What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?

"And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?" - Charles Bukowski

I saw this quote again on Facebook. I used to have a hard time understanding how loneliness felt. I could always find happiness in my own company. What I felt more strongly was the invasive concern, if you can call it that, of people who found something wrong with my being alone.

I'm grateful for the friendships that found me by myself, yes. All my friends, I believe, found me and pulled me in and never let me go (except for Sherwil; I think I found her but it was she who never let me go, haha). But if they hadn't, I don't think I'd ever be lonely if I were left alone.

What made me experience loneliness was being in the company of the wrong people.

I hope I never make anyone feel lonely in my presence. And if I have, I'm sorry and I hope never to do so again.

'Love is for the ones who love the work'

For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper

By Joseph Fasano

Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.

Love nowadays

In my age now, I think I hold on to love not because of the person but because I still can't accept that people just aren't as important as they would have been had I Ioved them in my teens or 20s.

These days, love comes and goes, not leaving an indelible mark, except maybe a guilty sin or two that I no longer take as seriously either, so I scramble to save some significance because of how I loved when I was younger.

That is probably what I cry about: that I refuse to let me and you be easily forgettable; I want to be even a little scarred.

But in my age now I have also forgotten how heartbreak was back then, how I had no sight of the healing that would come, and how, even when I was feeling like I was dying, I wanted to be able to give a mature kind of love that could let go when the time came to do so.

So it is me, not any of the people I loved recently. I still want to love the way I did when I didn't know better, but I can't because I already do.

My theme for 2023: More

I didn't even pretend to make a list of resolutions for 2023, like I have done the past many years. When the new year rolled in, I just sort of surrendered, in a bad way and in a good way. I've been alive long enough to accept that I am always going to be who I am, in a bad way and in a good way. 

I'm done changing myself. And it feels like such a huge relief to openly embrace that there's always going to be something wrong with me and something unlovable about me. 

I know there are good things about me and traits that people do love, but I don't intermittently obsess about minimizing those aspects of me. I don't spend energy magnifying them either, but that's something else I should think about.

But first let me just face my shadow and tell it it's alright for existing. It can come out to play. We can be friends.

***

That being said, my theme for 2023 is More. As in, I want more. From myself, from others, from life. Thank you; more please.

Quiapo

A couple of weeks ago, I met up with old friends in Quiapo.

I had posted on Facebook that my dog ate my glasses, and Tracey suggested we get new pairs made on Paterno Street. Two other friends decided to come, and that's how four of us bespectacled Gen Xers ended up in Quiapo one afternoon, having glasses made and eating Jolli Dada's pancit palabok, then buying marble mortar and pestles under the Quiapo Bridge. Later, we'd decide to have coffee, cake, and nachos at La Cathedral Cafe Intramuros. 

I've gone back to Quiapo two times since. 

First, I brought Keona and we had a tour of Escolta, Quiapo, and Intramuros. Escolta was pretty much empty so the walk was pleasant. We went to HUB: Make Lab at the First United Building, where we shopped a little and had coffee. Then we walked to Quiapo where we also did some shopping.

Keona didn't realize she was hungry until we had fried chicken and rice in front of us at Ristorante delle Mitre in Intramuros. She'd been there before but not at night, and she found the lights lovely. Our Manila sojourn ended with us riding a tuktuk across the new Binondo–Intramuros Bridge to get from Intramuros to Plaza Lawton, where we chance upon a UV Express van headed for home.

The second time I went to Quiapo, it was to pick up my new glasses. I went in a rush, but I still walked from Escolta to Quiapo and back, and then I treated myself to Tropical Hut.

I'd never really explored Quiapo before then, and now I can't stop thinking about it. Maybe I can romanticize my visits because I'd been mostly stuck at home since 2020, or maybe it's because there weren't many people because we're still in a pandemic. 

Or maybe it's because I connected with the dying capital's will to live. Walking to Quiapo from Sta. Cruz, you still get a feel for how beautiful the place used to be. Wealthy people used to thrive in the area, and while wealthy people still go there, it's the masses who now give it life. It's unfortunate how unconcerned they often are about the place's fading beauty, but it's also impressive how they've carved out their lives in whatever part of Quiapo they can claim.

I am aware I sound so "boujee" saying that, but I haven't really completely articulated my thoughts to myself yet. Manila has a lot of problems, and I've always had a love-hate relationship with the city, but these days, I'm appreciative of anything that insists to live, even with little bits of hope or little pockets of beauty.

I think I fell in love with pandemic-times Quiapo because it gives my pandemic-times feelings a home.