The Angel

It's been eleven years since my younger brother died. He would have been 29 last September 10. So easy to say that time flies, but somehow, somehow, I never grieved fully--and so eleven years later it has the freshness of yesterday's heartbreak. In the early stages, the first few weeks and months after his death, if I wasn't angry at the world and at God, if I wasn't plotting my own demise, I buried my nose in books, either trying to understand the inescapable pain and burden or escaping into horde of fantasy books. I remember feeling how thin the line between madness and sanity at that time. At any point I would've crossed over to madness and lived gleefully unaware of this sad, mad world.

The first milestone I had was when I graduated in prep school. It was made more unforgettable because I sung onstage. Long before The Voice Kids  or Tawag ng Tanghalan Kids  happened, I tortured my poor classmates, their parents and guests, and my teachers with my voice. In my defense, my teachers made me do it. The succeeding milestones in my life were all that--graduations. From elementary, high school, and finally college. I say finally  because I'm glad that my formal education is over. I have no plans for further studies, except those short courses online that tap into my neglected creative side.

Is it too early for reminiscing? Sometimes, out of the blue, and in the most ordinary of times, I feel suddenly, electrifyingly alive and in the moment. Sometimes in the middle of work, a flood of memories overwhelm me and I am reminded of things that came to pass. There's no shaking it, everything that happened in my life is now part of my narrative. If I were a story, I'm in the middle of my arc. I had experienced loss from which I will never recover, a burden, like heavy weights in my pockets that could sink me anytime, a wound so deep it will not heal. I had found myself in the throes of death, clung to life despite the isolation and the long road to recovery. And I find myself asking why? If I were a story, I should be moving towards something--a resolution or an ending of some sorts that should bring closure to my life's questions. Instead, it's starting to feel like Soprano and I'm moving to nothing but an abrupt end. Or The Good Wife --a good slap in the fac...

Sometimes I feel like I've been an adult all my life. All the stuff of everyday can make me forget I was ever a child and that I had a whole life behind me. There are memories, out of nowhere, that would flash in my mind and remind me that I wasn't always like this. They come randomly, wherever, and whenever--when I'm walking, when I'm working, when I'm crossing the street, getting to my ride, having a meal, drinking coffee--I'd get these flashes of memories of a different life.

On my way to work today, an old, familiar song played on the radio. It was not the original but an even slower interpretation, as if at 5AM I needed to hear lullaby. Nevertheless, the recognition pulled me back to when I used to hum it. I was so much younger then, in high school, seemingly with an entire life ahead of me. I could see myself in the attic of our house watching the sun set over the horizon, an incomprehensible melancholy washing over me.

I am out of the conversation. It's been a long time since I've been part of the normal, typical conversation. I've had a few lunches and dinners with officemates and they talk about the married life, having babies, and raising kids. They talk about tuition fees, college educations, and how children these days are so different from our generation. I play with my food and imagine the world has swallowed me whole. Especially when they remember that I'm around and then they focus on me and ask me when I'm going down the road well-travelled. Marriage, families, babies, kids, the whole package of the acceptable, responsible life.

I had been meaning to write for a long time, but the idea kept slipping away. On some random moments, I wish I had a pen and paper and I could simply write down my thoughts before they vanish. But ultimately, I let them dissipate into thin air. My mind wanders into many different things until I find myself falling asleep. I would tell myself, I am writing, forever, constantly, perpetually writing. Just not here. This part of my life, I choose to have it muted. An embargo of what goes on in every waking moment of it.

When news exploded about the decision of the SCOTUS to lift the ban on same-sex marriage across 50 states, I watched my newsfeed explode in the same manner--of rainbows and hashtags, and of dissent and outcry on the attack on traditional marriage and the breaking down of the moral fabric of the world. I read both sides of the argument of the judges who voted for and against the lifting of the ban and I marveled at the beauty of their arguments, the rhetoric and impassioned plea to a nation as divided as the judges themselves.

We die everyday. The moment we step out of our houses, we become sensitive to how the world will see us. We mute our colors and hide the mannerisms that could betray us. We try as hard as possible to be inconspicuous in our words and actions. We look for nuances of what makes a man straight and so we stifle our tendencies and inclinations in order to be like them. We call the men bro or dude  or whatever sounds manly in the offices that we work in.

Took the last flight on a Friday night caught between the last days of summer and the beginning of fall. Made a brief stop at Minneapolis and, while waiting, I got a text message from an unfamiliar number telling me it was you. You were there at the airport as I made my exit and we found our way at the parking lot looking for the rental. We drove for miles beneath the midnight sky, across the vast Bay Area, against the settling fog and the twinkling lights of distant buildings, until we passed the shadows of the mountains and the distance between houses became as wide as the longing in our hearts.

It is Thanksgiving in the US today. The day when many turkeys are killed and basted. Although I don't celebrate it even when I lived there, this is a good time to be grateful for where I am in life. Many times in the past couple of months, I remind myself that I am in a comfortable place now, far from the struggles I've had in the last two years. It had been a dizzying, sometimes unconscious, trip to rock bottom. And just when I thought I was finally rising from my grave, I hit a few rough patches again and I spent months without any source of income.

I think I'm overdue for a good cry. I'm a little bit exhausted, tired of life itself. Still out of tune, out of sync from what I want. Dreams are still expensive and seemingly impossible. Out of a thousand miles to that goal, I'm just fifty miles in, with so many stops, restarts, and detours.

