Here's To The New Year. Another Stab at Normalcy.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

xOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOxOx

Ring in the New Year. Welcome the year 2008. Here's a new opportunity to strike it rich, make it big, do it right, or just plain live. Sigh. Me? Just another year to screw things up, blunder some more, commit mistakes that can never be made up, and plainly get through life unscathed. Just this once, before it strikes twelve, I wish for time to stop, stand still, freeze. Before I take another stab at normalcy this new year, just give me a breather. Please.

So let's pretend time does stop. What the heck am I supposed to do with that much time in my hands?

First, I wanna get a chance to just look around, see the things that surround me, and appreciate them for what they're worth. They say the things that surround you, the environment that you're in, makes you who you are, shapes and molds you. Well, I'm kinda in a rut right now, so I wanna take a good look around to see what's causing it, and maybe tweak it a bit here and there to make things better. Really, I wanna know where my feeling pathetic, laziness, and - what's that word ulit, Nika? You know, the one I got from you, synonymous with pathetic. (The word laxative keeps popping on my mind. What's with that?) - is coming from. I wonder what's causing me to be quite apathetic and without a care (despite knowing that I am like that in the first place, but it pays to wonder once in a while), or whether or not that's caused by my environment at all, or maybe it a part of me already, like a habit or something.

Next thing I'd do is lie in my bed - and sleep. Just sleep. For once in seventeen years, I just wanna sleep without having to worry what time I have to wake up, or whether I have to wake up at all (OK, so I'm exaggerating a bit. So I haven't been worrying that much ever since I was born. But for the sake of blogging, let's just say seventeen years and leave it at that.) Time has stopped, so why worry? I'll just sleep and make bawi for all the sleepless nights I've had (whether deliberately or done for the sake of cramming) ever since God knows when.

And then when I wake up, I'll get a pen and a piece of paper and just write. About anything I wanna write about. My hopes, my wishes, my fears, my wants, my grades for the first semester (which sucked, by the way - a lousy 2.2), and maybe a couple of doodles here and there. Writing is a good form of therapy. And I really need to go through some kind of therapy if I ever want to start the new year right. Maybe a piece of paper won't suffice, but for the sake of the trees that are slowly diminishing and the mountains that are steadily going bald (what?), I'll make it fit. It's gonna be hard, but it'll fit. And besides, you can only write so much on a piece of paper.

So, three things down. Time left? Plenty. No worries. So what else, what else, what else? Maybe take a walk. OK, let's pretend that with the opportunity of time stopping, I was given the ability to fly, or to teleport, or will myself to a different place (hey, I'm writing the blog here. Anything's possible when I'm doing the blogging.) I'd go to the places that I've once visited (like my mother's hometown. We only got to visit it once, and that was when the only memory of traveling my brain could store was of the people who kept pinching my chubby cheeks.), the places I've only dreamed of going to (like Greece. Oh God, historical places appeal to me very much. But if I had to limit myself locally, maybe Kiotoy. It's the barangay that's farthest from our city center, and the smallest, too. I never in my wildest dreams dared to go there. Not that I'm planning to. It's literally far from civilization.), and the places I know I can never, ever, even in the most unlikeliest (I'm still looking this word up in the dictionary) of chances, visit (like Pluto. I've always had this sort of fascination for Pluto. Pity they took it of the planets' list.)

Then, when I come back from my world (or universal. Who knows?) tour, the next thing I'll do is touch everyone. Hey, dirty-minded. I don't mean touch touch, like the green kind of touch. I mean touch everyone, like hug them real tight, squeeze their hands, caress their cheeks (in a friendly way. Kaw talaga.), and maybe tickle a couple of people (he he). And by everybody, I mean everybody - all the people who have made a mark in my life, from my family (even the nth removed cousin), my friends (from the then-babies I was with in the hospital's nursery up to the people who had the misfortune of meeting me - just kidding guys), even the little people with whom I've had small talk with, smiled at for a second, met eye to eye while crossing the street. I'd give each and every one a very tight squeeze, and whisper "Happy New Year" in their ears. Even my enemies - the people I'd done wrong and had wronged me. I'd say sorry to them. It doesn't matter whether they get to hear it or not. Just getting it off my chest is enough. (Oh, since time is on a stand-still, everyone's on a stand-still, too. Kinda like when the pause/freeze button's pushed. Yeah, something like that.)

And after all that hugging is done, I'll go to a corner - any corner - and pray. Pray like I've never prayed before. I won't ask for anything. I'll just say thank you, and then silence. Pure silence. I'll wait for His voice. And when I hear Him, His voice, I'll smile. Finally, I get to hear His voice. Finally.

And when I come to my silent reverie, I'll gaze at my watch. And then I'll see the second hand move. Time is of the essence again.

Oh, well. So much for normalcy. As if any of it's gonna happen. Yeah right.

Just in time. Happy New Year.