Cleaning Up The Closet

i want to remember this night, how i stayed up not doing anything, just watching the cursor blink for one and a half hours thinking of a google or two of sentimental ideas swimming back and forth in my brain.

i want to remember how nice this night has been, first working on the LeAP! website at hono'o-chan's office and then afterwards being with her and her fire bunny, watching them make lezzie goo-goo talk at the streets of makati while walking to dinner.

i want to remember how bug called me up, hearing the blinking neon colors in his voice, excitedly telling me he will be taking the job warner is offering him.

i want to remember how expensive food in dulcinea is, and also remember how i didn't mind because i was with good company, and besides, it has been such a long time since hono'o-chan and i got to walk together, albeit only for a few minutes.

i want to remember the feeling i had upon getting home, how my life has become so much different in a heartbeat. so very, very different.

even my room was different when i entered it and switched on the lights. the usual useless stacks of papers (syllabii, quizzes, finals, scratch papers, etc.) are still on the floor and on the tables and some are even still on the bed, yeah they still are, but looking at them now, it seemed that my life back then is now galaxies away. the things i have written, my old sketchbooks, the old and moldy projects scattered around... i feel all of the experiences i have had with them came full circle tonight when i put my bag down and sat on the edge of the bed.

"move on, pare," a friend used to say a lot. i never really understood that before. i mean, i thought i did. i thought that to move on, you just upped and left. leave everything behind, never look back. la bel homme sans regrets.

suffice it to say i was wrong. i never really got to move on then. i would hear a song, or i would read a poem, and i was back, nursing the wounds and scabs i've left behind. i could never have left them completely. where could i have moved on to? i had nothing to do and nowhere to go. they were all i had. they were all i was. they were me.

and now, remembering how nice this night has been, and realizing how different my life has become in a heartbeat, now i know i really have to move on. and i won't just up and leave this time. it's too anti-climactic, too pointless if i do. moving on this time needs a bit more of a care. (memories, like cookies, need love after all. heh.) this time i'm going to gather the papers together, sort them carefully, segregate them in piles and provide a plastic bag for each pile, put them neatly in a big black plastic bag, and tie it up nice and tight.

for each person who has been a major part of my life then, and who i know would have a slim possibility of being with me in the future, i give a knot. i'll remember the people i haven't seen for a long time (highschool people like cox and elmer and jonathan, and pex people like aajao and xochi and angelo), and the people i haven't seen at all (like mikey). the people i know i will miss (like allan and lenard and zsa zsa zaturnnah), and the people i will forget (like whatsisname). i'll remember the people i have loved and the people i still do. and i will tie one knot for each.

and afterwards, i would sit back and look at the cleaning i've done. my room is immaculate. fresh blood is pumping in the four chambers of my heart every second. a new blank thought forms itself in my brain even faster.

should i throw the big black plastic bag with elaborate knots outside of the house? or should i leave everything neatly placed in a corner in my room? i lie down, and with eyes caked with sleepiness, i look at it...

(yawn)

... i haven't decided yet...