My Korean friend, smart, perfect, beautiful, she once asked me, You are pretty, why don´t you use it? Why are you so shy? I guffawed in embarrasment. I think she was just being kind. I never got on in life because of looks. I have always used intelligence to get what I want. I admit, I am not the smartest, most passionate tech person in my line of work but I am diligent and determined when the task calls for it and so that is how I am able to conquer my professional insecurities.
Some people think I am suplada. I have a face that´s naturally stern. I look Maldita and more Chinese/Korean/Japanese than Pinoy. When we became friends, a Pinay co-engineer even told me, akala ko masungit ka, para ka kasing suplada eh. I am not. I am an introvert. So I observe first before adjusting my disposition. And it takes time for me to open to other people. To show them my crazy side, my sense of humor and anecdotes. I am also the kind of person who needs her space. I am not the kind of friend who clings, and seeks constant reassurance. I do not get worried when close friends and I do not communicate for months or years. To my mind, they are just doing their thing, just as I am exploring what to do with my life. I have faith in the bonds of close friendships I have formed. I know that when these friends and I cross paths again, the warmth will still be there and we will have more stories, more experiences to share with each other.
As a writer (or at least someone trying to be one) I enjoy listening to other people´s stories. To understand where they are coming from. To see life from their punto de vistas. I am a listener not a talker. The interviewer not the interviewee. I share my own stories only when I am asked. I have no compulsion to brag about what I know, what I have, what I´ve done in the past, or what my plans are for the weekend, but I am so willing to listen to other people´s dreams, failures, the triumphs in their lives. This is where I get the juice for my writing. Here is where I can distill reality, mesh them, compare them with what I know to be true in my own life.
Writing requires a certain bravery. To put out my life and other people´s stories out in permanent record. To let people know my own biases and perceptions, however flawed they may be at times. Every time I write, there is that tingle of fear. Like the heebie jeebies we get when we meet a person for the first time and we realize that we like him. This is me. Do you like me?
On a recent white heat writing practice, I wrote this :
Screw this. Screw all the facades we keep to protect ourselves. I want to write until I am raw and bleeding. Until I can tell myself, there is nothing more. I have let all that I am bleed into words.
And so this is my secret goal. To write with all that I have. I am not that good of a writer at the moment. But I know that with practice and passion, I´ll get there.
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