my LiFe In a n0veL

...as written by rEaL Authors

It's funny how the present happenings in my life relate to the novels I currently read...

(Sometime between Oct.-Dec. ‘05)
“She had spent her entire life being what everyone wanted her to be. The perfect daughter, the budding artist, the best friend, the first love. She had been so busy meeting everyone’s expectations, in fact that it had taken her years to remember exactly why it was all one big force.”

The Pact
Jodi Picoult

OK…maybe I’m not really a perfect daughter, a budding artist, a best friend nor a first love. But I’m trying to be. I’ve always wanted to make everyone happy that sometimes I neglect to see the things that put me down. Just like her, expectations have exerted such a great pressure for me that when the thought of putting an end to my life came into my head, I couldn’t say exactly why I was feeling that way…
Everyone has been so good. God has blessed me. My parents have nurtured me. My friends have always been there for me. And yet, these people might think they know me…but they don’t.
And thoughts upon thoughts occurred to me…
The only difference that distinguished me from Emily is that she pulled that trigger and I didn’t.


(January ‘06)
“Oh, no, now Mac had looked up, and he met her gaze. For an instant, they stared at each other. Lauri seemed unable to move; she was breathing quickly, and there was so much she wanted to say—but she couldn’t, she couldn’t speak—because the important things were impossible to say…”
“Lauri hurried on down the hall, biting her lip and trying to think of anything, anything other than Mac. It hurt so much to see him with someone else. Well, what had she thought? That two dates would make Lauri his girlfriend, gain his loyalty forever? Just because she had hoped their relationship would grow…And now it was over before they’d even had a chance to find out if they could care about each other, and Mac had already found someone new…”
“Maybe Karen was right, and she was never going to have a real boyfriend, a normal relationship. The thought weighed her down….”

“Jamey was hurting, would keep on being hurt if Lauri didn’t take action. That was more important than her own troubles, her own concerns, even more important than Mac and her regrets about what might have been.”

“She trudged to the high school and discovered she was ten minutes late to her first class. When the next hour brought her geometry test, she stared blankly at the test sheet, trying to make the words and diagrams make sense. But her brain seemed somewhere else—she had the sense she was moving in slow motion—and it took great efforts just to lift her pencil. When the period ended, she made little progress, and she turned in the test with the page only half-filled.”

LIFE AT SIXTEEN Silent Tears
Cheryl Zach

Everything seemed the same except the way the story began. Lauri’s story started with divorce, a possibility of losing their house and a probability of losing her education on that school, a not-so-happy situation while mine started with smiles, a loving family, a sure education, and everything nice. But as the plot moves on, so did our fate intertwined. If you’ve been reading my blog, the stares and the gaze is nothing new. We’ve done it more than just a few times. But then like Lauri’s fate, we didn’t get anywhere because it’s been over long before something bloomed….after what I’ve done. And so I reflected about my past and sometimes I can’t help but have that same notion that maybe just like Lauri I’m never gonna find myself a man who’ll be mine.
I don’t really have a little brother or a nephew who went under the same circumstance as Jamey(child abuse). But around the time when I was thinking about these things, a kid knocked on our door. He was that someone who has been deprived of the right amount of care and guidance before. He looked so frail back then that we can’t help but be there for him whenever he needs our care. But now, he looked taller, more chubby, and much more handsome. But when I talked to him, it was then that I realized how much one can learn from a kid as young as him. Indeed, his world is still full of toys, video games, candies and small surprises but his world also brought that same sadness Jamey might have felt. No, there were no wounds or bruises. But inside his heart and his mind, who knows what we could find? It seemed to me that his world is still insufficient of love that he still carried with him that fear when he’s all alone.
Truly, this is a realization for me…that indeed, his problems are much more heavy than the weight my weak heart carries.
Not much further explanations are needed on that last part (especially for classmates in MODULE 3) as they all know I’m actually 30-45 minutes late for class. And just to restate things… I stared blankly at the test sheet, trying to make the words and diagrams make sense. But my brain seemed somewhere else. As to where it was during that moment? I just can’t remember where…


(OJT time)
"Yang, which was the spoken word for ‘sun’ also meant male energy. Action and Aggression. The opposite of yin, the symbol for female passivity."
"She shook her head. 'If it's such a simple thing, get someone else to do it.' Then she thought of the cute little boys, who now had no mother. What was wrong with her? Not long ago she would have schemed to get on a homicide like this. She'd always been driven to be the one who nailed the killer. Now she was identifying with the babysitter who had knives in her knapsack. She was worrying about Sergeant Gelo's dress code, and she was thinking of her honeymoon. Not good. Skinny Dragon Mother used to say she had too much yang for a girl. She'd never find a man to marry her. Now she was married and had softened up, and sometimes she wondered if she had enough yang left to be a cop."

A Clean Kill
Leslie Glass

I am not a cop (though I also wish to work on criminal cases) and I definitely am not married! But everything else seemed to fall into place. Like Officer Woo Sanchez, I also had too much yang back then. Up until now, I believe I still have some. But everyone's noticed it already except me. I have indeed softened up. And it took a lot of interrogative statements as to who's responsible for this to make me realize that I'm the last person to sense this change in me. From the girl who acted like a guy, I started to unleash my feminine side. Was it on purpose? I believe not...but I don't know why my actions and perceptions were altered all of a sudden. And I don't know if I still have enough yang to get me by...

(March ‘06)
“……Terrified, exhausted by her fate, Visitacion recognized in those eyes the symptoms of the sickness whose threat has obliged her and her brother to exile themselves forever from an age-old kingdom where they had been prince and princess. It was the Insomnia plague.”
“They had indeed contracted the illness of insomnia. Ursula, who had learned from her mother the medicinal value of plants, prepared and made them all drink a brew of monkshood, but they could not get to sleep and spent the whole day dreaming on their feet.”

"These are not the times to go around thinking about weddings"

One hundred years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

As to what that brew of monkshood is, I really have no idea. I also haven’t tried any medicine at all to heal this plague (actually, answers.com says it’s not a disease) But I have tried those suggestions of warm milk, no naps, scheduled bedtime and rise time, daily exercises, etc. but none of it worked. Exhausting myself for one whole day won’t even keep my eye closed for a minute. But around the last quarter of last year, I found a healer. Just thinking about that person can easily make me sleep. But now that I thought of letting my healer go (and in some way have actually been successful in implementing it), the plague went back. And I know, that like Ursula and her whole ancestry, I won’t be healed by any medicinal herb either.

Col. Aureliano Buendia mentioned that last statement because there was war during that time. For him, nothing is more important than the war they're fighting for. In my case, well...there is no war. But it still applies...as this is not the time to be thinking about issues of the heart but the time to be thinking about passing my quizzes and comprehensive exams, about our thesis, about our upcoming board exam!!! …and much more important things. Sadly, I don’t have that same amount of will that the colonel has.