Cinnamon Zone

Over the years my friends have found different ways in pointing out how heartless they think I am. One of them would say that the first time she saw me crying, and perhaps the only time, was just two years ago when my grandfather died, although I could swear she saw me crying years before that. Others would be more explicit, like what my friend told me bluntly today as she said: “I can never imagine you being in love with someone”. Usually I wouldn’t respond to that, but for what it’s worth, I found myself telling her that, well, at this point in my life I happily have no crushes, but that doesn’t mean that I have never or will never have feelings for anyone.

I don’t remember being annoyed by that until recently, when I realized that it’s becoming hard for some people to believe that I’m capable of that very basic and intuitive human feeling. Doesn’t just kill you to be underestimated?

Perhaps the time I was bugged the most was when my 17 year-old cousin casually made a very daring assumption. We were talking about different things and we happened to mention something about relations, and I think I said something about how life doesn’t stop because of one person and how you should not let a guy be the center of your universe. So, all of a sudden, she confidently says to me: Oh, that’s because you don’t know what it feels like to be in love…

At that moment I felt like my brain was going to explode. I mean seriously, my teenage cousin assumes she knows better than me what it feels to be in love. I don’t know what would you say about that, but I felt deeply insulted. Not that I don’t believe you can always learn from the youngster, but when it comes to this specific issue, I so don’t trust teenagers, not with all the pubescent hormones rushing through.

Ever since those words came out of her, I’ve been rambling in my thoughts, trying to jump on any opportunity to tell her that, in my humble personal cold stiff-neck adult opinion, I think that she only thinks she knows what love is like, and that those experiences she calls “love” are probably nothing but teenage crushes, a mixture of curiosity, excitement, attraction and again, hormone rush. I’m dying to tell her that this which she calls love lacks the most important element of love, the one thing that makes it real, that makes it endure, which is maturity. It’s like the glue that sticks the pieces together. I’m dying to tell her that if she really knew what love is, she should know that it could be very dangerous, and since sometimes the best thing is to run away, you better use your mind before the feelings kick in, because if they did, you might be getting yourself into a life-size trouble.

P.S: This post doesn’t mean in any way that December has made me go soft. I haven’t gone soft, I’m still tough as a rock, just a little bit… whatever!

You know when your life begins to suck?

There's an old story, which dates back to the beginning of creation, and that will be told to generations ages and ages hence. It talks about something we all love, we all cling to, something that it born with us, that dwells within us and even haunts us. Through out history, many attempts to abolish it went in vain. No matter how people tried to tear it out, it always crawled its way back. That's right, it has become an inseparable part of every human being, and for many centuries, H has always been for Hope.

You don't kill hope, not because you don't want to, but simply because you can't. You are too powerless to strangle it. All you can do is losing faith in yourself, in the people around you, or in the Creator. That when your life seems like a living hell, and death becomes a distant dream... but somewhere deep inside, there will always be something, crying out vividly wanting to get out of that dark hole you dug with desperation to convince yourself there was no way out.

Is not what you might think of him. He tries to sound crude, tries to make you think he wouldn't care less, but under that careless, callous and somehow shrewd look, he possesses a certain sweetness of heart. You don't have to look deep to know it, it just shows: he's lousy at pretending.

At times you think he's so special, and at times you think that he's just like others, just another person, but there's always that thing, something that makes him different. Either way, he's unpredictable; it's very hard to tell what's going on in his mind. He can leave you puzzled for months by a strange look, though you know it might have been nothing, he was just drifted into his own thoughts, staring at nothing…

He'd like to be your friend, he just doesn't know how. He's either too shy or too proud. He can't be formal or artificial, so don't expect many compliments. He's just too simple and spontaneous for that. Yet, he manages to conceal it behind his cunning look that would intimidate you, even though you know very well he's the exact opposite.

He's the kind of person you want around. The kind of person you want in your life. You know you can live without him, yet you can't imagine life without him, but you know you have to. He makes you wonder about him, you, life and everything. He makes you dig deep to undiscovered depths inside yourself. Makes you wonder why you think too high of him, why you trust him blindly for no good reason, and whether he really deserves it or maybe you have to shift your angle…

You feel that everyone around him is lucky to know him. His parents are proud of him, his sister thinks he's her favorite brother, his brother considers him his best friend, his friends like hanging out with him, his cousins love him because he's fun, kind and down-to-earth.

He laughs even when he's hurt. Never shows his real emotions unless they are that of fury. He might hurt you, frustrate you, disappoint you and even make you want to cry, but you know it's not his fault; it doesn't change anything; because he's good, and he knows it.

The other day I was watching Grey's Anatomy, the episode in which Dr. Ellis Grey, who has come down with Alzheimer, recovers her memory and becomes lucid for one day. Being a veteran in the world of surgery and an exceptionally successful doctor, her life was devoted to her career, and it was nothing short of extraordinary. She's even went off at her daughter for saying that she was happy with her boyfriend, for she considered this something that ordinary girls say, not a promising girl like her who should be focused on her professional future.

During her few lucid hours, Dr. Grey looks back at her life, reviewing and even regretting some of her past choices, such as not building a bigger family and not fighting harder for the man she loved. Then she starts to imagine how her life would've been if her choices had been different, till she says something that stuck too hard in my head that I can't get it out, cutting to the chase, she said:

"And I would have been happy, just like Meredith says she's happy and that would have... changed everything... Maybe I would be fine and we could grow all together and life would be so perfectly ordinary"

So perfectly ordinary. Lately, the perfectly ordinary life has been of my biggest fears. I'm just too afraid that my life will wind up like this: Go to school, graduate from college, work and make money, marry, have children and die. It freaks me out, the perfect life many people dream about. How many times did you have people nagging about doing this because "everyone does it" or not doing this because "people won't like it/ will think ill of you/ will think you have issues…etc?

On the other hand, this made me think that, however extraordinary your life is, you can't afford to give up the ordinary things. But, I'm I just saying, why not make something extraordinary out of the ordinary? Which I think is possible if you have passion towards what you do, and a clear goal in mind. I don't want my life to be and expansion of tradition, I don't want my children to grow up in a society where they are hushed up and called blabbering "philosophers" just because they try to explain a different point of view.

Going back to Dr. Grey, I don't think she really meant what she said. I don't think she would trade a life dedicated to saving people's lives for an easier life. Yet, I think she would go back in time if she had the chance, not to have a different life, but to strike a balance between two lives: one that was her source of satisfaction, and another one she'll probably die yearning for: perfect yet ordinary.