Damsel In Distress: October 2009

“Boy: …uhm, we’re not on the same page.
Girl: yes, because you can’t read between the lines.
Boy: that’s what you think. Maybe I was just pretending that I couldn't. and you know what I mean.”

The girl was dumbfounded by the last line the guy typed in. It was something that never occurred to her. She never had an inkling that he knew all along. Those pursuits she struggled to maintain to leave her feelings go unnoticed were all useless - all the masquerading plot cast in vain because he was already well aware of her feelings. She was contemplating on what to say next as she stared blankly on the computer screen. Would she deny it as to what she was so used to doing for dear life? Would she say something clever, like an in-your-face statement to redeem her seemingly disoriented self-esteem? Or, for the first time in her life, would she finally muster up the courage to admit that she really liked someone? That, for the past weeks, being with him had brought her such unexplainable bliss? Thoughts traveled within her paranoid mind, they all had good points but the girl can only choose one. And she knew she must decide fast. As she was typing in she couldn’t help but remember the first time they met.

Three months ago was almost a meltdown on the girl’s career. She was already running out of reasons to work for the company she was currently in. She felt that she was going nowhere not to mention the recurrence of burnout that was almost killing her half the time. She just had it, the girl thought. She was just too fed-up with the ways of the routinary life. Most of her friends already left and she was beginning to run out of reasons to stay, which worsened when her supervisor for two years was suddenly profiled to leave the team and handle the training of the “newhires”. She wept because she was starting to miss everyone else and she also began to miss who she was.

But twist of fate may have worked its way hard because she was tasked to join her supervisor to handle and train the new waves of people because the program she was in suddenly ramped up. The girl was initially hesitant to join the training bay because she believed that she wasn’t inclined to leadership and handling people. “TL, hindi ako sanay maging leader, kasi all my life follower lang ako.” But her supervisor was insistent, convincing her to at least give it a try because he said that he was seeing something worthwhile in her that’s why she recommended her for the position.

It was a whirlwind of events that occurred and she just found herself working as part of the training bay team. She was chosen to be one among the three Subject Matter Experts – such big responsibility she was initially scared off. The position required her to train the waves of people so that they can easily adjust to their learning curve. The girl knew that it was a bit off and out-of-character for her to lead these people and her first week as an SME was such a mess she almost wanted to quit. But some changes in life had been kind to her because she just found herself enjoying what she was doing even though it meant long hours of unpaid overtime. She already found her niche, she mused as she remembered how far the training bay has gone in terms of improvement and she didn’t want to go anywhere else. She was already adept to training the newhires and was also happy with the idea of inspiring them to do well in what they do. She suddenly became a leader she never knew existed in her.

The girl began to make friends with the newhires. She began to love them to pieces - helping them with whatever concern they have even to the extent that she was still all smiles as she answered questions, which she just discussed some minutes ago. She couldn’t bear the thought of letting them down. She wanted to inspire them in her own ways - telling them that work sucked on the first month but succeeding months would just be a walk in the park for them. She was deeply involved with her coaching sessions with them and loved to hear their stories because in a funny way, she remembered herself during her tumultuous first month on the job. The girl was just too blissful about what was currently happening and her life was suddenly oriented towards leadership and work. Yes, these seemingly strange occurrences in her life were already tangible.

And then she met him.

There was no glimmering spotlight when she first laid her eyes on him. The overrated sparks were nowhere to be found and the supposed butterflies in the stomach may have been fooling around elsewhere when they met. Their first encounter was as dismal as a gray sky. And until now she despised the idea that the dismal encounter was brought into something so penetrating she could hardly resist. Because no matter how many times she thought about it, there was just no rhyme or reason.

He was not even one of her trainees. The boy was actually handled by another subject matter expert who happened to be her friend. It was not love at first sight - not even close to that. She saw him a lot before but he always went unnoticed. First was because he wasn't among the people she handled and second was because there was nothing really striking about him. He wasn't really a pretty face in the crowd and could just pass as your unfriendly high-school classmate that you recently couldn’t match the name with the face. He was just so forgettable on a first meeting.

