draeanism

I'm really amazed by how I get dragged into messy situations every so often and it always comes out fine in the end. Like, oh my god, did that really happen? Fucking yes! It changes you in a good way.

One key takeaway though is how good and wholesome I've been living my life compared to some people pala. Kala ko masama na ako sa lagay na to e—hindi pala—overly empathic pa nga. It's just I've been considering other people so much that it sometimes backfires when I can't sustain it. I really should tone it down a bit, and listen to myself more. At the end of the day, when everything's out in the open, all sides explained and/or revealed, my decisions get justified. I always get the feeling na, 'sabi na tama intuition ko eh'. Kinokontra ko pa kasi sa umpisa.

It's pretty chilling, you know—being able to predict things waaay before they happen. Is my pattern recognition in people really that good?

☕ Sikwate and Bibingka Langka Combo

I thought the Sikwate tasted a bit sour—turns out that's actually how it should taste like. Apart from the natural fruity flavor profile of the beans, fermentation produces lactic and acetic acids. Traditional tablea is so minimally processed it skips conching (evaporation of these acids under long and continuous heating), and uses raw, unrefined cocoa mass as is.

The bibingka was good as well, although the langka flavor was too subtle.

I have an unhealthy habit of looking back when I should just keep moving forward, past be damned. But I guess that's just how I'm wired—to care and understand. Maybe it’s foolishness, maybe it’s kindness, maybe it’s both. But in a world full of half truths, I want to fully live the weight of my own honesty.

Conflicts, at its core, is a collision of two realities. In that liminal space where intent fails to meet understanding, resentment takes root, fueled by pride, fear, wounded egos and unhealed wounds. I did something wrong. Unintentional, but still wrong. I thought I could fix it by reaching out; turns out the very act of understanding and naming emotions, identifying what caused them and the extent of the damage, can hurt people.

And I understand.

I hate that I understand.

But me understanding that, can't open a closed door, force a conversation when it's obvious they prefer indirect hostility. Moreover, to pretend the conflict began and ended with me alone would be unfair.

There's one line Paulo Coelho wrote in in his poem, Closing Cycles: one always has to know when a stage comes to an end. While I dislike leaving things fragmented and unresolved, I learned that we can't force clarity. Sometimes its better to just take a step back and leave things be.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters–whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that we have finished.

I came across this song, If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, and instantly knew it was made for me.

Sobrang amazing no? How life can be so fragile and beautiful, simple and profound, fast like an arrow and slow like eternity. It's amazing how we can feel things so deeply like it's all there is then one day, we'll wake up and realize that maybe it's just you. Maybe you're actually alone. Maybe it’s just the weight of everything unsaid, sitting quietly beside you as you weave words like a string of poetry.

It's oddly comforting, the futility of it all. But that's life's essence, is it not—to move through juxtapositions like it's both a curse and a miracle at once. Curse because why the fuck do we need to indulge in something so beautiful only for it to end so quickly? Miracle because why the fuck is it actually beautiful? And maybe that's why it sticks. We tend to immortalize what we know won't last: moments. feelings. names. in photographs. in journals. in memory.

It's really funny where life takes you—sometimes a walk, other times a sprint, often a rollercoaster ride—profound realizations, devastating updates, cutesy girly moments, a sinking feeling that, at the end of the day, I only have me and only me.

I'm feeling sooo restless right now. There are lots of things I need to finish but I can't deal with any of them until I get to the root of why I'm feeling this way.

I need to sit with my emotions and think things through but my tight schedule wouldn't allow me oh. my. god. I need to free up some headspace aaaaahhhhh.

It's really hard to get everything you want in life but I'm positive I'll have them all naman. Just slowly.

I've been thinking for a long time now, what is it that I actually want to get out of life? Who do I want to become? What do I want to do? The answer came not as one cohesive thought but as pieces of feelings and realizations that accumulated over countless years to become my life's compass and philosophy. I used to think that my end goal had to be something memorable and fancy—turns out it's something simple: to live a good life.

