Addicted To Love

I watched last Friday's edition of Alicia Silverstone's TV series, "Miss Match" where she plays a lawyer who moonlights as a matchmaker. Too often, she gets involved in the lives of the people she brings together. She goes to a shrink who tells her matchmaking may be a manifestation of her obsessing with other peoples' love lives to avoid her own. She could be a love addict herself. Then it struck me. I've been playing the role of a matchmaker to my friends too. When they hit it off, I couldn't be more ecstatic for them. And when they break apart, I suffer from depression just as much.

Apparently, I've been living vicariously through my friends, to avoid confronting the reality of my own non-existent love life. Though I am a self confessed ultra-feminist, cold, narcissistic being, with an idiosyncratic allergy to men, it occurred to me that all these could just be a brave front i'm trying to put on, to mask my unfounded fear of rejection . That all along, I'm in denial that I actually am a hopeless romantic, a love addict even.

I've grown in love with the idea of love itself that i end up seeking it in the wrong guys. Deep inside, I could still be hoping for somebody who would turn my negative views on love around, restore my faith in love and somebody worth taking the risks. Heck, it takes guts to admit that. Then again, maybe i wouldn't have to do that. I could just be a plain cold cynic. Someone who believes that romantic love is for everybody else except herself. No rationalization required. A cynic. Nothing more, nothing less.I may even die being one.

My Life as a Vampire

I sleep during the day and stay awake all night. I risk the surge of skin breakouts and my immune system crashing. Such an unhealthy habit, I know. Being a doctor, my body has been accustomed to the toxic lifestyle for quite a while, though I hated being kept awake throughout my 24 hr. duties and having to come home totally exhausted. I was dog-tired. Now that I got my wish of getting back to my sedentary ways after quitting residency training, I have all the time in the world to take a beauty rest. Thanks to my insomnia, I couldn’t do just that.

After passing my licensure boards, I slept as much as I wanted. I made up for the lost slumbers during med school and internship. Until I slept too much that I ended up messing my body clock. I hardly saw the daylight. I woke up not knowing what just happened to the world while I was off to dreamland. My day turned into night and my night turned into day. Problem came everytime I was asked to report for 24 hrs duty. (I worked as a reliever physician, like an on-call where I only got to work whenever somebody seeks replacement and my sched allows me to). I would be tossing on my bed til its 5AM and I needed to be at the hospital by 8AM. I swear it was the worst feeling of all. I would be sobbing out of frustration. By 11AM I just wanted to dive into a bed but couldn’t. My duty doesn’t end until 8AM the next day. How tormenting. The convenience of sleeping pills were out of the question. They made me droopy til the next day so it only made matters worse.

After 2 years of living like a vampire, I finally started my residency training. Everything went back to normal. Except that the word normal among the medical professionals may seem different from the normal among other professions. Nonetheless, the load of my work took its toll on me. I realized I couldn’t live the life of an internist. Hence after barely 2 months and a week of training, I quit. Now I’m back to the zombie world. Just when the rest of the world is asleep, here I am tinkering with my PC. Ugh. The dark circles around my eyes are making me uglier than usual. I’ve been worrying too much on how to get myself to sleep that I think I’m starting to grow wrinkles. Oh gosh, no!

Soulmates

Soulmates. Twinflames. Whatever you call it, I used to believe they did exist. At least the idea once appealed to me, it would've been more comforting to know that somebody was meant to be with me. I ceased believing in Santa Claus and Fairy Tales, why would this thing about soulmates be any different?

Isn't it amazing to find yourself sharing an instant connection with someone you feel you've known all your life when fact is, you're only starting to be friends. How does one explain this phenomenon? All of a sudden you switch into romantic mode and start believing he ought to be the one, the soulmate you've been looking for. Oh behave. I've met people I instantly clicked with but in the end, they just happened to be good conversationalists. That's just it. Being young and gullible, I almost fooled myself into believing they were my so called soulmates. If I count all of them, my soul would have to recycle several times in this lifetime to match each of them.

Perhaps I do have one. He probably went into a coma or diminished into a mere soul by now. Perhaps my bitter stories have turned me into a cynic. Or I could be too old to believe it, I've outgrown it. Sometimes it gets overrated enough to be a lame excuse to infidelity. You've heard stories about happily married couples leaving their families because they had to be with their "soulmates". Soulmates aren't supposed to make you sin. Oh well. Whatever lead me into debunking it, I'd rather go search my own soul for now. I'll find it before someone else does and sells it.