But he was kind of popular among the other SMEs for reasons that she, initially couldn’t fathom. The first encounter happened during a lazy day when she was chatting with the other SMEs about the who's who among the training bay people. The told her the story about this guy from training bay that was smoking one time outside someplace during lunch when he heard girls behind him giggle about crushing on him. Yes, for chrissakes, that was the story. She had no idea who the guy was but actually found the story funny. And the girl couldn’t help but smirk when she was finally acquainted with the main character o the story she was told about - the guy who was smoking and was crushed on looked like a high-schooler who just masqueraded as a college graduate. The boy in front of her looked too young he could already pass as her younger brother. And as she remembered that first encounter, she knew she wasn’t smitten. There was no cloud nine and 7th heaven seemed so distant yet.

They became seatmates one day and the girl began to have some funny conversations with him - that the anecdote about the two girls crushing on him was true, that he had his first "try" when he was in high school, that he's been driving without license for weeks already and he still didn’t care. Those were the stories. Later on she learned that he was a psychology graduate from a good university - he was green - and like all greens are - he breathed a mysterious air of confidence with the way he stood and the way words travel from his mouth. She remembered telling him that she took journalism in college and then he asked, "so you're a journalism grad. magaling ka bang magsulat?" The girl couldn’t decide if it was a compliment or as an insult but she replied, anyway. "Magsulat? Hindi ko alam eh. Siguro" He was proud to be green but she wasn’t really into school spirit so she wasn’t too psyched with the idea. She was a maroon and should have all the reason to be proud of it. But bragging and confidence was just way out of her league. But even with his intolerable bragging and mysterious confidence she couldn’t deny that she enjoyed talking to him. For whatever reason she couldn’t understand yet, there was just something painfully different about him. And she was already starting to think.

One thing she hated about rumors is its strange ability to realize something out of a petty hearsay. She loathed its ability to make something appear so real that its almost true. She was happily living a lame life when she heard about the rumor that she - yes, she - was crushing on somebody. Everyone at the office knew she hated attention and has always succeeded in going unnoticed and everyone else also knew how idiosyncratic she appeared whenever she was talked about. Her paranoia was beyond words. "Balita ko may crush ka daw ah. Kasi sobra ka kung magtanong sa kanya, pati intimate details inuusisa mo. Eh hindi ka naman ganyan. Uuy! May crush na ulit siya, dalaga na ulit!" her supervisor teased. Before she knew it, everyone in the training bay already knew about it because her supervisor's big mouth already resounded throughout the floor. Yes, time and again, she was the last to know. And she knew that things were already getting out of hand.

She's not into him - that she knew she was certain. But she was too humiliated with whatever rumor that was and was too worried on how would the boy react, not that it mattered to her anyway. But yes, it did matter and she couldn't be more ashamed of herself.

Days passed... and things suddenly changed.

She was suddenly thinking about it more and then it eventually happened – she was suddenly doomed to fall. Even with all her trying hard pursuit to be rational to resist such impulse, leap of faith was back in the game again. After a seemingly dormant existence, for the first time after two years, she knew she started to like again. And no matter how much she despised the idea, it rang so true. The thought was just so wrong, she knew that. She was three years older and she felt so over the hill all because it was her first time to crush on somebody so young. She also felt that the idea was too unlikely to be smitten by someone who could already pass as her younger brother. No, she wasn’t really into putting standards on who or what to like and wasn’t really the type of girl who judges people. But still, the thought of it made her smirk, much more feel sorry for herself. But things happen for no rhyme or reason. She couldn’t forgive herself to feel that way and she could only wish that she had a choice. But life left her with no option on this one and she couldn’t help herself.

Weeks passed and training bay came to an end. She felt sad because it also meant that her “babies” – the wave of people she handled were finally distributed to their respective teams. Until now, she couldn’t tell for sure if it was a mischief of fate or just plain cosmic proportion, because the boy was actually transferred over to her former supervisor - the same supervisor she’s been with and the same person whom to blame in spreading the rumor. She was a quite happy because she knew that he was in good hands.

