Words from TheGoodGirl: This Love

A love that is beyond any love
Beyond words
Beyond imagination
Beyond all truths.
A love that is unlike any other love
Incomparable
Invincible
Infinite.
One that you did not know could ever exist
And could remain after all has been said and done.
Despite all the pain
It continues to live
Even long after the heart has died.
Do you believe in such love?
I don't,
Until there was you.

~TheGoodGirl

I Write The Stories

I put the words and the melodies together

I am music and I write the songs...

-From "I Write The Songs," Barry Manilow

Photo acknowledgment: @landiandesign

Not a few ask me why I write sad pieces. “Tearjerker,” said Sir Lito. For a (supposed to be) funny girl like me, they find this perplexing.

I write about my amusing and sometimes, annoying van experiences in my Facebook account. I share them with you because some of you could relate to my stories, being regular van passengers too. These can happen anywhere, anytime, to anyone. I just capture the situations as they happened and I am glad that I can entertain you. Some of you even tell me you look forward to my adventures every day. Honestly, I don’t come looking for those stories, they come to me. I was riding with my sister once and I was just too busy chatting with her, when a passenger approached the dispatcher, “Kuya, punong-puno na po ba talaga?” We burst into laughter.

What if it’s just puno, and not punong-puno, sasakay pa ba sya? Or bakit kelangang punong-puno, hindi ba pwedeng puno lang? See, I said to Lea, hindi ko na kasalanan yan ha. Nananahimik ako dito, nilalapitan talaga ko ng istorya.

I write about my son Caehl, and the amazing stories about him. Every day, there’s a new learning from him. And every day, he never fails to amaze me. I often say he looks like his dad, but every inch of him is just like me. His hunger for knowledge, his study habits, sense of humor and comic timing.  I may not admit it, but I think his persistence came from me, too. I can be importunate, too, you know. I would never give up on something even if it hurts me. Even if everybody else has given up on me.

I write about my daughter Cae, and the tales of my being a mom to her. She is a beautiful person, inside and out. She has her temper, too, and down times, like me. But I will always be proud of her and I will always take note of the things she has achieved, which I have not.

I write about my husband, Alex – how we met, how we ended up together, and how we have spent the last 22 years of our life. Yes, we are not perfect, and we do have faults and failures as a couple. But we do celebrate our small victories, and we have stuck it out through the years. 

I write about being a daughter, and a sister. I will never run out of stories about my parents and siblings. Again, we may not be perfect but the love of this family is absolutely life’s greatest blessing to me. I am lucky to have them.

I write about being a friend. As you may know by now, I can be the most loyal person around. It’s difficult to send me away or shut me out. You may grow tired of me or refuse my love, but I will never ever leave you. I can just be a shoulder to cry on, I can listen to you without judgment, but if you ask for my opinion, I will gladly give it. If you want me to pray for you, I will. With nothing in return. Even if I am not always appreciated. That is how I am as a friend. You may be million miles away, we may not see each other that much - it does not matter. I am always here.

I write about my job and how I love the company I am working for – the many blessings I have received from it and how it loves me back. Loyalty may not always get you anywhere, but then again, I am not going anywhere.

I write about love and life’s lessons. True, they may not always be on the bright side, but that’s the way it is. If my writings make you cry, then cry. If they are sad, then maybe that’s the real picture I want to paint. Life is not always about laughter and joy. Even if we always shun negativity and sad things, they are always a part and parcel of our daily living. And we have to face that, so that we can cope and move on, go with the flow. We have to learn from our mistakes, and become better persons.

Why do people climb mountains? Because they’re there.

It’s the same thing with writers. It's how we live. And survive.

~TheGoodGirl

Words from TheGoodGirl: Black Hole

There are things that you keep
And things that you hide.
There's a difference between the two.
I used to keep your photos
Your messages
And phone calls,
Your touch
Your voice,
And all memories of you
In a special place where I thought they should be
Where I can always peek
Or go back to anytime.
I used to keep you
In my dreams
In my heart
In my life,
Where I thought you should rightfully belong.
But there are things best hidden
Or even thrown away.
And now I have made up my mind
To put them
Where they can no longer cause pain
Bitterness
And tears.
Where I can no longer retrieve them and
Where I can no longer return.
They don't matter anymore,
The same way you don't.

~TheGoodGirl

Letters to Juliet

In the 2010 movie Letters to Juliet (starring Amanda Seyfried and oh-so gorgeous Gael Garcia Bernal), an American girl visits Italy and discovers a letter, one of the many letters left by heartbroken people at Romeo and Juliet’s Verona courtyard. If there were such letters, I am sharing that I have my own – written by myself for myself.

Some of them are happy, optimistic – written when I was in a fantastic mood, feeling light, hopeful and joyful and enthusiastic. Then there are the typical dark, poignant ones – written when, yes, things are not doing great in my life. I don’t know which outnumbers which, but these letters are my life. And if you are able to read one or even two, you would see through my soul. And you would know the real me - the stories behind my stories, the tales behind my tales. In the same way that I (literally) talk to myself, I write to myself because I want to see the feelings, experiences in written form – which I cannot express to another person or share with someone else. And in this way, I can let it out and give it life. And yes, immortalize it. 

Sometimes, I find the courage to go back and read them again. And more often than not, when I go over the not-so-cheerful letters, I cringe, I get embarrassed, I get mad. I find some funny though, like “Was this really me at that time?” Sometimes, the feelings and memories would go back. If you refer to my blog header, that’s what I really do mostly – sit by the window, staring at nothing.

