Journal #1

4/3/2015

12:38 AM

This world is too big and this body is too small. I want a whole lot to swallow, but I only have one mouth. I want to taste everything, to devour and savour what I see in my wake, but I only have one life. And it's limited. And it's short. And I only have one choice, only one time.

I always tell people what I want to become, each different to the other. I have many dreams yet to be granted, but I do not know which I have always most wanted. I am intelligent, sometimes not. I appreciate the aesthetics of life, but I hate irrational thoughts. I might be a genius that is not watered correctly as a seed. I'm incomplete, and I grew to be me. Sometimes I regret it. sometimes I don't. Sometimes I wish I had been pushed to my limit so I can grow to be stronger, like a bald eagle that breaks its own beak and talons against a rock, and plucks its own feathers until they all grow back.

Stronger than before.

Muscles grow back stronger when they are ripped, after all. I become stronger because of pain.

That is the balance of life. That is the black to the white, and the white in the black, and vice versa. That is why there is pain when there is happiness. That is why there is evil when there is good.

I must not complain, must not be afraid. There is a reason to every pain I endure. There is danger lurking in every happiness I get, and peace in every war I go through. There is always an end to everything, and a new beginning when there is an end.

This is life, this is not heaven. This is not hell. This is the balance of both. I get a set, I can't always be happy and I can't always be sad.

I must not be afraid, I must take all the risks. Remember of the danger that lurks, and the happiness that waits. Remember that this world is balance, and that I will not always be happy. But I will not always be sad either.

It all depends on what I do, and what I want to become.

I want it all, but I have to remember. I only have one life, one go, one chance.

I have to be brave, and choose wisely.

Mulling Waters

Ever since he was a little boy, he’s loved the ocean even more than his own safety. Sometimes, he wonders if dying in the water would be more of a blessing to him rather than tragedy, since it always means that you either drown from an accident, or be drowned by someone else or yourself. But really, he would rather die in the ocean than have his death by sickness— withering away on a bed somewhere; or maybe elsewhere and not on a bed at all. That’s even more tragic, to know and count the days until you die, thinking of what ifs and lamenting the days you have left, wishing you could still walk around and have fun. Sudden death is swift, clean and crisp. Having no moment to even think of what ifs, or regret whatever you did to get you in that situation.

It is never a peaceful dying—his grandmother had once said—to die in the ocean, when he came back laughing from being swept away by the waves when surfing.

Maybe not for others, but for him it is. As long as it’s in the ocean, there is nothing to regret. It would be his choice to be in the water if he ever dies in it. He’d be the one to be taking his body there in the first place. If an accident happened, it would be his own choice to be in it, indirectly.

He knows this, knows of the consequence of dying when he gets into the water. Knows it whenever he’s on the surfboard, enjoying the wind in his hair and the salt in the corner of his eyes. Knows it whenever he’s deep under, hands carefully caressing colourful corals and grazing slimy fishes. Knows it whenever he spends hours floating on his back in the dancing waters while gazing at the sky.

“It’s always a sad tragedy, such an unfortunate incident that is, to ever die drowning,” his grandmother had said, tiny and wrinkled eyes gazing out the window, head shaking in a chastising manner. “Don’t ever take the ocean lightly, that place is not your friend, and will never be.”

He’d mulled back then, not knowing how to reply to such statement from an old and paranoid lady, whose husband had drowned in the ocean when they were only newlyweds. He knew then and he knows now, that the ocean truly isn’t a friend, but a home; home to fishes that feed the humans, and home to him that longs to be part of it.

For him, home isn’t a place for safety. It is a place that has a sense of fulfilment when you are inside, and longing once you are outside. It might not be safe, but it makes him feel contented. Safe is never a part of him. Never a part of his life, either.

His house now is the place for an alcoholic to sleep, and a dead brother to haunt anyway. It’s really not that big of a deal for him.

If he doesn’t die in his home in the ocean, it’s likely that he’ll die in his house instead anyway.