Even with her resolve to stop her seeming idiosyncrasy, she became “closer” with the boy. Even if the girl couldn’t fear more about being caught, she still found a way to know him more. They talked a lot about everything else and that was what she really liked about him. Even though he was still trapped in his childish ways sometimes, he was smart and made good sense when he talked. He told her about his past loves and even showed her some poetry that he wrote for his past flame. She was amused by the fact that he stood tall the way he was – exuding the kind confidence, the kind of personality the girl could only dream about. The girl was pleased with wherever phase it was they were currently in. She began to love going to work everyday because it meant another day of seeing and talking to him.

Her supervisor was adamant about knowing what’s going on. Even if she was trying her best with her denial powers, some things couldn’t just be hidden and her supervisor has been growing more suspicious everyday, “alam mo, kilala na kita. Two years tayong magkasama. Alam kong there’s something going on. Siya na ba talaga? Sabihin mo na kasi!”. Even though it pained her to deny things, to deny the one thing that was currently doing wonders in her lame life, she was still afraid of admitting things. she was still not ready to tell the whole world that she was getting happier by the day.

It could be that when you start liking someone, your biological processes also conspire with your happiness. The girl who was so known to be careless with the way she looked, who never gave a fuss with the way she dressed up or the way she combed her hair started to care. She wanted to blame her best friend for forcing her into the hopeless makeover but she couldn’t because the whole scheme was making her feel good about herself. And she couldn’t thank enough those people who were glad about her attempt to change. “Girl, whoever it is that’s causing those changes is doing a good job…” one of her former teammates blurted out one time, and in her mind, she couldn’t agree more.

“Alam mo, gusto kong maging subtle, pero natural sa mga babae to seek for attention. ‘Yang effort na ginagawa mo,may meaning yan. It only indicates that there’s someone behind all these. Pwedeng not from other people, pwedeng someone in particular. Sino ba kasi talaga, ha? Ibang iba ka kasi lately…” the boy teased one time, psyching his way to know who that person was but still failing to use his mind tricks in finding out. She was just amused by the fact that she was beginning to think about herself more. The only thing she couldn’t muster up to do at the moment was to name names, even everyone else were insisting to know who he was. She just couldn’t, her mouth couldn’t bear to spill the name. Because, no matter how much she wanted to rationalize things, the boy wasn’t really doing anything to make her do such things. She was having the time of her life alone and for the first time she knew that she had finally moved on from the shadows of her old flame – the girl was finally set free from her “lost love” that had brought her in such solitude for so many years, that “lost love” that has always blocked her way in appreciating what was at hand.

She was finally living in the now, the girl mused as she realized how completely she had let go of the person whom she has loved half of her life. The girl was psyched to have finally forgotten her hopeless attempt to rekindle with her past flame. The idea of moving on was a far-out reverie to her before but now it was already happening before her eyes. But she knew herself too much to even hope for a happy ending with her current flame. The boy wasn’t into her and she was so certain that things won’t develop into something more than friendship. She wasn’t pretty enough, wasn’t confident enough and she has no plans of trying too hard or going overboard.

…She couldn’t stop thinking about the current things that have been happening but was still clueless on what to type in next. She has been on a haze, daydreaming that trailed from day one but couldn’t still figure out what to say next. Her hands wanted to refuse but she decided to type in.

“girl: Well, you don’t need to pretend at all. We’re good, right? I don’t need you to do anything about it. I’m just glad that you already know”

She was about to hit send when the boy suddenly typed in...

“boy: anyway…I have to go. Blah..blah…blah” and bid the girl goodbye.

She wanted to laugh about what had just happened. She was left in mid-air as she saw him log-out and go offline. She came crashing back to the reality of things again, unsure of what they have just talked about. Even though she got it that the boy wasn’t really into her, she was still glad with the fact that he already knew. She thought that it was a liberating experience to realize that he already knew – that those mixed signals and implicit gestures were all crystal clear to him all along. As she mooned over their conversation, a mixture of glee and disappointment rushed through her, such an irony that felt larger than life. Like an addict, she knew right then and there that she already had her fix.

