I love watching sci-fi films (ingat kayo, malabo to. But read it anyway)

ang sayang mapanood uli yung "Equillibrium", nakakaalow kasi yung mga movies that pose the question "what if......?". "What if you could prevent the development of human emotion?"."What if you could take away emotional pain?". "What if the world was made safer by taking away the very essence of our humanity?". "What if by giving up freedom, you could be more free?". What if...

But what if because of this, you see that the world remains the same, the same conflicts, only different faces. The same radicalism, but for a different cause. The same longing for freedom... but the same opression. It made me think about the world in the earlier part of the century, when Afghanistan was still under Taliban rule, Iraq was still controlled by Saddam Hussein, etc, etc... This was the same story as was that of Equillibrium....

But alas, that's not what i wanted to talk about........labo no?

I want to write about love, like so many people out there who think they know so much about the subject of genuine affection for the other sex.....

Aaminin ko na, i don't know a lot about this subject, but for the past 16 years, I was pretty sure I did. I honestly thought I knew the difference between love and infatuation. Siguro nga, after 10 or so years, you begin to learn a lot more about yourself. Problema nga lang, i'm still in the dark about me. I'm still not sure about what i really want in life, i still don't know how i define love, i still showed signs of unease about myself. I sometimes even think my friends know more about me than i do! And believe me, it didn't get easier nung pumunta ako sa Ateneo. The students there will eat you alive, they will dissect you and will consider you worthless if your different from them! Kaya nga nakaka bad trip yung first year ko sa Ateneo(alam niyo na nangyari). Ever since, i built myself an invisible wall to keep me from getting hurt ever again. i didn't go to class outings, i spent as much time away from my classmates as possible , and i rarely participated in class. Ganun ka gago(note: "GAGO" in this sentence means "TANGINA NIYO LAHAT SANA MAMATAY NA KAYO AT ANG MGA MINAMAHAL NIYO SA BUHAY KASI DI KAYO KARAPAT DAPAT PANG MANATILI SA MUNDO!", gets? ok) yung mga kaklase ko, except for a few people.

Anyway, oras na para kalimutan yon...

The prom taught me a lot of things, if i may recall: 1. NEVER expect for everything to go smoothly, because if history has proven anything, it is that even the most well laid out plans will have clink, a miscalculation that will have a tremendously adverse effest on what you want for the outcome to be. 2. Never leave a place where your having a good time just to go to a place where you THINK you'll have a better time. Ok, i admit that the prom wasn't that great to begin with, but at least i should have waited long enough for the slow dance.(Giel really wanted to dance, Do'h!) 3. Always come prepared. I forgot to bring a gift, for goodness sake. Para tuloy akong ewan na mang mang sa prom(which i was). And don't forget a jacket. Ayaw mo namang ginawin yung prom date mo pag lumabas kayo. That's it, and i somehow managed to break all those rules. Obviuosly, Giel wasn't impressed. Isa nanamang suntok sa tiyan...

After the unFORGETTABLE prom experience, para atang na doble yung layer nung protective wall ko, beacuse let's face it, that was full of shit. I really liked Giel, but i kept thinking i was of no use. So for a couple of weeks, i beat myself up emotionally(i get my physical beatdown from practice, so there's no more sense in adding to that). I thought of every possible thing that I hated about myself and beat myself senseless on it. There's no need to go into too much detail. One day pa nga, i really cried( i have a tendency to cry when i'm really depressed) because i had a feeling that i was of no use to this world. It really hurts... parang sakit na mahirap ipaliwanag.

Then one day I got fed up, as in i really got fed up and sick and tired about beating myself up. I started changing myself. I started better sleeping habits. This wouldn't be possible without the help of Kuya Jess. Ang galing niya. There's this few instances na he would "intervene" like when on a saturday night(for all of you who don't know it's porn night on wowow), sumabog yung transformer ng tv namin sa labas, where i usually watch until 3 in the morning. The monday after that, sumabog yung tv namin because sinaksak ko sa 220(ok, fine, ako yung tanga dun) and i saw this wierd smelling smoke coming out of the tv. Thanks Kuya Jess! There's even this dream i got, which i won't tell because this is something way too personal, that showed me what the fruits of my labor would look like. Deep inside, I knew that this would help me be a better person. And yet, i still had this one last problem...

I told myself that i never wanted to be hurt ever again. So, the wall remained. i hardened it by reading books like Josh Harris' "I Kissed Dating Goodbye". This book wasn't supposed to serve that purpose. In fact, it told me to pursue relatioships that would be Godly and morally correct. To me, though, it was a sign that told me to shut myself away from the world, because the world was evil and decietful. I shut myself from others because i thought they would hurt my cause... Pre, it was one of the most ignorant mistakes i ever made...

Then i watched Equillibrium...

Shit pre, if i ever lived in a world like that, i would freak out. Walang emotions? di ko ata kaya yon. And yet there it lay, with the promise of no more wars, no more injustice, no more pain. All you had to give up was your ability to feel, to be happy, to grief, and to love. Was the promise of security that appealing? I guess not. It was okay to take risks because in reality, we always do play a game of chance. It's called life, and every choice you make eliminates an alternative path in it. Let's face it, we were born gamblers...

And here's my biggest gamble yet...

Giel, I don't know if you'll ever read this, I don't even know what your reaction will be. But I'm doing this because I want to eliminate the path in life that started if i never said this.

I like you, I seriously, absolutely like you.

This isn't another one of my stupid crushes because i can't do that to you. Not to you, a friend I've had for a long time, yet i never really paid attention to. I regret that a lot, I really do. If I could turn back the sands of time, i would fix everything i did wrong back then. But I can't turn back time, no one can. But i CAN live in the present, I CAN change what is happening now. And I CAN be different. I CAN be more mature. I could probably change a whole lot of other things if i wanted to. And i would. All my life I've been waiting for someone. I'm still not sure if it's you, or another girl, or someone 20 years from now. But what I DO know is that if i pass you up, if I don't take that risk, if I don't gamble everything I've got, I'll see myself 20 years from now pondering "What if I did try?..."

What if.........