The peak of our humanity… we're gonna feel it in that fleeting interval between life and death. So in that moment where I know I'll be most vulnerable, I want to remember that I lived a good life—I was loved, I shared my love, did the things I love, and I was happy. It sounds extremely idealistic but for me, it's the very essence of living. It's not about achieving some grand, external validation; it's about the internal satisfaction of a life well-lived—a life measured not in accomplishments, but in the depth and quality of connection, joy, and love experienced; in the quiet knowing that, despite everything, it was all worthwhile.

I took a 3-day social media break to process the concept of trauma and healing as told through a YouTube podcast by the renowned physician and author, Dr. Gabor Maté.

He defines trauma not as the distressing situation we'd been in but rather the psychic wound we sustained as a result of it. He also shared that children are born with inherent expectations and that we can wound kids not just by mistreating them but by not meeting those expectations.

Lemme tell you a short story. Young draean's parents... they expressed love but in the wrong places. Where young draean should've been protected, she was neglected. Where she should've been given freedom to experience, she was deprived. Young draean, as a result, hyperfocused in that one aspect of her life. She got so lost in performing and forgot to actually live. Realizing that, she pulled back to isolate and went berserk inside. Her parents weren't necessarily wrong. They're actually great people who taught her those societal values she firmly believes in. The thing is, they don't share the same wavelength—their way of nurturing young draean isn't congruent with her nature. They also have their fair share of traumas and insecurities they've yet to identify and heal from.  It's kind of a generational curse. The problem lies not with them per se but the circumstances. So going back to Maté's definition of trauma. Di ba sabi niya na trauma is the psychic wound we sustained as a result of our experiences? He further explained that though what happened to us is irreversible, wounds heal. To sum it all up, what I got from my 3-day thinking session is another degree of forgiveness and acceptance. I mean I've made peace with everything for a while now but I realized that I can make peace with it more pala, if that makes sense. That's the beauty of healing. Things get better and better over time—I mean at least in my mind. I still need to actually show up so I can close this chapter with finality and I think I'll be able to do that before the year ends.

Here she comes—late as usual—in her black t-shirt, ripped jeans, messy bun, and a pile of books and papers. She nonchalantly tossed her things on one chair and plopped down the other, breathing out a long sigh of relief.

"Coffee?" I asked, offering the cup I bought from another store.

"Lomi. Mukha ba akong nagkakape teh?" She replied, looking at me with disappointment. "Saka cake." I guffawed. She's as feisty as ever.

We stared at the empty street, both wearing a smile—mine, amused; hers, weary.

"Will we ever be okay?" She asked, massaging her temples with Katinko. "Kasi pagod na talaga ako eh."

I smiled and enthusiastically told her how, years from now, she's gonna make amazing friends and reconnect with those she thought she lost; that she's gonna meet people who will show her how easy it is to just live; that she'll be able to fix connections she thought were irreparable; that, at long last, she's gonna realize what her soul is yearning for.

Ah, I didn't realize we've been crying. I reached inside my bag and offered her a bunch of tissues.

"Naks, may pa-tissue ka na ngayon ah. May pa-mirror pa."

"Siyempre naman, nagdadalaga eh." We laughed.

"You changed a bit." She said in between tears and I agreed.

"Just a bit. We're still the same girl who loves sunsets, poetry and rock music; The same girl who prefers lutong bahay and cries over silly cartoons like The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. Still the same girl—just older and a bit wiser."

She held her two thumbs up. "Gusto ko yan. Good job."

"Saka ano pala..." I held up my phone for her to see my wallpaper. "You're gonna have cats. Tapos matututo ka mag-ML."

She was so shocked she choked on her food. "PUSA??? DI ASO??? HAAAA??? ANO NAKAIN MO???" I laughed boisterously.

"Totoo. I'm not kidding."

"SAKA ML? DI BA PANG-JEJEMON YUN???" I laughed even harder.

"Ang judger mo ha. Wala eh, bored ako. Saka ayusin mo pananaw mo in life, kaloka ka."

She scowled at me, "And weird mo talaga."

"Ang weird mo kamo."

Denny said we should count from one to three whenever we need to make spontaneous decisions to slow down and rethink—we didn't. Which is probably why we found ourselves watching the sunrise and eating breakfast in Tagaytay right after MPL, still in our work clothes and backpack, half-asleep and completely unprepared. Lemme break it down.