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!

Dear Self,

Nobody was ever born perfect,so get used to making mistakes.

Get used to doing things that you wish you haven’t done. Get used to NOT doing things you should have done, if only you had the wits (or guts) that a meaningful life calls for.

Bottom line – get used to making mistakes. Lots of them. In fact, start enjoying the experience.

it gets tiring, crying yourself to sleep each time. quite frankly, the self-pity is pathetic and enough is enough.

Someone once told me that if things don’t go according to plan, then your plan was wrong. From the depths of my heart, once again, thank you, Lord, for showing me that I was wrong.

I don’t know what I did right to deserve a second chance, but thank you, Lord, for giving me the wake-up calls of wake-up calls.

Thank you, Lord, for showing me the difference of passion and obligation.

Thank you, Lord, for showing me that instead of trying to outmatch the pace of other clueless zombies like me, I only actually had myself to compete with.

Thank you, Lord, for making me realize that accomplishing greats feats in all other things pale in comparison to the satisfaction I get whenever I finally get over a baby step for something I sincerely love to do. It’s the difference between contentment and pure, utter bliss.

Thank you, Lord, for showing me which things were actually worth losing sleep over. I still have a bit of trouble detaching from my old ‘programmed’ ways, but I’m getting there and frankly, I’m surprising myself every step of the way.

For all these, thank you, Lord — thank you, thank you, thank you for saving my life.

i find that life comes in phases. one time, you’ll find life so uneventful and boring that you begin to nitpick and question everything. next, you’ll find that life hurls everything but the kitchen sink at you that you just want to zone out. bored. nitpick. battered. zone out. chill. think of what’s next.

i’m somewhere in that zoning out part right now. recently, to say that things have been chaotic is to put it nicely. i’ve never thought of myself as that resistant to change, but when it haunts you at home, at work, when you’re with your friends, it can be a tad overwhelming. gawd, for crying out loud, i’ve got this 3 gigantic zits in my face (oo, mayabang na, but when i get zits, that’s a very bad sign.) i’ve already got them named — BEA, youtube and mike (oo mike, i’m holding you responsible for this. you owe me pond’s. =p) but i say, boo-hoo, have a cry over it, be a bratinella if you need to, but then move on. zone out and chill. speak in abbreviated sentences.

as with any muni-muni moment, i usually take a trip down nostalgia lane to calm myself down. i got reoriented with friendster and multiply, and retroed while reading all my past posts and testimonials. it was kind of funny, actually, when i got to reading the oldest testimonials — these were posts by my high school friends. if you were only getting to know me for the first time, you’ll get the impression that i was this patient, uber-nice and perky person who would never complain about anything. i could already hear my officemates’ eyebrows hitting the roof. “Si Ish?! Patient?? On what alternate universe?!”

i know i’ve changed my stance in a lot of ways, but it never really sinked in this much. i guess in challenging times, you get to know who you are, who you want to be, or at least who you were all along. for the record, i’ve never really believed that soul-searching for who you are would solve anything — what mattered was that you’re happy with whoever you are at a given time.

so that brings us to the question — am i happy with who i am now? the reborn brat who needs to put on the brakes and grow up? (fyi, i’m still debating with myself if that’s a need.) i found that i may be weaker and more vulnerable now than the disciplined thinker i was then. but there’s something with being a feeler that’s just draws you in; i guess any brand-new feeling is impossible to resist. well, one thing’s for sure — i’m happy that FINALLY i’m able to detach myself from my work (o SWAT, paki-baba uli ng kilay.) now i understand that work is just work. i finally got it through my thick head that work does not define me. big feat, trust me.

so there goes zone out; this is probably the chill phase. so, what’s next?

kapag wala kang nakikita, ang nakikita mo ay wala.

kapag wala kang ginagawa, ang ginagawa mo ay wala.

kung gayon, ang wala ay binubuo ng mga mumunting pangyayari o gawain na tila walang kabuluhan. o hindi binibigyang kabuluhan.

doon marahil gawa ang black hole. ang black hole na mas malapit kaysa sa ating akala.