E L A I L I M

I was with my darling Tita Nenet.

It was a short but eye-opening holiday.

I feel like I owe this blog a lot of stories (mainly for posterity's sake) and yet I'm still far behind the things I want to share. Always torn between self-preservation and self-expression. It's 2017 and I still have not figured that part of myself quite yet. (Working on it.)

Back in the early days of social networking sites, I was an avid share-r and post-er of anything and everything I had in mind or found interesting while scrolling down my feed. No filter. I felt—quote-unquote—relatively safe, back then. Not everyone had immediate access to the internet, unlike now where news (false and fake ones included) travel at lightning speed. It could actually get pretty scary.

There was a season I picked fights, bullied maybe three or four people online out of jealousy and self-righteousness, and made my Twitter and Facebook profiles my online personal diary. I was an adolescent/young adult struggling with personal issues—insecurities, depression, and turbulent feelings—just wanting to be heard and seen. Believe me—you didn't want to be friends with me on Facebook back then.

I don't know what I was trying to prove. I just could not stop myself. Then.

Looking back, I could only cringe. I learned things the hard way, but thank goodness that phase is over and I'm considerably mature now.

When you get over and recover from that stage, you couldn't help but also develop a lingering fear of over-sharing.

So that's where the tug-o-war of self-preservation and self-expression began for me.

After all that cringing thinking about my yesteryears, I also grew a tendency to keep things evergreen. I feel too old to project a well-curated life, but I've become very conscious about what I put out there. Would I want to read this a week/month/year/decade from now? If it sounds more than 50% silly, then there's a high chance I would delete it.

There are far worse problems around the world, but it's an emotional pain in the ass for someone who went through a shameful history.

But I've started to heal and I've started to forgive myself, so here's to whatever! I know better now and I somehow have a grasp of my limits, and I may struggle but this shouldn't stop me from writing (which has always been my choice of expression).

Here's to hoping that I rise above and beyond my doubts.