IDA Day!

Today marks Ida's first day in our company. Of course, we weren't as close back then but it doesn't really matter. In my calendar, today is IDA (Ida Deserves Appreciation) Day! To show my love to the REAL evil twin, here's a poem*:

Whoever thought that we'd be this close?

Two unlikely friends, more likely to be foes!

Let's shout and celebrate; let us all cheer

For it has been a year, Idapot, my dear!

Yes, it has been a year since your bag from Davao

Made me smile and coo and go "Oh, wow!"

And it has been a year since I gave you cake

To bribe you "for a trivia point's sake."

Christmas came and Christmas passed,

Who'd ever thought our friendship would last?

We met new people and the gang grew bigger

Yet our bond grew stronger, stronger and stronger.

And, ever since, you have always been there

To remind me of my importance, to show that you care.

You were there during my best and my worst days

To make me feel special in so many ways.

Ha, who'd ever think we'd be as close as we are now

And stomach each other's differences somehow:

How cute you can giggle when I cackle like a witch,

How outgoing I can be when pleasantries you ditch?

Sometimes I really wonder how this works

Our friendship, I mean, with all our contrastive quirks.

Though one thing is for sure, I think:

We can talk for days, even eras, 'til we stink!

So I wrote this to say that I'm really happy

That I'm your friend, though you can be, er, bitchy.

And, for the record, what you keep on saying is true:

Great things happen to people who listen to you.

Yes, it has been a year, Idapot, my dear,

And everything has been far from sere.

But I know I can go through all things thick and thin

As long as I have the love of my twin. :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, IDAPOT!

I am so glad you're in my life! :)

(Sounds just a tad bit wrong...LOL #PervinizedMind)

*I claim poetic license so this poem is error-free. I don't even know if "claim" is the right word to use in my previous sentence. Sorry, Ida. We both know we lack sleep today/tonight.

Pretending and/or Acting

When I was younger, I didn't like that word. Pretending, I mean. To me, it sounded so...superficial. Or maybe because I've always associated pretending with the more common Filipino term: plastik. Mapagpanggap. Mapagkunuwa. I've always preferred the word acting. Perhaps it's my theater background. For me, it sounded more...professional. And, no, I didn't think I was rationalizing or calling one thing another. I mean, my personal definition of acting doesn't even have the word pretending in it. (Acting is being another person for a certain period of time, i.e., while you are onstage. It is an internalization of somebody completely different or completely similar to your own personality. FYI.)

After years and years and years of believing this, it suddenly struck me to check the dictionary. Just out of curiosity. I wanted to find out how the world officially sees the word I so glorified and called "better" than some other word. Here's what I found out:

Oh, my whole childhood/teenage life was a lie.

It's funny but, as I think more and more about it, I realized that I've been fooling nobody but myself. I still think that my definition is correct but only in certain situations. It can't be something applied to everyday life. In the end, I realized that acting can be pretending to be somebody you're not. And that's really dangerous. It's even more dangerous than pretending because, when you pretend, you know at the back of your mind that it's not true. It's imaginary, unreal. When you act, you have to internalize and, to Pareng Merriam and Pareng Webster:

To make something an important part of the kind of person you are. An important part of the kind of person you are. Doesn't it make you so much worse when you act than when you pretend? Say, when you act like you know something when, in fact, you don't. I think this is so much worse because you actually start to believe that you know something when you don't.

Or when you act like you care for someone when, in fact, you don't? Doesn't it hurt more because you have started believing that you do care, because you've taken that important part and held it close to your heart? That, when they find out that you don't really care about them, you still recoil from yourself a bit?

Again, realizations come wave after wave after wave. Maybe I don't like pretending because I don't know how to pretend. Maybe I've been acting all my life. Or maybe that's the reason why moving on has been really hard for me: I always act like I'm okay but I only pretend to move on. 

Does that make sense at all?

"And when we meet / Which I'm sure we will / All that was there / Will be there still.

I'll let it pass / And hold my tongue / And you will think / That I've moved on...."

- White Flag, Dido