whispered farewell to a quietly held hope

because you have been my friend, an especially good one, sincere, honest, caring, loyal, a true comfort and source of happiness,

because you have been there for me in happiness and in sadness, to shelter me from my disasters with an embrace and to share in my exultation,

because you deserve to be happy, you do.

i will whisper farewell to, and while no one is looking, wipe a little tear away for, that little thing in the back of my mind that always provided some sort of inspiration and strength, that hope that maybe, maybe,

maybe.

and i will find it in me to smile, and be happy for you, and welcome you as you are changed by the now when i see you next, distant but near, beside, open yet part closed.

and i will go forth into my future knowing that net that kept me safe as i walked the tightrope of of disastrous encounters is gone, never to be seen again, at least not the way it was there before.

as it should be, as it should've been.

allow me though this little whisper, this quiet, almost unseen wave to that safe haven of hope.

i am happy for you, I AM. happy that you're happy, happy that this path makes you happy, happy that life is blessing you this way. never doubt my happiness for you.

i am sad for me, for what i could've had, for what i chose to not have, for this little regret.

bonos materfamilias

i've read a lot of stories about people who take out their misery on their children, who beat the crap out of their children, or in seemingly imperceptible ways damage their children's psyche all in the effort to escape placing the blame where it squarely belongs- themselves.

it never ceases to amaze me, the reasons they come up with, for that extra rough pull on a child's arm, the anger at a child's precociousness, the raised, threatening voice.

it's one thing to, out of total moronic ignorance, plan to not let your son read fairy tales because he might become a fairy himself.

but to take your frustrations with your shitty marriage and your shitty husband out on your child, when the child has done nothing to you, hasn't even been anything but adorably sunshiny,

that's another thing.

it's not his fault you decided to marry to escape what for you was an overly oppressive - not only to the gifted and academic but to the ungifted and unacademic- home, even famously uttering that your family was no great loss to you (at least until the time when with no money in the foreseeable future you came and said "pretty please" and the savior known as your father stepped in), even in the face of repeated admonitions that marriage was not the answer to your particular problem.

it's not his fault you then found out that marrying young with no money and no real love and no concrete plans doesn't always have a hollywood (or in your case, jologs) dream ending, with loving in laws and a doting husband.

it's not his fault you can't seem to get along with people, you can't seem to keep a job, you can't seem to get a job you feel you deserve even in light of your less than stellar academic background and totally unimpressive work record replete with resigned-just-before-suspension and contract-not-renewed entries.

it's not his fault you get frustrated with all these things, you can't seem to find any luck, you can't get it together.

right now, it's all on you.

when you don't reprimand him from acting up when other people are being inconvenienced, when other people are trying to rest after having long, eventful, fruitful weeks, when you get angry at those who do reprimand him on the ground that they are not his parents,

that's on you.

when you do get mad at him for acting up or impeding your view of the tv (in front of which your widening butt has been parked instead of looking for work), when you want to sleep but he doesn't, when you want to eat but he doesn't, when you want to go somewhere but you can't leave him alone,

when you refuse to let your husband reprimand him and let your child go around throwing things at peoples' faces, hitting them and hissing at them and screaming and whining at them in the singularly irritating way he has seen, heard, gotten from you,

and if because of all that he grows up becoming self-indulgent, irritating, ignorant, stupid, uneducated (no chance of that as he has a doting extended family) boor,

that's on you.

when a person's reaction when heavy things are hurled by even a child at her face, actually hitting her twice without even a reprimand from his mother, is to curse (arguably at the child but more likely out of suprise-though ill bred surprise nonetheless), interpret the curse as a reprimand to the parent that no child is born wanting to throw things at people and hit people. a child gets taught that. and by the people he's around the most-his parents.

in no way would and should a reasonably intelligent person interpret the curse as an excuse to further treat her child badly, to pull him around not caring if he hits a wall or dislocates a shoulder, and subject him to a barrage of vile and hurtful words viler and more hurtful than any curse could be.

don't blame other people for your lack of control and your lack of luck.

