MY LIFE SO FAR: A HOLLOW EGG AND A WIDE-OPENED PANDORA’S BOX

Where do I begin? This has got to be the most thought-provoking night I have ever had. A couple of hours ago, I had dinner in a local restaurant and the waiter asked me the most pondering question I had ever heard in my entire stay here in Singapore, let alone my entire measly life: “Sir, what do you want?” Believe me, it wasn’t that easy to answer (me being the insane nerd that I am who overanalyzes everything).

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So where do I begin? Let me see. In April 2000, I was hired by the local news paper I did my sophomore internship at, as desk editor and part-time journalist. I was paid a little over PHP3000, and I stayed there for around two months and three weeks, until Lyceum called up June 11th, a Saturday, asking me to do a teaching demo the following Monday. I obliged, went to the university, did the demo at 10:30am, had an interview at around 12:30pm, and started teaching an hour later. I know this is starting to sound nostalgic (because I’ve already talked about this in previous blogs, but trust me, you got to hear this), but now, using the waiter’s dumbfounding question, I think the feeling isn’t as nostalgic as it would be.

A little over a year after I started teaching General English courses, I was recruited by the Mass Communication department to join the team, since they’ve been hearing about a guy who was insanely noisy in Remedial English classes. On my first semester of teaching mass communications, I was able to not just teach communication courses, I also had to audacity to make a tall, stocky guy cry in class because I assumed he was patronizing me in class. I mean, that is insanely overboard, even for me.

Seven years and a half later, after becoming almost everything in the department – teacher, radio assistant, lab coordinator, radio manager – I was asked to step down, because there was a rule in the school that positions had to be rotated. Honestly, I wasn’t too keen with that, and so I left, telling people the work was starting to feel too stressful, when well in fact, I now believe it was just pure ego-tripping. And I have to owe it to myself to be honest and tell myself that I was just being a freakin’ bitch, toying with the ego-building idea that they were making a mistake replacing me, and that things would fuck up once I left and all that crap. I was being so narcissistic, even though I was harping that my role was to develop independence among my students; well in fact, I was brooding the other way around.

After I left Lyceum, I went to FAI, thinking that if I got the position, I could shove it up Lyceum’s ass that they made the mistake of letting me go, when they could have run after me (shallow, right?). And so I excelled at FAI, handling project after project, effortlessly in the eyes of many. But you know what, I didn’t excel that much. I just handled it better than some people, without them knowing I was blowing my brains off thinking about everything that was happening. And you know what, after spending five semesters there, culminating into me getting out (more like being asked to leave), I feel like I really didn’t do anything. I just bunched up a couple of activities, put icing on top, and presented it to them.
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Going back to the question then, I am starting to feel like I wasted a lot of time teaching. I mean it was great helping some people find their place in the world, but amidst all the scurrying, yelling, teaching, lecturing, I lost myself. I guess I never got to ask myself why I wanted to teach in the first place. A couple of things: maybe because it did, back then, offer better remuneration; maybe I needed an escape from the ruckus of the newsroom; maybe I felt that it was a way for me to get out of the mundane life that I had not expected (I hounded for the news, wrote the article, edited the layout and did errands for the paper, almost every day). Everything has been so clouded, I don’t even know why I started teaching in the first place.

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I feel I have to own the honesty, to myself at least. So here goes. It’s in snippets, so bear with me.

I hated my parents for pressuring me to get into the top ten in grade school and high school. They didn’t directly say it, but every freakin’ time a friend came along, they would build me up, saying “Oh he started reading when he was two” or “Oh, he was a consistent honor” or when I was in college “Oh he’s going to graduate with honors.” Everything was about that – that piece of paper that said I WAS FUCKING GREAT AT EVERYTHING. And you know what, I actually started believing I was.

Sad part is, I’m not. I actually do sloppy work (which is why I re-edit so many times). I can be such a snob to work with. I can be very demanding (not a perfectionist, just demanding). I can be such a drama queen and a prima donna too. All that, just because I was made to believe that I could do everything. But in all honesty, to myself, what am I good at? I know I can write, I speak well, I have tons of useless trivia stocked in my brain, but what am I really good at?

