to give my average "literary" brain a little squeeze...
a few days ago i celebrated my birthday. voluntarily. im not the type...or i used to be the type of person who hates his birthday. not that i dont like growing old...well, i do but thats not the reason for my dislike for the day of my birth. its just people tend to make a big deal out of it. people remember it more than i do and they want to make it special and i find that stressful. or i used to find it stressful. im not used to receiving such kind of love from a lot of people. or im just that type who really doesnt like to be loved. its like i feel i need to return the favor. like the time my college blockmates gave me a gift on my birthday. i was happy of course but a part of me felt obligated to be nice or do something in return. thats why one my blockmates started teasing me and telling our law school blockmates the way i reacted, that it was insulting, just to drive her point that i dont have to feel burdened. well, that didnt work. im known for being stubborn.
it was only this year that i started to embrace the idea that my birthday really should be a day dedicated to celebrating one's life and not a day for things happening according to what i want. add the fact that i think i finally restored a healthy level of inner peace, where i can honestly say that im living a life with no regrets (well, this is prospective in nature and therefore does not retroact to the period of my life where i lost my "inner peace" so therefore, i now have what i call "the 8 year window" where ive done a lot of regretful things. im thinking if i should make a list similar to earl hickey).
anyway, like i said, people make a fuss about my birthday. given that i gave my consent to celebrate my birthday, my parents started planning and preparing what to do. since i dont know how to cook, i just volunteered to buy dozens of donuts, pancit and pizza. fortunately, the celebration at home went well. the office celebration went well too but it didnt really go very smoothly during the planning stage. i had to pacify an officemate a bit when he felt that another officemate ruined my birthday celebration plans. during that time, i remembered a client who also manifested the same kind of resentment and hatred, this time to our opposing lawyer. my client was really trying to convince me to resort to the same kind of strategy our opposing lawyer was doing, which was throwing malevolent, baseless and offensive statements to the opposing party. i kept replying that im not that kind of lawyer and im not that kind of person who's easily affected by offensive statements. the client just replied "mabait ka kasi attorney", looking disappointed. what did she expect? anyway, we sort of won the case so i proved that doing things my way is good enough. im digressing. damn it.
so i celebrated my birthday and it was the first time since i was a teenager that i actually enjoyed celebrating my birthday. if im not mistaken, the last time i really enjoyed celebrating my birthday at home was when i was 13. the subsequent birthdays just felt burdensome. people like to celebrate it more than i do. or thats how i saw it. i really found it stressful that they're more happy that i exist compared to my level of satisfaction for my existence. and they always talk about politics during gatherings. since i was just a highschool student or college student or law student, i really dont have good opinions or capable of contributing to the discussion at my clan's level. their experience really makes whatever stuff i learn from academic institutions look like scraps of paper in a trash bin. or thats how i felt. now, things have changed. now that im a lawyer, im burdened that my words are worth something. but at least this is better since there's a sense of recognition. well, thats what i think. meh. point is, i enjoyed my birthday this year and that's something i havent done for quite some time.
wow. im really struggling to write something as easy as a blog entry.
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