The One About *Someone*

In a world of complexities and complications, suffering and challenges, and hardships and pain, we tend to want to create order for ourselves and thrust ourselves drastically into that world of "reality" to focus on what is "important" and not to dwell on things that we deem "unimportant". We have all had those moments where we are probably crying or very angry and we decide right then and there that it is enough of that kind of pain, that you have to create a new plan in order to live your life the way you wanted and in order for there to be happiness. Sometimes, and I know we've all said this at some point in our lives, we say things like: "its time to stop dreaming", "I don't want to hope anymore", "i shouldn't expect anything", and "I don't want to wish because it's not going to come true anyway". You can lie to me or not, if you are silently or mentally nodding or shaking you're head, we all go through something like this. Of course it hurts to be turned down, to be deprived of something that makes you happy, or to find out that you didn't get what you want. Most of us want to live in a world where we are in complete control of our lives or, at least, most of it because it is, after all, OUR lives. Because of this want to control something you previously couldn't, we shun ourselves and isolate ourselves in reality and from that world of wishes, dreams and fantasies.

I have those wake up calls every now and then, usually about the same thing. I usually get angry or sad, just one of the two, and tell myself I'm going to pick myself up and stop waiting for things to happen to me. I search endlessly for distractions that can allow me to lock up all my daydreaming and "ridiculous fantasies" so I can concentrate on "things that matter".

I was in the middle of my so-called distraction, when I was told to stop hiding from fantasies, quite the opposite of what I had really intended. Their names are Ivan and Elizabeth.

This is how it happened. I had just come from a tiring day at school and I decided to meet my dad and my brother in Ayala. They were at a Youngblood book launch, something I wanted to go to, so I went to them in Powerbooks Live in Greenbelt 4 (its a nice place, btw). It was during the travel that I decided to take the opportunity to buy a new book. I was on this "regimen", if you will, of starting a new book collection. It was to help me recover from a slump that I had been in for the past two weeks--to keep myself from drifting and wandering into my thoughts, to help me keep my head screwed on and focused. I had become way too distracted for my own good. It was something that had not happened for the past 3 years that I have known a certain someone. I needed control over his invasion of my thoughts. The last thing I needed was to be thinking of him day in and day out when I knew he hardly thought of me, if at all. I didn't want to fall into another loop of disappointment and lost cause. I wanted what I had back then, contentment, in whatever it is that we had. I sometimes wondered if putting my foot forward was the right thing to do. In a complicated dance of I Don't Know, I had been the first one to ask him to dance and I was still watching him look at me, I was still waiting for an answer. And waiting is, by far, my least favorite.

Back to the story.

So, like a cook, waiting for his dish to finish cooking, I decided to read a book. Jayme and Kate might not think its the best thing to do, since maybe a chef always needs to keep an eye on his/her cooking, but its what I did. At least I didn't walk away from it. I like food, if you get what I mean.

Books have worked for me in the past, providing me with worlds and places I can only ever (there's that word again) dream about. Like going into its pages can let me live a life other than my own for a while. After all, they're fictionary characters, I don't think they'd mind me living in their shoes...even just for a few days. So, that day, I decided to look for a new book, a new place, a new life to borrow for a weekend. Books are, by far, my favorite. It took me a while, I almost thought I was going to lose hope. My brother was already at the counter paying for something he wanted to buy (for a change, NOT Yu-gi-oh), and I still had no book in my hands. I was about to end my search. I was merely gliding my eyes over the book shelves and display stands. And that was when I spotted Elizabeth.

Now, I don't know, something about her clicked and I was just drawn to her. Haha, laugh all you want, Jean. Yeah, I sound so lesbo. She was hiding almost at the very corner of the store and something about her called me to her. She was the first to say hi. It was only a few seconds, but we immediately became friends. The next day, we talked again and she began to tell me about her life; her joys, dreams, hopes and wishes as a child and how they were all crushed, how she tried, through control, to fix it. She told me she was a control freak and that she didn't need life to complicate things that she has tried, for so long, to simplify. She didn't want to let Life laugh at her like when she was a child, a disappointed look on her face every time another dream was squished. Then, she told me about Ivan, the guy who inevitably helped her, through little things, to get her to believe again--and with every sadness that came her way, to turn it into something positive. Of course, this is the condensed version of what she told me. Her actually story took two days, with breaks in between. I'd tell you more about her story, but each little detail is crucial and wouldn't have the same effect unless she herself told you. You know how it is, the gist of the story changes with every retelling. But, you know, it wasn't just her I learned from. It was from Ivan too. Sure, I probably didn't see him, but because of Elizabeth and her story, I came to know him too. He was a positive person who had an innocence about him that you, as an adult, would hate because he is technically an adult too. You'd be annoyed at how "caught up" he was in fantasies and childishness that it would drive you crazy. You'd hate the way he talks about simple things and yet it making sense in a much larger, more complicated scale. And you'd probably hate him leaving. (though, Ivan is, by far, my favorite) Elizabeth knew though, that he didn't have a choice. You'd know that if she told it to you. The point is, she just told me a story, a story that didn't really have a purpose when she was telling it to be. She didn't know what *I* was going through, or what I was experiencing. She just told be what happened to *her*. And yet...

well, you get the picture.

It was a wake-up call within a wake-up call. Serendipity, you can call it. Now I have a whole new plan, but just in case, I'll just keep it to myself.

I haven't talked to Elizabeth or might not ever see Ivan since I last spoke with her, and they might never know what kind of influence they both had on me, but they told me, through their story, that it isn't bad to believe. In fact, it is very good to hope and dream and wish and stay and wait...what else I realized.. well, I guess that's just for me to know.

If you want to borrow Elizabeth and Ivan's story, just ask me. I've already borrowed their lives, and I'm sure its someone else's turn to learn from them. Their story is entitled "If You Could See Me Now" by Cecilia Ahern, the book, hiding in the corner, that called me that day.

And let me tell you, of all the books I've read in the last few years (with the exemption of Harry Potter of course) this is, *by far*, my favorite.