EUNOIA

First things first, I feel like this space lacks a number of things, one of them being photos of my friends and other people around me. So I'm going to do that right now. Also, I haven't posted anything personal in here - by that, I mean writing down something that I have preserved as just a thought. I noticed that my recent entries have been about my travels and those aren't really what I mean by "personal".

To give you a technical update about my life, my blockmates and I went on a three-day retreat at Tagaytay. Back in high school, our retreats were mostly about spiritually enlightening ourselves, connecting with the God that we know and with each other. It was the same for this year's retreat, only, less with the enlightening part and more with the knowing about each individual part . . . at least, that's what it was for me.

I won't go into specifics about this one but the gist of it is that, on our first night, we all had to share something about ourselves according to the life graph that we were required to make. A life graph is basically a chart indicating which age your were happiest and which you were saddest.

This activity literally made us open ourselves to everyone we know, not forcefully though. It seemed like the perfect time to broadcast all of the heavy burden we've been carrying around for so long and I've had my fair share of that.

The thing about sadness, though, is that it's an inevitable feeling; one can't help feeling upset, even if it's about the little things like having a messy desk or running out of pen ink. But if there's one thing that I learned after watching Inside Out (the only Disney film that made me cry in the theaters)*, it's that we should never suppress our emotions.

When I was 17, I received an anonymous message via ask.fm which said such horrible things about me, ones that I prefer not to enumerate here. Just believe me when I say that I was bullied for the things that I wasn't sure I should have been guilty of. I didn't know why he (OR SHE) would randomly send me hate when I knew that I didn't do anything wrong. I felt terrible (who wouldn't be?) and on the night that I received that message, I couldn't sleep. I became depressed a few days after that. I'm not throwing that word out there just so I can use it ignorantly - I truly did feel horrible, physically and emotionally, and I started to hate myself more than I already have. 

I shared that story among my peers and, of course, I cried because I have never told anyone about it with without telling the other things that still internally hurt me.

After telling that incident, my friends hugged me. Everyone told me such kind things and I believed them because we were all in a safe and open zone. 'Beautiful' was such an overused word that day but it made my heart dance and I felt lighter.

I felt so loved during those past three days and it felt good that I loved everyone else the same. This distribution of happiness made me realize that if I didn't tell that particular story, it would always stay at the back of my mind, haunting me every now and then until I can drive myself insane. It taught me that sadness isn't something that we should avoid - it's something that we should acknowledge.

Being this honest sometimes scares me because I'm afraid that the incident will happen again, but being loved is such a good feeling. It truly is. I can't say anything else to elaborate on that because I know that it'll sound like an understatement.

For now, here are some post-processed filmy photos from our retreat (in no particular order).

*There are two things in particular here. First, yes, no Disney film has pulled me into tears before, not even Up or Toy Story 3. Second, I do not cry in the theaters. These are odd and irrelevant information but I just thought I'd mention them.