The first thing I will tell you is that the guy that got you all confused in the first place, the one that pushed you over the edge and made you gay grew up to be ordinary. His face has changed for the worse, he has a belly and you wouldn't notice him in a crowd. All your fantasies about him would gross me out now. Like, eww. What are you thinking?

My mother shared an anecdote last Sunday on how I ended up calling her Mama,  while I called my father Daddy. She said when I was less than a year older, she taught me to call her Mama , which I did. But every time she taught me to call my father Papa , I would shake my head and motion to her that papa  is to eat. So eventually she ended up teaching me to call my father Daddy-- which stuck. "Even when you were a baby, you were already stubborn," she said, laughing. Many years hence, my parents (mostly my mother) and I have had many skirmishes when they forced something on me that I didn't want. Whether it was going to mass every day or abstaining from meat every Friday; sleeping in the summer afternoons or choosing the books to read (my mother once destroyed a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone when some misguided Church leader said it was of the devil)--I've always stood my ground when I really didn't want it . 

Today would be my 2 years in this country, although I've moved to a different state since then. The first thing I noticed here is that moving from one state to another is a BIG deal. It's tantamount to moving from one country to another. Driver's license has to change, car plates, insurance--everything. It's like starting over again. People don't easily move from one state to another, because it means a different set of state laws (a striking example would be the recognition of gay marriage in some states,) a different computation of taxes (I pay more income tax in KY than in FL, but sales tax is lower,) a different demographic (more white, more conservative, etc.) Contrast that to how Filipinos are so raring to move out of the country, an anywhere-but-here mentality. It was an eye-opener for me to see how difficult it was for Americans to uproot themselves from one state to another. Most gave up their jobs, (which was hard given the economic climate) choosing to st...

I toggled the switch on and off a couple of times and pressed the "Connect" rubber button to make it appear I was having trouble connecting the bluetooth keyboard to the iPad. In reality, it was a simple connection process that took me all of ten seconds to figure out. But my Filipino officemate sat there talking, her face glued to the computer screen, as she went on a litany of what she had just emailed her son. He's 29 years old, same age as I am, with no work, despite having graduated from an expensive school in Manila. Last December, he got married and for one month, my officemate had stepped back to let her son enjoy the honeymoon. But, as she said, honeymoon's over and there's married life to contend with. He can't be married and unemployed and still be dependent on her. When she would ask him what his plans were--to work or to study again--he would shrug his shoulders. He spends his days in their house here, playing computer games or trying out whatev...

With the death of Whitney last weekend, I felt a sadness, a sense of loss that life was slipping through my fingers as time marches unforgivingly forward. It wasn't so much a tragedy for me; it didn't make me grab my music player and create an all-Whitney playlist. It was the thought that a voice from my childhood had passed on. Impressionistic as I was when I was a kid, I learned her songs through cousins who belted, wailed and screamed "I Have Nothing" before segueing into "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me.)" I didn't know who she was, not even her name (I was too young to bother with names of singers) until she belted out "Indayyyyyyy," stretching the "I" into an existential command, almost willing it to become a living entity. I was near the end of my single-digit life then and much of my life was still pegged in some dreamy future. You are the next generation.  That's what the schools had ingrained in my head.

I knew I cannot come out to my college friends. At least not in some formal revelations that I would initiate. They were homophobic, some of them proudly so. I remember having conversations with them, of their other friends telling them they're gay and them being all nice and okay about it, until backs are turned and their real opinions come out. No matter what they say, I'll never be comfortable with them, a friend remarked. They have this image of gays: fairies, sissies and pansies. If women were the weaker sex, gays were the weakest. I had wondered--and sometimes laughed in my head--how they would react if they had found out I was of the fairy kind. I who can outrun them, outbox them and out-drink them. Nobody had an inkling, nobody suspected because I didn't fit the image of their stereotypes. But I knew at some point, they will wonder. And I knew it, too. I know I have to eventually stop being friends with them. When I started working, I began to put some distance ...

A few minutes before boarding, they told us that our flight will be delayed for a couple of hours because they found a gas leak on the plane and we had to change planes. I didn't know whether it was a good or bad omen. I looked at the bright side thinking that at least they discovered the leak while we were still on land, instead of thinking that I will be stuck in the airport for more than ten hours. Twenty hours later, I was at NAIA terminal 1, lining up at the immigration for my passport to be stamped. I had to remove my jacket because I started sweating profusely. I didn't know if it was because of the heat or the excitement, but my hands were cold. My heart felt like it was about to explode, the way it beat rapidly and furiously. I couldn't believe that I was in Manila again. I couldn't believe that I had come home. It took me awhile to get my two checked-in baggage. I had the time to sort of settle down and let the feeling sink in that I was really back, that ...

We were the fifth in line and I only noticed it after the weariness had worn off and the second one took off.  It was close to midnight and we had been taxiing for a few good minutes before the turns and maneuvers on the tarmac made sense to me.  I thought we were simply going in circles, further delaying a flight that's already five hours delayed.  Until I noticed the lighted paths and the arrows, pointing us where to turn and where to go. Go straight, turn left, go straight again, turn right, then pause.  Gather strength, maintain momentum, race through the tarmac, and with such force, take off.  The first few seconds of being airborne feels wobbly when we try to find our balance. I looked out the window and the lights from houses and buildings were twinkling and, as if, floating; an illusion from the mist and the recent rain.  It was a spectacular view and I sat there staring at it for awhile. That's how it is.  We cut ourselves from the jet w...