STRANGE SMALL WORLD

What a difference a year makes!

I don't know what else to say.
I'm ok, I'm good, I'm great.
Occasional money matters and concrete future plans aside, I have no big problems.

I am happy and I mean it.
I am fine and I believe it.

Now there's nothing else left to do but soundtrack it :P
*****
30 years on this earth and I'm still straining against the expectations other people attach to the labels they give me.

Good.
Girl.
Decent.
Doctor.

The struggle isn't over for me, but I'm doing the best I can to play by my rules and no one else's.
It's not that I don't care, but often I find that there's a difference between what I want and what other people want for me.
I'm tired of compromising. (I can feel the people who've known me long enough rolling their eyes. They know me well enough to know that I'm a stubborn, demanding witch when I want to be :P)

And speaking of witches, who better to sing about it than Elphaba? ;)
Now there's a witch after my own heart.



"ELPHABA:
No,
I can't want it anymore.
Something has changed within me.
Something is not the same.
I'm through with playing by
the rules of someone else's game.

Too late for second-guessing.
Too late to go back to sleep.
It's time to trust my instincts.
Close my eyes, and leap!

It's time to try defying gravity.
I think I'll try defying gravity,
and you can't pull me down!

...I'm through with accepting limits,
'Cuz someone says they're so.
Some things I cannot change,
but 'till I try, I'll never know.

Too long I've been afraid of
losing love. I guess I've lost.
Well, if that's love,
it comes at much to high a cost!
I'd sooner buy defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I'm defying gravity,
and you can't pull me down!

So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky.
As someone told me lately:
"Ev'ryone deserves the chance to fly!"
And if I'm flying solo,
At least I'm flying free.
To those who'd ground me,
Take a message back from me.
Tell them how I am
Defying gravity
I'm flying high
Defying gravity

And soon I'll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No Wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!

(Look at her; she's wicked!)"
*****
The truth always comes to me in little moments of clarity. There's no big reveal or deus ex machina. I often have the best realizations while walking or sitting alone.

The moment I realized I was over my first love, I was on the bridgeway connecting the STUH Charity hospital and the med building.
I was walking to TODA training in SanLo park when it suddenly hit me that the most recent betrayal of friends and lovers no longer had a hold over me.

My life is good the way it is.
The things and people I don't need or are not worthy have fallen by the wayside.
Fate finds a way.
God has a reason.

There is no need to turn back time.
I have no regrets.
I am proud of my battle scars.
The fact that I'm still standing is reason enough to celebrate.



LITTLE WONDERS
-Rob Thomas

Let it go,
Let it roll right off your shoulder
Don't you know
The hardest part is over
Let it in,
Let your clarity define you
In the end
We will only just remember how it feels

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain

Let it slide,
Let your troubles fall behind you
Let it shine
Until you feel it all around you
And i don't mind
If it's me you need to turn to
We'll get by,
It's the heart that really matters in the end

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain

All of my regret
Will wash away some how
But i can not forget
The way i feel right now

In these small hours
These little wonders
These twists & turns of fate
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away but these small hours
These small hours, still remain,
Still remain
These little wonders
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away
But these small hours
These little wonders still remain
*****

And finally, FINALLY, I am here:

Love After Love
- Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

 Watched the Fall Out Boy concert with Mango last Thursday. And while I can't claim to have all the words to their songs memorized, I must confess to liking their stuff (Yes Mutch, I can hear you screaming in  protest  in the background). Sugar, We're Going Down is in my Oddly Hopeful playlist and I always find myself bouncy after listening to it.

It's been a while since I've been to a big rock concert (by our standards). There hasn't been anyone out there I was really interested in seeing perform but I clamored to watch FOB because, well, when the hell will I ever get the chance again? A few guitar chords into their opening song (Thriller) I finally knew why. I missed the high energy, the throbbing bang of bass and drum taking over your heartbeat, the shouting of words that aren't your own but sure as hell could be.

That night, I was just a face in the crowd,a speck in a multi-city transcontinental tour but I didn't mind. On my feet, fist raised, singing myself hoarse, and openly ogling Pete,Patrick, Andy and Joe,  I felt alive. Sometimes, boys thrumming on rhythym, bass and drum with the volume turned way up is all I need to remind myself that life can have its perfect little happy moments.
*****
The entrance: Build Me Up Buttercup, the high fives and Thriller.

( (or me almost screaming myself hoarse when they came onstage) )

*****
OK, so now you get the idea that I'm mostly doing this post for myself. Yeah, I'm totally geeking out over FOB playing in Manila (My  LJ, my rules)

( Let's complete the dork session by listing my favorite FOB songs, so far: )

*****
Ten years after, if LJ is still around, I'm sure I'll laugh at how fangirly I sound in this post. And I will still shake my head and think that kids going with their parents to a rock concert where the bassist will pretty much curse after every 3rd word will always spell disaster.