But things weren’t always a walk in the park. Sometimes, people need to go through the bumpy road to self discovery because the morning after their online conversation was an awfully sad story. They suddenly became worlds apart even if he was just some meters away. It was almost a no-talk between them – he was no longer bugging her and their routinary activity of insulting each other was suddenly changed into awkward moments and dead-air. Their talks were just painfully casual, like a yes or no kind of talk. Even though he was physically there and was in fact just some workstations away, she knew right then and there that he was already gone. Her happiness, which she was plunging into for so many weeks trailed away sooner than expected and she was left with nothing.

Days that passed by became slower and no matter she denied it to herself, she knew she was getting uninspired. Sadness, her old friend, came knocking at her doors again and she was left with no resort than to embrace it. Not even her best friend, whom she loved to pieces – who was also in cahoots with all her luckless pursuit – could nurse. She felt sad about everything else again, and her chronic disease of solitude came running back, trying to eat up the happy part of who she was. The cosmic proportion she was so glad about was suddenly converted to a starless gray sky and she could almost paint her grief.

The only thing that tried to lift her up was her bestfriend – although the attempt was also failing. “Kung may magagawa lang sana ako, bestfriend. Sana maging masaya ka na, no? Sana dumating din ‘yung time na hindi lang ako ‘yung laging masaya. Sana one day pareho na tayong happy,” and she couldn’t agree more. “Oo nga eh. Bakit kaya ganun? Kapag nagiging masaya ako, sobrang fleeting lang. Hindi naman ako masamang tao, di ba? Bakit hindi ako pwedeng maging masaya ng matagal?” the girl almost laughed with what she said. It sounded absurd to protest in such a way but that was all that she could say, it was all that she could feel.

Fate strikes without warning, that she began to realize. And in a peculiar way, it also tries to redeem itself from miscalculations and bad endings. Sometimes, it signals people when to decide on completely giving up and it also just tells people when to bid goodbye. Just days after those moments of awkward silences between them, the news broke in, and it slapped everyone hard. The client decided to ramp down so the program was left with the decision to transfer some of the people who passed their metrics and terminate those who didn’t. Yes, as hard as that. He was one among those people who was re-profiled to another program, which meant that he needed to leave the team and be relocated to another site. The girl knew that he didn’t want to go but he had no choice. Everyone was left with no choice.

The succeeding days were almost unbearable. It made her weep to see almost all the newhires go – those waves of people she trained and loved were all gone in a snap. It was a big lump in the throat for her to see them leave, one after the other. The operations floor was near the vicinity of being deserted, and it brought about an unexplainable wave of sadness to see and hear less people talking.

Then came his last day in the operations. How could she forget that final day? That was the day that they never talked again. Words suddenly became elusive between them. She never had a chance to bid him farewell. She didn’t find the guts to joke him around about breaking a leg. The girl was just too hesitant to be near him anymore. Moments rushed in, hours into minutes, and until the last second, no parting words came out.

And then he left. Finally. And she missed all her chances to say goodbye.

That was the end of her story. The story about her second chance on happiness that was just cast in vain, like kisses in the wind. That was her mundane story about being wrong the second time around.

It wasn’t as hard as her first fall. It wasn’t that bad, she smirked. As she looked back to the days that were, the girl even felt humiliated to even allow things to end up that way. She wanted to hit herself for falling for someone so young and stubborn. He was already gone and she was still hoping to hear any news from him, but no news from him came out. And she finally understood the reality of things. She hated herself for caring too much but that’s just the way she was. No matter how much she loathed the idea, she cared for him still but was just to enlightened with the idea that she needed to stop from there. The girl was on the verge of what’s supposed to be a moving forward scheme and was planning to waive everything off and pick up where she left off – which was the time before she met the newhires, during the time that she was too careless about everything else.

But she is still painfully hopeful. Yes, that’s how absurd she becomes most of the time. And is excited with the idea on how far the third time of being wrong could go... on how the third time could swallow her whole again - hook, line, and sinker.

Next, please… :D

Damsel In Distress

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turning back time

Monday, October 12, 2009

Monday, October 05, 2009

The Quintessential Story About Being Wrong The Second Time Around