to not raise your child well and have him act out and get mad at the person who gets hurt and does reprimand your child (albeit in a not so nice way) and take that anger out on your child? to say that your anger stems from another person's actions but -probably knowing you'd lose in a battle of words- you're taking it out on your child? to not admit that really, in the end, the person who's to blame, the person you're unhappy with (cause you sure as hell are lying when you say you're happy and satisfied with the overweight, unemployed, underqualified, unhappily married person that you are), the person you'd like to drag around and scream at is yourself? to probably be idiotic enough to not realize that fact?

that's plain pathetic.

and maybe, just maybe, time will prove kind to your child and see to it that he grows up a fine, upstanding person, a contributing member of society, brilliant, ambitious, responsible. lucky kid if so, but right now, if things stay the sam, we'll all know that it's no thanks to you.

fantasy of maybe

as long as it stays that way, what's the harm in entertaining a quiet hope here and there?

hope is free.

hope is a foolish foolish thing to keep close, but while it IS close, while it IS there, it's a feeling unlike any other, if ever similar closest to a cotton candy cool blue day with blueberry waffles and whipped cream.

hope is that wisp of the elusive, that dream just beyond your wide-awake reach, that window they say god leaves open, that hint of not too overpowering cologne on your favorite guy.

there, but not really.

and maybes...

that fantastic feeling of thinking there's a choice, of thinking there's a chance.

that kiss you may or may not get (but want to steal), the hint of a smile he gave that half stayed mystery and half gave him away, that heady heavy (airy ya know but like dew heavy), walkin-on-sunshine but knowing it'll go with the setting sun but it's okay.

the times when there are no choices and no chances (argue with me philosophers about how people make their own choices and chances some other time please) come too often in a day, when the true or easy path to the thing you need or want is either closed off to you or it requires a harder path to take.

those times come too often in a day.

so that feeling, that every-now-and-then feeling, that's worth savoring.

it doesn't have to be a fairy tale come true, it doesn't have to involve a prince of charming proportions.

maybe in a long time friend, maybe in someone you used to love ,maybe in that stranger you haven't met yet, maybe in the guy across from you but quiet and unassuming, maybe in the guy who blushes when teased, maybe in the arrogant jerk.

the fantasy of maybe with these maybes is that a day will dawn (or end) and there'll be that slight charge in the air, that change in the gleam of his eye, that quirk in his smile that signals, in the words of that disney movie..

"something there that wasn't there before"

the fantasy of maybe doesn't lie the maybe actually happening.

it's the chance that maybe that chance will come.

weather wandering thoughts

i know this one shouldn't be written, and i know this one is much too me. but the day's just right, with the heat and the cold making me sweat and making me shiver and making me think things i thought i'd never remember. and i sit and i write and the words may or may not come out right but this urge.

this urge.

to say what i feel and feel what i say in the way that i did not that long ago that time when i was thinking of you and that way of you speaking what you thought and how i felt .

like neruda and how he felt about his poetry and how it came in search of him, how heavens unfastened and opened, how he became part of the stars and the sky.

like a sunset i once watched, bursting colors then bleeding into black, so slow one minute the sun gone the next, high in the sky slowly sinking into welcome (i'll hide you tonight) waters.

like that night speeding through streets quiet and streets crowded, streets lit well and streets hiding dirty secrets, slowing down at reds then cheekily blasting past.

like the last bottle of (lying sonovabitch) alcohol, downed and left sitting lonely but not alone, in the company of others downed on a happy night spent.

and lately this drowning not quite breathing easy feeling i'm feeling scaring me shitless that that feeling, that feeling of no fear no pain no hesitation no saying no to adventure and adrenaline rush,

that feeling

it ain't never gonna come again.

and wouldn't it scare you too? to not feel helpless but a bit in control, something a person should be so lucky to feel at least once in a lucky life, something i've squandered not once or twice.

not once or twice.

and looking down a lonely road i wish (really really really with all of my oft broken heart) i wish that i had known what i was feeling then and i had held on to it a lot longer and way harder than i did.

but too late the epiphany and only too lingering the realization that hindsight is the bestest friend a girl could have in a world that teases and plays unfair.

dangerous these days of cold rain and warm sun.

sayang

sayang talaga.

oh well. i can only hope that you do not absorb the sanctimonious overly fake saccharine bullshitty attitudes of some of the people you'll be with. because truly, you are one of the more decent people i know.

here's to you becoming the best person you can be...even if.