manic depression and having no control over myself. I believe that before anyone does become mentally ill, one comes to this crossroad of decision. The first step in dementia is giving in to it, instead of rising against it. I’ll tell you more about this later.
I’ve an over-active imagination and a mind that refuses to rest. When confronted with a situation, my multi-faceted mind or multiple personalities - however you want to view it — immediately and simultaneously present several options. Even in instances when I’m very involved in a real situation — like even in a major presentation — while the central part of my mind stays focused and grounded to what’s happening, parts of my mind wander, play out different scenes, take on different characters, carry different conversations. There are only a few times in my life when my mind isn’t split that way — when I gave birth to my daughters and when I make love with Reinier, for example.
The movies in my mind never stop playing. My mind at rest is busy interacting at several places of the imagination all at the same time. Probably, that’s what has made me an insomniac all my life. When I do sleep, I dream the most colorful and vivid, often disturbing, dreams — they take on various themes from sci-fi and fantasy to horror to animated cartoons, epics or sagas spanning various periods in time, romance, comedy — you name it. Some are re-enactments of actual experiences; some are prophetic. I’ve had attempts to chronicle my experiences and write about my thoughts and feelings and those awake and asleep dreams. But, it’s either frustrating coz I can’t capture them well — or too painful that I always yearned to immediately destroy the written words that immortalized feelings I’d rather not relive. More about this later, too.
I could be anti-social. There’s a loner inside of me that seeks, every so often, to just take off, detach from the rest of humanity, and watch the world go by as though I weren’t a part of it. I’ve given in to these urges to try to watch the world from the perspective of God or an angel or the devil or an alien or someone far removed from this earth — if I were them, what will I be seeing? I just watch. That’s when I’m really absent-minded — not at all in any place, real or imaginary. In such a state, I’ve ridden buses going to who-knows-where, found myself in some distant, unknown place, and after this state of absent-mindedness and detachment, I struggled to somehow find my way home. I don’t do this anymore. I mean, I don’t physically drift anymore, not since I gave birth. But, every now and then, you’d catch me unapproachable, distant, disinterested in anything going on around me till I hear that alarm in my head, signaling the need to get back to reality. Shake me if you wish — that might trigger the alarm.
My being anti-social dates back to my early childhood. I never disliked humanity, far from it. I just heed strong inclinations to take occasional breaks from it. I was worse when I was young.
My memories take me back to my pre-school days. I don’t remember any of my classmates then, except Emily. Emily was a beautiful, sweet-looking girl whom everyone wanted to be friends with, except me. I was too busy for friends. Every free time I had, I played with the geese near school. The nuns had warned us all to stay away from the geese if we see them coz they could be nasty and could bite — but, tell me not to do something and I had to find out why, experience it then decide for myself.
So I found the geese, and they always did as I bid, so I kept seeing them secretly. I loved climbing over fences, singing "london bridge is falling down" with the geese in a line behind me, seemingly dancing and singing with me. We had such fun and made such loud, happy noises that I’m surprised no one caught me, again except Emily.
Emily used to irritate me coz she had followed me there to ask to be my friend. She did that everyday, but she scared away the geese so I kept sending her away – but everyday she kept on trying. I remember asking her "Why me? You can have any friend you like so leave me alone before the nuns discover I go here" — she never answered, she just sadly moved away. If I were less insensitive, I’m sure I would have found the answer to my question, then, right there in her big innocent eyes welling with unshed tears and unspoken pain.
Until now, I can’t recall any face like Emily’s that can be so beautiful and so sad at the same time — that face haunts me still. She watched me from a distance with that sad, beautiful face. It bothered me at times but I always got diverted before I got to do something about it.
Then, suddenly, Emily was gone. I think she had been gone for quite some time before I noticed. She died. When I found out, I ran off to my secret place where the geese followed me and watched me cry. I think that was the first time I ever cried out of pain that wasn’t physical, from a wound I could not see. I know the geese tried in their way to console me as they surrounded me and were all within hugging distance; they didn’t make their usual loud noises, they just seemed to whisper to one another every now and then. But, they couldn’t hug me and could not comfort me. One of the motherly geese, the oldest- and wisest-looking of them all, spoke up and told me — I can’t explain how — "Remember, my dear, you need people like you."
Emily’s death and the advice from my inhuman friend were two of my early life influences. After that, I’ve tried to be a good friend. At first, it was just for Emily who seemed to want nothing more in her dying days than to be my friend and I rejected her — it was an act of penance motivated by a strong desire to make up for my bad behavior and an urgent need to reach a soul no matter where she was. I learned then that friendships should not be taken lightly, that some unthoughtful act could break another’s heart or even your own.
I named one of my sisters "Emily" for Emily the friend I lost before I could give her any part of me, the person who made me first aware of how fragile the human heart is, how emotional pain can cut deep, and how death is something I couldn’t easily deal with. Since that time, I’ve prayed I’d die ahead of those I love — my mind and heart can’t conceive being left behind.
I’ve also had an inexplicable fondness for birds — every now and then, I’d see behind a bird’s eyes, a brain like my goose friend had. I think I’ve permutated her advice to mean that I should connect with kindred souls. I believe my falling in love with the idea of soulmates had its early beginnings back at that time when I was told to try to connect with people like me.
Understand that I never considered myself ahead of the rest of humanity, I wasn’t really a snob though I appeared to be. But when you’ve had to decide which self you’d show the world or which one of your selves you’d allow to connect with other people, it was simply easier to shut out everyone and turn to animals — they seem to know answers to questions you don’t even dare ask; they seem to be able to take the chaff off the grain, and without even trying you come across to them as one whole "together" being who is all there. The few times I interacted with people when I was young, especially those my age, I only confused them or felt misunderstood. I was not on the same wave length as others around me. So, I turned off the "radio" and danced and sang to my own beat.
It wasn’t just people I shut off. When I was young, I found my emotions too intense to deal with, I shut them off, too. I was all mental energy — I even used a great part of that mental energy to restrain my feelings. When emotions did break loose, it was a catastrophe similar to a volcano that was inactive for years before it erupted. I met emotions that cut loose from the place where I locked them in, with bitterness, anger and hostility.
I was intellectually ahead of my years, but emotionally well behind those who, at least, tried to face their emotions. I was an outsider in the world I moved in, more at home in imagined places. This was my situation for many years.
More later… the recollection of Emily has ruffled my feathers. Sometimes, I can be so angry with myself, and anger is the one emotion I’ve never had problems expressing.