But it works both ways. The better part I guess, is reading again the other set of letters. Happiness after all is contagious. When you surround yourself with happy people, smiles, laughter, encouragement, and most especially love from your family and people that matter, you can’t go wrong. And happiness, after everything has been said and done, is a choice. We have to choose to be happy and we have to keep choosing it.

~TheGoodGirl

Regrets That You Regret Regretting

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”

― Fernando Pessoa

When I turned 30 last 2001, I wrote a piece entitled, “Writing 30”, which summarized my regrets in all my 30 years - things I was not able to do, my could have beens, should have beens and if onlys.

After a while, except for one, I realized that there are regrets that you regret regretting. Later on, I decided that I can live with those things undone. I can forgive myself for those lapses. And then after a while, I found out I have additional ones - things I wish I have done when I was younger, when time was on my side. And now, there's little time, and there are no more chances left.

Then there are deeds or feelings or experiences in your past that you regret doing or feeling or going through. There are things that you just wish didn't happen at all. It may be due to naivety, fake ignorance or worse, plain stupidity. You knew that they were wrong and wouldn't do any good to you, and yet, you were stubborn. You knew the consequences, and yet you pushed through with it. When you were younger, you didn't know, so perhaps there’s an excuse. But when you’re older, like I am now (well, that has been 13 years ago), and you look back, you say, “Hell! What was I doing that time?” And even if you want to hit your head on the wall, you can’t make them disappear. You can’t even turn back the time, undo things and start all over like they never happened.

These experiences SHOULD make a better person out of you, right? You should have learned from those mistakes, turned pains into power, and wounds into wisdom. They say that you have an excuse if the mistake/s happened the first time. After all, life didn't come with instructions. But if it happens more than once, you’re already a fool. What happens when you never learn? What becomes of you when you do commit the same mistake/s again?

Are you guilty of this? Do you sometimes wish you could go back to that time when you were at the crossroads, making a crucial decision, and that instead of taking the wrong road, you took the right one? You knew better because you have been there, done that. And yet you took a risk, and opted for the unpopular choice. You would think that those past mistakes, lessons, experiences of yours have made you a more critical person. And you thought you had been wiser than before. But now, you don’t know anymore.

American writer Libba Bray said, “We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.”

And as they say, “Don’t regret what you've done. At some point, it’s what you wanted.” There are wrong regrets, as much as there are right regrets. And we always hope we end up with the right ones.

~TheGoodGirl

Where do broken hearts go?

"I remember everything. How you smelled, how you tasted like the summer. The feel of your skin against mine, and the sound of your whispers as I loved you...I am grateful for having at least found you. We could have flashed by one another like two pieces of cosmic dust...And all the philosophic rationalizations I can conjure up do not keep me from wanting you, every day, every moment, the merciless wail of time, of time I can never spend with you, deep within my head..." 

Robert Kincaid, The Bridges of Madison County

#Alabang forever without you...can't do anything about the gloom. It's how it is #talesofthegoodgirl http://instagram.com/p/utw3QImFMx/

The hardest part in a failed or hopeless relationship is picking up the pieces. Acceptance that it can never prosper or it’s not meant to be is one thing, fixing a broken heart is another.

I've had several relationships in the past and if someone will ask me if I would go through each one of them again, I think I would - except for The End part.

True, the mere thought of parting with someone you have gone out with, been involved with, been in love with and whom you have shared a part of your life with, is a thought that you wouldn't want to dwell on. It doesn't matter whether that person has been in your life for days, or months or years. It really doesn't matter. Breaking up and - breaking your heart - is really a most painful thing to go through.

The thought of losing that person, "unattaching" or "disengaging" or "separating" yourself from the person and the relationship itself is simply unthinkable. I have always been a survivor of heartaches and failed relationships and I always tell myself that sulking for a while, crying for a while and being miserable for a while is all a part of it. You are entitled to it, after all. Afterwards, you move on. Life goes on.  But before that "liberation" part is the process of "disentangling", the process of letting go and letting be. And it could be the bloodiest part of all. Just thinking of saying goodbye, missing that person, living your life without him stops you. You tell yourself you can still endure a few more heartaches with him, continue to be miserable with him. That even though you've had enough and you want to end it all, the thought of going through the parting process holds you back.

For me, the heart being broken part is actually the hardest part of all, one thing that you don't want to go through again and again because the pain is simply unbearable. I, for one, have always been a person who gives it all in loving somebody. I don't hold back, I don't believe in loving halfway. I fall in love unconditionally and I always invest so much, emotionally, in a relationship. That is why the separation pangs are enough to kill me. I've lost persons I love, and let go of relationships. I've cried many times shamelessly and I've gone through a lot. This is the reason why I know how hard it is and I know I don't want to feel the same pain over and over again. Sometimes, even if I want to put an end to a relationship, what stops me is the thought of going through this merciless process. It's a kind of hurting that sometimes you feel your heart cannot take it any longer. And how the heart continues to endure this is a fact that continues to amaze me up to this very minute.

But yes, Whitney, even broken hearts can find their way home.

~TheGoodGirl

Words from TheGoodGirl: Ashes

ASHES
I was careful not to tap the cigarette

Dangling from my hand

Lest the ashes fall

As I wanted to see how long it can cling,

Similar to how I feel for you.

I wanted it to stay

For as long as it can

But you have long decided,

Before I could.

And now as I flick the ashes onto the ground

I say goodbye to the silver grey particles,

And to you, too.

~TheGoodGirl

Image from: http://www.rgbstock.com/bigphoto/mxJNiMq/Smoking+cigarette+2