My Prince

Orlando Bloom. The ultimate heartthrob. He made my heart skip a beat while watching him beat all those orcs as Legolas, the elven Prince of Mirkwood. No, I don't wish for him to come to my life. I wouldn't want to spend a lifetime sufferring from arrythmias. *sigh*

The Man of My Dreams

This is the picture of my ideal guy. Someone who looks exactly like him (talk about tall order, ok maybe drop the word "exactly") doesn't smoke, drinks only a little... loves God above all, intellectually stimulating, well-mannered, affectionately thoughtful, can make me laugh, can be the shoulder I could cry on, can sing with me at the videoke without discounting the act as jologs, he's non-chauvinistic and a real gentleman who'll sweep me off my feet.No wonder it's taking me ages to find him, if at all I find him. If my dreams bring me any closer to this guy, you wouldn't question my sleeping for extra long hours. If only he could come to life.

"Funny how we set qualifications in the process of finding the person who is the best for us when at the back of our minds we know that the one we love will always be an exception to the rule."

in our superhero costumes

Elaine, the friend whom I could cry to, even over the phone. Now that she's off to the states I better not have my heart broken again, lest I wanna go broke paying for long distance phone bills. When she learned I was quitting Internal Medicine, she called me up making sure I was okay.

Our Favorite Bonding Moment- Videoke!


Mama Fe, Snow, Me and Tinkerbell. My VRPMC buddies. I miss my lolas. We went out on gimiks where we danced like no one was watching and sang like no one was listening. Our interns' batch was made up of talented singers and almost everyone could carry a tune. Videoke was a favorite pastime, even if it wasn't your turn to sing, you could sit back and enjoy Valora, Tina or Larry singing like you were in some concert of sorts.

The Runaway Bride..smaid

... or was it the groom that ran away?

Ai and I at Sarah's wedding where I was a bridesmaid. Ai is a rebel without a cause. Romantically insane. With all the lectures I gave her in an attempt to exorcise the demons inside that were causing her to make all the wrong decisions in love, now it is but fair to say that all of us at one point or another, do the stupidest things in the name of love. The lecturer/exorcist is not even spared.

Baguio

Mermaid, Snow and Me in Baguio. After Sarah's wedding in Pangasinan, we headed straight up to Baguio were we got stranded due to bagyong harurot. These are the friends who saw me through the storms in my life, figuratively and literally speaking. Valora aka Mermaid is in the the states now, happily married. Edshil aka Snow is dead serious about her career as a resident obstetrician. I miss these lolas.

Shady Characters


This is Tess. Never review for an exam with her. You'll be spending the same hours studying (or cramming), yet in the end she would top the exam while you barely get through the passing mark. After all, she graduated at the top of her class in med, while I, graduated at the top of my..uhm.. lungs?

wedding belles


I, Jing2x and Elaine preparing for Mary Ann's Wedding. Weeks before the occasion, Ann instructed me to take charge of Elaine's wardrobe and makeup.Elaine,like me happens to suffer from a bad case of *manang-gitis, albeit in different ways.My manang-gitis manifests when cute guys are in sight, while her case attacks when she's made to wear girly-girly dresses and make-ups. She even "begged" to wear pants to the wedding, to which I had to firmly put my foot down. No way. I would've been a failure as the appointed image consultant if I allowed her to. In the end, Elaine realized how fabulous she could look in a dress. No trace of manang-gitis whatsoever.

*manang-gitis- from the word manang, meaning: uber-conservative or prude

Love Can Make You Stupid

I could dish out the best advices on love, bring back senses into anyone else's head, shield myself from getting hurt, but still end up vulnerable and find myself doing the most stupid things out of love. I am human after all. I feel. I bleed. I love...for the most part, unrequitedly.

I am drawn to the wrong guys. More often than not, to the commitment-phobic flirts who simply want to test their charms on me. For the virulent few who manage to break into my normally impermeable walls, they cause me deep trouble.They're the kind who comes on strong yet when reciprocated, suddenly slams off the brakes and changes his mind on an instant, wanting you to get off and go take a hike alone! They can be the most cruel species on the planet and leave you hurting like hell. I have been subjected to their cruelty more than once. I fell into their trap over and over again. If that's not stupid, I don't know what it is. If for any consolation, none of these boys know they got me hooked for a time. I succeeded in pretending to be cool about it when deep inside I was in agony.

My rational self tells me to stay away from these guys. They do not deserve me. They can only bring me pain. Someone better may be on his way. My lovestruck self tells me no, he's gotta be the one. No one else has made my heart pound this way. I cannot let him go. Dang it. That's my half-demonic- driven self speaking already.

I can tell what's right from wrong, alright. i just refuse to do something about it. Love can be far too intoxicating to get your senses working. There's always that hope that he'll wake up one day and realize he truly wants me, even when I know it's the remotest of all remote possibilities, that I'm only leading myself to more pain.

If only life was simpler. If only I could make that one person love me back the way I love him. If only I could tell my heart to stop beating for the one who cannot love me in return. If only I could wrap my heart with steel and tell it exactly what to feel.

Oh love, however lost, however unrequited can be so powerful to reduce the most sensible persons into idiots. I don't happen to be excluded from the list.