I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s finding yourself with your kindred souls. Finding your own wavelength amidst the noise. Where you don’t need to explain nor apologize for who you are. Where relating is as easy as breathing. Then leaving all that, and you’re not able to fit in anywhere else. Even when I’m already having fun, it’s as if everything reinforces how I miss how things used to be.

but it can do wonders for your blog, apparently. i hate emo attacks — it’s like the anti-endorphin. all that cardio gone to waste, because you fell for the mope-until-a-friend-snaps-you-out-of-it trap.

i realize that i haven’t blogged for a while (thanks KE for reminding me!). although, i’ve been jotting down snippets of my thoughts for when those emo attacks strike — mostly during long commutes when i unfortunately have to listen to myself whimper. looking back, most of them were not so bad as i thought they were; they all passed and i survived them, didn’t i? sometimes it’s good to be reminded of your lapses in character, so that you also remember that you were able to move past them.

—

09/07 – After another OT at the office, sprinkled with truckloads of family drama

The only good thing with having a totally crappy day is that things could not be possibly get worse the next day.

—

09/08 – Somewhere between the walk from the MRT to our house

At some point of our lives, each of us here must have wept on our own. Out of frustration. Out lof loneliness. Out of utter helpless ness. Even the toughest guys were born with tearducts.

—

09/17 – A rare glimpse of sunlight

I think I found the key. You can’t help but compare yourself with others, but at least make it a point of comparing yourself with people you actually would want to turn out to be. There’s no point in crying foul on why a doofus seems to get all the breaks, when you want to have totally nothing in common with that doofus.

—

09/22 – After catching myself yet again asking questions without no answers

This is the curse of having a mind made for math. You’ve gotten used to putting everything into neat, elaborate equations, that when you realize that life doesn’t really work out that way, you feel stupid or worse, inadequate. Inadequate in all the things that matter – chance, talent, charm, intuition, endless permutations of these.

—

09/22 – Yeah, I know, pathetic, it was the same afternoon

Is this what normally happens after college? It seems like I’m always at the crossroads and everyone’s honking their horns for me to make up my mind.

one of the greatest appeals of getting a new job in a foreign country is the chance to reinvent yourself. frankly, my plan was just to be stupid but happy — the type you’d never mistake to be that cranky workaholic in her past life. work was just work, and after my 9-to-5 desk job, i’ll either jog, dance or cook. i didn’t even bother to correct people when they call me by my full first name (which i never allowed others to do before); it was all part of the show. yep, to be mediocre but happy.

but i guess God just wasn’t ready to give up on me. nosiree. i’m still thinking if it’s a blessing or a challenge, but by some stroke of luck, i landed in company whose management style wasn’t far from HP’s. that means flat hierarchy, proactive initiatives, WLB, but also the high-stress, high-expectations environment that comes with the perks.  i wanted to keep a low profile, to be that officemate you never realized you worked with until after about 2 years when she resigns, but maybe that’s just not in the cards. it’s like that chore that you try to avoid but secretly like, the chore that always comes back for you.

the Man Upstairs sent an angel to give a pep talk during our onboarding, and she made me think about reconsidering my play-stupid plans. honestly, she managed to awaken in me something i thought was doomed to die. thank You, Lord, for this wake up call, for making me realize that maybe i can be happy, but not totally let go of who i am. hopefully, i can do enough to show You that i really appreciate this.

whoever you are right now, ROCK THE PART.

wherever you are, you’re right where you should be.

If knowledge is power, then I’m dead broke right now. It’s either I’m not pushy enough with questions, or the fad right now is to be sparse with information. VERY sparse.

I came to this country, knowing hardly anything more than my contact’s FIRST name. At least now I know I’m in a team called Environments. I’m just a bit alarmed at everyone’s reaction once they learn which team I’m in. You know it’s going to be a LOT of fun when they only have 2 words for you — GOOD LUCK.

It’s a bit unnerving being the rookie in a high-expectations team again; it’s been a while since I’ve been in this situation. I’m just praying I won’t get karma for all the rookie mess-ups I’ve tsk-tsk-tsked on instead of helping in the past. Lord, please let them be tolerant.

New, new, new. New office. New teammates. New passwords to remember. New faces to tag with names.

I just wish that the new would be enough to drown out the yearning for the old. For comfort. For familiarity.

I still don’t know where I belong — at the edge or cozy at home. Maybe neither.

As I deal with my own emo tra-la-las, the folks at home are going through their own drama. No matter how much I’d like to think it’s because of my leaving, I have a feeling I was only a trigger of a bigger blast that was already bound to happen.

When you realize that you barely have two weeks to spend in a company where you have done a lot of growing up, the feeling can be overwhelming. You think a lot about loose ends to tie up. About the relationships you want to hold on to. About how this can be the last time you can find anything as awesome as this. It feels a lot like graduating, to tell you the truth.

I knew the day would come when I had to make THE decision. In my gut, I knew I had the interview in the bag. I just never anticipated that I would have to make the choice within just a day.

HP has been my home — literally and figuratively — for the past ~3 years and beyond its walls, I knew not of what monsters and angels there were out there in the “real” world. Am I that reckless?

More than once, that day we went cliff-diving at Tali comes to mind. Tayo. Talon. (Stand. Jump.)

And here I am, a few hours later, pondering on what I’ll say to my team. It’s funny how perfectly articulate we seem to be when we daydream about how dramatic but perfectly eloquent we’ll be on the day we resign. But what I found was once I was there, I was gasping for words like air. There was no day I could do anything work-related that day until I got it off my chest.

The first to know were my soul-sisters, Jan & Rhea; they tolerated my whining and second-guessing while I was still deliberating my decision. Then I told Aaron, my manager, then Ralph, to whom I was entrusting almost every ‘legacy’, if you will; both went easier than I thought. Then I told Mara, who took me by surprise when she burst out in tears. Then Alex. Then the news eventually cascaded to everyone, almost on its own.

So it’s official — chapter 1 is over, and this crazy kiddo is headed to Singapore in less than a month. I’ll be leaving Easter Sunday (new life!) in hopes of a new, better me. To say the decision was hasty is a grave understatement, but crazy as it may seem, it just felt like it was time to rock the boat. And also, as a slight sub-reason, I can’t refute that distance would be a gift right now, as there are some things I’d rather not witness.

To the new me. Cheers!