Sleep all...sleep all day!!!

Man, I really feel sick today...and I don't feel like working! I've had this weird feeling since last night when I got home. Fria, I read on your blog gucci bags that you were also feeling under the weather the previous week. I just realized that blog entries could be virtually contagious! (sneeze 2x)

Oh well, (^sabi ko nga 'yoko mag work eh, kaya) I was browsing through my email archive, when I accidentally found this write-up. I can't remember how I got it and who wrote it, but it's one nice read (just don't mind the absence of line breaks and indentions). Suddenly, I start to question again. Oh, I hate this feeling!!! I wanna go home now.

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When I first found myself alone again, I thought that the biggest problem I had was one of solitude. It was tough. True, I was alone in a big city but what got to me was how quiet everything was when I got home. It was just me in a big apartment and I had to get used to the idea that no one else was coming. See, thing about Americans is that you can't bother them outside of work. They like their privacy and you have to respect that. Sure, I would call up a few people here and there but once that conversation was done, there I was again, sitting in my apartment, in silence. Eventually though, I got over that. I have always been a withdrawn individual and the US is full of things to keep you company when you're alone. TV, Internet, books, etc. kept me comfortable with myself. When I moved back to the Philippines, I thought I was all set. Plenty of friends to call at a moment's notice who don't mind the opportunity to socialize. But lately I've realized that the problem with being alone is not so much the question of solitude, it is, and I've struggled to find a better word, the question of Relevance. I think people basically pair off because you just have to have that someone with whom you're relevant. That someone who needs you and you need them, someone with whom you truly share your life. Parents don't count because you've always been relevant to each other and you are aware that you have to search for more than that. Friends don't really count either because you still have your own separate lives. It's different being across someone to whom you truly matter and they matter to you as well. A poet once said that happy couples are all the same, they're quiet. It's unhappy people that make stories. It's true. When you're not happy, you do all these stupid things. You fight your parents or do drugs, you sleep around with young women, you're basically unsettled. When you're a happy couple, you just sort of disappear into the ambient happiness. The world doesn't hear from the both of you anymore as the world has lost its relevance to you as you have placed it in someone else. Ever notice how happy couples have their own world? Sure, they'll come out and visit you from time to time but never for very long, and even if there's a bunch of you sitting with them, it's everyone else who seems displaced. I guess that for me is a sign of having found Relevance. You're so happy you disappear. I see some couples in the middle of wonderful passionate relationships but, to me, it's not quite there yet for the simple reason that they're just too noisy. They disturb the universe with their grand show of romance more than they assimilate into it. So that there is for me the strangest emotion I wrestle with today. I can spend the entire night out having fun with my friends, but ultimately, I come home and it's all sort of hollow and empty. I come home and there's no Relevance, I'm not relevant. I know people say you should be a complete person by yourself, not dependent on someone else, but Relevance is not about that. To desire to be Relevant does not make you an incomplete being. But I don't really worry about it, I don't. As is, in my life, I can find company, I can find romance, I can find meaning. When you think about that, those are actually all the ingredients you need for a great life, regardless of whether or not you find someone permanent. And I have that dumb faith that I'll find it again someday. Still though, I often wish I never knew what Relevance was like. It's much easier when you don't know what you're missing.