dear august 2011

so august we meet again.

well, were about to meet again in an hour (hopefully, im already sleeping by then). my normal luck will shut itself down for a month and i will have to deal with life, with its nasty tricks, without any help from the universe. to make things worse, mercury will go retrograde.

much as i dont want to meet you every year, i know i have to. not because youre an inevitability but because i have assigned your purpose. i grew up being treated by some people as that boy no one likes. its not that i was an outcast. far from it. i had really good friends. friends that really stayed with me through thick and thin. i had a very good and happy childhood (life was beatiful then). but being the hyperactive sociable kid (with the tendency to be greedy), i wanted to be liked by all. and everyone knows no one can win them all. being able to get good grades year after year doesnt mean all my teachers will like me. being sociable and friendly doesnt mean i can be friends with everyone or with anyone. and being related to my relatives doesnt mean im going to be accepted and treated like one. i had a hard time gaining some of my teachers' acknowledgement that im a good student (i was too noisy, too hyperactive, too annoying for some. some of my class advisers got tired of defending me from other teachers). i didnt become friends with a lot of classmates simply because i really cant be friends with each and everyone of them (but i always exerted an effort to reach out and then obviously, rejected because im not really their type. i was a dark and skinny kid. yeah, ive been discriminated against). and i had a difficult time getting most of my cousins' trust and approval (i was too talkative and i was also the youngest then so i got treated how most people treat the youngest in any group...the kid you pick on or the one that you cant relate to because he's too young. so i felt i always got left out and i dont belong).

its because of these experiences that motivated me to push myself forward and to become dependent on myself. i learned then that i dont need teachers to prove my intellectual worth. i dont need friends to feel secure about myself. and i dont need relatives to feel that im part of something or i have to be part of something. i dont really need anyone to be happy. this statement eventually became "i dont need happiness". thus, i became that emotionless silent type who doesnt care about anything except himself. but over the years, i loosened up a bit, softened up a bit, because of some good (and patient) friends and relatives who changed thanks to the maturity brought by age. in a way the "positive" change in me was a good thing but at the same time the change gets in the way of self-improvement. the change made me "weak".

thats where you, my dear august, comes in. being the only month (usually), thats harsh on me, ive decided to harness your cruelty to motivate myself and push myself forward (because thats how ive been programmed. i need negative stuff to do something positive. receiving positive stuff only makes me complacent). ive been on a slump for years and ive been trying to pull myself together but cant. so instead of doing my usual "preparing for the worst" attitude every august, im going to take it a bit further and try to capitalize on whatever shit you throw at me. of course, im not going to ask you to bring your worst. honestly, i really would like to take a break because im tired. even if ive had the other 11 months treating me "nicely" compared to you, its been a really tiring year. actually, since 2008, things started becoming tiring (i still have that 2008 birthday card that wished that i could get the much needed rest). and i expect it to be more tiring over the coming years. so i would have to toughen myself up the way i used to do and that is now your purpose august. so far youve never failed to ruin stuff for me lately (lately means past few years) so im going to expect you to be the usual irritating month that brings me a series of unfortunate events.