inedible passions. tasty little braindump.

The realization that we all have to keep moving forward with our lives leaves a dull ache in my belly. The past seems so safe and guileless, no thanks to the tricky way memories work, but yesterday is only the today that has passed; wallowing on past memories without working will leave you hungry soon enough.

And to take up full responsibility for one’s life, I find that to be an exhausting load to haul on my back wherever I go: not spending my entire paycheque on clothes, resisting the temptation to eat out all the time, spending my days off doing the laundry and housework instead of socialising. Call it spoiled, but I do miss the luxury of having maids and a driver. At the same time, I feel like I would have never truly grown as a self-sufficient individual had I not known how to take care of myself in the most basic way possible: food-shelter-clothing.

I know that I should keep in touch with my friends overseas much more frequently, but I find that I’m so tired from a day’s work, or stressed from the prospect of starting a new day, that I’d rather escape into my own world of an absorbing book and/or iPod music so that I’d conserve my energy. When I was living the pampered life in Manila, I had never conceved of being too tired from a “full-time job” to socialise, as we socialised almost all the time in “cosmopolitan” Manila (more cosmopolitan than vancity ever will be). But living in the most expensive city in North America made me realise how vulnerable one can be if you didn’t make enough money to pay your rent and eat decently; you can see it as you commute to work: panhandlers that are able in body, but not in mind. To see how easily one can end up on the streets here, to see it on a daily basis through a bus commute, is one of the driving reasons why I work almost all the time and end up as a solitude seeking introvert from being exposed to too many strangers in one day.

Call me a peon, not a member of the bourgeoisie, but I gotta admit that life is much simpler being in the throngs of the blue-collared class: I do my job, and my job stays at my workplace. I don’t have to bring it home, and I can enjoy the pleasures of food and the little pleasures my little paycheque affords me: books, eating sushi once a week (okay, twice a week), cool finds at the thrift shop, pirated tv shows (free!), sleep (free!), sex (free!), wonderful basal things.

Although sometimes walking forward is a really trying task for me. If you don’t hear from me as often as you’d like, it’s because I’m saving face. My world had been turned upside down since I’ve moved here, and sometimes pride is the only thing left of me that I know I could still cling to.