Coraline Calling

I wanted to catch the stop-motion animated film Coraline on the big screen when it was shown, but I missed it due to my work schedule. A year later I was able to watch it on cable.

As I expected, Coraline's story somehow reflects my own sensibilities:
- We both feel we belong some place else.
- People always get our names wrong the first time.
- We are both determined -- the silent kind of determination.
- We both yearn for beautiful things.
- We also know when to retreat from a sordid situation.
- She's got blue hair. I love the color blue.

Coraline reminds me of an old Alice In Wonderland movie that I got to see as a kid. Perhaps, Coraline just has an extra morbidity that keeps it more off-center. Or maybe it's the ghostly apparition in the movie that makes it more appealing to me.

Day Two: Unraveling The Lifescope

Other people's opinions of me matter to me. In my formative years, I clung to them like a dog in heat would cling to someone's leg. I only became assertive after finding my voice in entities like a religious group, a few good friends and a series of boyfriends who were genuinely after my welfare.

I also had my share of encounters with rabid people along the way, but they only managed to influence my life to a certain point. Putting deadlines on everything including wallowing in misery was good for me. The longest I experienced were being hung up on my first love (1 full year) and being estranged from my high school best friend (3 years).

My life is a bit stable now because I'm confident with the decisions I make. I only started becoming assertive after realizing that people come and go in our lives.

People's opinions of me still matter to me sometimes. I've learned to examine them at face value and from points where their motivations are revealed.

For example are the following perceptions:

1) "You're not the type who will get married. I don't see you going there, bes." -- my (bisexual) best friend

2) "You are so suplado. Mana ka sa mommy mong suplada. Eventually you have to get married. At least have one kid." -- a relative

At the end of each day, I get to rest this head of mine on the pillow that I find comfortable. Everyone I encounter and relate with does influence the direction of my life, but I am ultimately the one steering this. After all, God gave me the free will to choose from this lifetime of options.

Day One of Unraveling

I just came from decades (yes, more than 20 years) of knowing what I want and yet not being able to celebrate it. I finally enjoyed the things I wanted after years of mulling over them with the following questions:
1) Does society tolerate my sexual preference?
2) Will my straight friends accept me?

When every child was thinking how simple life was, I was being tortured with thoughts of how complex mine would be if I pursued my alternative life. I would later find out that any which way I went, mine was complex.

I enjoyed having relationships with guys like me, but not in broad daylight. Somehow, all the wonderful connections I had with such people were all cast under a shadow of escape. I felt and I still feel that my whole life is like one cold drizzly day. Everything's nonchalant.

The worse part of having such a reclusive persona is the reality that my fantasies are as pedestrian as the straight person's fantasies.