I'm probably 9 or 10 and I'm looking for my notebook -the one I've saved for drawing all my crazy characters and superhero plans and gadgets. I couldn't find it until Pabing said she had it and returned it to me not knowing it was used by anyone anymore (there are many discarded half used notebooks lying around the house). I was going to start drawing only to find out as I opened up the pages that she had drawn on several pages some designs for women's clothing. I got so angry and fumed that my notebook was now ruined and tried to express my displeasure by making weird half tantrum type sounds and gestures. I think for a time I even held a grudge, but eventually found a new notebook.

I've recently uncovered that notebook and scanned the pages of her drawings and realized how stupid I was. Looking back now, I wish I realized that it was just a notebook and that I could have gotten another a thousand times better than that one notebook easily. I wish I could have seen past my own selfishness and could have been nicer to her that time.

She didn't particularly get treated well around the house. She was often called slow, which was only true because she was in a house of hurried control freaks. She had served our house for a long time and was already near her fifties if I'm not mistaken though I could not ever remember her having any friends or family visit. Life is tough. Her life must have been tougher. Although I think I was closest to her because we would share stories and jokes, not a common thing with everyone else in the house, I still regret that one incident greatly. Maybe, despite her time passing by, she still dreamed to design clothes and that it was her escape and little joy. And there I was a stupid kid not seeing that.

Had I seen past my own self, I would have given her a thousand notebooks. I would have talked to her and listened a little more seriously when she confided in me that she was afraid she was dying. She would pass away two weeks later from a cancer no one knew she had and I wasn't even there. I tear up at the thought of how lonely she must have been.

These memories remind me why I've tried to be a nicer person in the past. I remember now the more important lessons I need to remember.

....

"Were we fully to understand the reasons for other people's behavior, it would all make sense." -Sigmund Freud

The Affliction

"Once you believe in the reality of God

you may come more realistically to

recognize the limits of human love.

As great a thing as human love is, it

is not perfect. Like any other inherently

good thing - work, education, physical

beauty, good health - each and every

form of human love can become an

object of idolatry if it is pursued as

an ultimate thing. The danger of basing

your whole sense of self-worth on a

person (or one wealth or career or

reputation, or the cultivation of a

particular talent) is that all people,

and all worldly things, are flawed and

transient. Inevitably, you will feel let

down, disappointed, disillusioned-

perhaps utterly crushed. This happened

to me at around the age of 40, and it is

an affliction which I continue to fight

against. Only God is ultimate and

perfect."

-from Roy Williams, God Actually.

It's a hard lesson to learn. It is something I have been struggling with for a long time though I have been more conscious of it for the past few years. It has led me through bouts of depression and withdrawal, and quite possibly my current persona full of cynicism and a sarcastic view of life and people.

It is not easy to wake up one day and find out you are your own worst enemy. It is not easy to depend on things you cannot see when all around you is a failing experiment. I cannot love things because I am not perfect. I cannot love things because they are not perfect. I cannot love because I am not just filled with love but a whole lot of other junk I'd rather not speak of.

If I have to come to terms with my own limitations, I would have to accept the possibility, or some would even say the certainty, that tomorrow I would make more mistakes. Tomorrow I would be in need of forgiveness I might not want to ask or that anyone might care to give me (take note that I speak of only a worldly scope). This bothers me a great deal. Knowing that nothing worldly can satisfy me bothers me a great deal. Knowing I am still a worldly person bothers me a great deal. What bothers me the most is if I can never be anything more than worldly -finite, flawed and perpetually unsatisfied.

I feel guilty having thoughts of such despair, much more to talk about them though to most they may seem so abstract. But they are there, they are strong, and more importantly they are true. I do not like this feeling of weakness and even more the awareness of it. In that respect, I might consider the beasts of the land luckier than we are.

We have invented our comedies and dramas, our technologies for amusement and adventure, and indulged in our social constructs, habits and private addictions, all to pass the time and make sense of it. The great tragedy of humanity is that we know too much, and what we know most of all is that we can't do a thing about it.

....

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."

-Peter Ustinov

Quiet Streets

The crazy woman on the street corner isn't there anymore. She's been gone for a couple of months now. She was an odd one- even for a mental case. Most of her socially deviant behavior was that she would be arguing with some imaginary people at the top of her lungs, a habit that seems to trigger itself from 10 in the evening to 3 in the morning. But that was mostly it. She never attacked anyone physically or verbally, but people still steered clear of her. Oddly enough, she was quite productive in the day, offering to sweep the streets and the front areas of the restaurants and establishments near her sleeping territory. She seemed to be able to get laundry done from somewhere coz she always had clean black socks which I imagine helped keep her warm at nights. Maybe there were people who cared enough to supply some things to her, just not a roof on her head. Not that I'm judging.

Still, I wonder what happened to her. Did she go somewhere else? Did something happen? Is she gone and the now quiet street and its inhabitants none the wiser?

Sometimes I wonder if crazy people aren't that crazy. Sometimes I wonder if everyone's crazy. Sometimes I wonder that if we disappear, would the streets be a little more quiet? Mostly I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

....

"When I have a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then I go out and paint the stars."

- Vincent Van Gogh