A friend of mine told me, how could you inspire people if you can’t even identify what drives you to inspire them in the first place. I have so many questions about myself, and why I ran away from everything back home, thinking I could make a fresh start here, and forget that everything in the past 10 years of me teaching ever happened. You heard that right, err, read. I ran away from everything. The minute I was given the chance. I couldn’t own up to it, so I ran away, thinking that after I ran off, it would all just die a natural death. I guess it will (but it hasn’t) eventually, but what did I get from it? Nothing. Just more fibs to cover-up for the nothingness that I have in here (my heart).

So what am I? An empty shell, I guess. An egg that when you crack open, has no yolk, no albumen. It’s just the freakin’ shell. After 10 years of working, what have I amassed for myself? Phones, bags, shoes, shirts, pants? What have I become? A father, a husband, a brother-in-law? What else is there then? I am nothing, but a reflection of all the fibs I made myself and other people believe that I am, pushing them to put me on a pedestal I do not deserve to be on. Why? Because I amount to nothing. Fuck, I don’t even know if what I do is what I want to do. How then can I be productive? I’ve been making myself believe this is what I need to do, this is what I’m good at, but am I really that good, or have I just deluded everyone (as I’ve deluded myself) to believe that I am?
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So where am I now? Not anywhere near an answer. My mind is so clouded I overanalyze a situation, and make it far worse that what it really is. Sick part about it is, someone whom I barely knew had the audacity, and the wit, to actually slam it to my face. It’s true. I think too much. And that’s why I am in a heap of shit right now (but that’s the easier way out, right? To use the back door, and run away from everything? That’s what I did. I ran away from everything, and look where it got me. I’m even more confused than when I started LOL).

When you look at it, how do I think of myself right now? Deluded, hallucinated, dumbass (someone just blurted that out to me at YM), confused, scared (hell, yeah!), impure, unsure (I can’t think of any other adjective – there you go, the brain’s thinking too much again). I’ve been so used to running away from stuff that’s been happening – past relationships, rumors, work, school pressure, home – that I’ve lost myself in the woods somewhere, and couldn’t find where Carlo went. It’s a full moon, and the werewolf is scouring the forest for a midnight snack. Carlo might be the entrée for tonight. And believe me, that might not be too far-fetched.

I don’t know where I should go now, then. But I think the least that I could do is re-strategize and clear my thoughts for a while. When I was in high school and in college, I would take long walks at night, thinking of solutions for problems I faced daily. Ten, 15 years after, and still walking, I believe, I have never really gone anywhere. Nor have I found a solution to all of the fuss that’s been going on in my life. Nope. Not at all. It’s just one fib after the other, building that hollow egg shell, and opening up my Pandora’s Box that has so little in it on the surface, but so much that wants to burst out on the innards.

Silly me, though, thinking that writing it down would make it easier for me. But it hasn’t, and it won’t. Lies do bind you up, but the truth sets you free. But I am so afraid of the truth that it gives me goose bumps. It would take time before I own up to the truth and be honest (first to myself, so it emanates to others), but I would like to do the first move now to help me redirect myself and help me create a better goal (a reason for being) in Singapore.

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I am a schmuck. I need help. I need guidance. I am an idiot. I put on a believable face. I have no idea what to do sometimes. I over-think. I over-analyze. I am sick and tired of people breathing on my neck. I have so much angst. I feel I am worthless. I have little self-esteem but hide it, so people won’t notice. I still have stage fright. I put on this cloak of perfection to make other people feel comfortable that they’re in good hands. I have no idea what I’m doing writing all of this down. I need a drive to make me work. I need a reason why all of this bullshit is happening to me. I know most of the shit that’s happening to me is my fault, but I’m not man enough to own to it. I like blaming people because it makes it “look’ like things are doing okay but they’re not. I am just a fucking moron who thinks he can do anything, but actually is a master of nothing.

There. I don’t know if I’m still here. Hey.