taken from decembriel's entry.

What I Am (and not what I want to be)

If I were a month, I’d be November.
If I were a day of the week, I’d be Wednesday.
If I were a time of day, I’d be sunset time.
If I were a planet, I’d be Neptune.
If I were a sea animal, I’d be a sea urchin.
If I were a direction, I’d be backward.
If I were a piece of furniture, I’d be a writing table.
If I were a liquid, I’d be a trickle of the tainted elixir of life.
If I were a gemstone, I’d be a smoky quartz.
If I were a tree, I’d be a tall enough to shade you from the harsh sun, but short enough for you to climb my branches and see the world from my shoulders.
If I were a tool, I’d be a lock.
If I were a flower, I’d be a yellow rose with unwieldy thorns.
If I were a kind of weather, I’d be a sandstorm.
If I were a musical instrument, I’d be a lute-- outdated, yet enchanting.
If I were a color, I’d be blurry gray.
If I were an emotion, I’d be enough regret for the both of us.
If I were a fruit, I’d be a miracle fruit-- I'll turn your sorrows into jubilation.
If I were a sound, I’d be the sound of rain falling on the window.
If I were an element, I’d be silver.
If I were a car, I’d be whatever you need on your journey.
If I were a food, I’d be kimbab-- not that tasty, but functional.
If I were a place, I’d be a moonlit glade, giving you enough light to rest for the night but not as life-giving as the sun.
If I were a material, I’d be a seemingly hard chair belying the softness underneath.
If I were a taste, I’d taste tangy. But you'd have to peel my hard layers first.
If I were a scent, I’d be the smell of a rainstorm.
If I were an animal, I’d be a fleeing antelope.
If I were an object, I’d be a torn journal.
If I were a body part, I’d be your eyes.
If I were a facial expression, I’d be-- who knows what I'd be? My death glare? My fleeting, wistful glance?
If I were a pair of shoes, I’d be a pair of clunky, worn boots: there when you need it, but otherwise undesirable and fading fast.

One of the many reasons why I treasure Chang Rae-Lee's A Gesture Life is because of how he notes rifts created in communications due to non-verbal gestures.

As a liberal society where freedom of speech is allowed, we're often expected to say our grievances when we've got them. Just as precious, however, is the right to not say things. We're not tortured or viewed suspiciously when we refuse to give certain information (this closely ties in with the Aquariums of Pyongyang, a memoir that I've recently finished reading, but that rant will come at a later time).

Pity that gossipers do not know how refreshing, how dear it feels to hold a secret close to your heart.

For every personal story you tell, yours or not, and if you inject your emotions into it, it becomes your own less and less and the others' more and more. The more you tell, the more you hold yourself-- your history, your past-- more susceptible to another person's judgment. Once you let the words out, they're at the mercy of the other person. Those emotions, feelings-- you've got to choose carefully who will be their guardians, because every time they're tripped upon, you also lose a little bit of yourself.

After all, the best storytellers are not the ones who spell out their attitude towards a subject, but who instill that said attitude in their audience.

<Need proof?
Case One: Satirists/political writers such as Jonathan Swift and George Orwell use indirect sentences, analogies and dark irony to stir the same sense of disgust in their audience like they feel, too.
Case Two: Writers of memoirs such as Elie Wiesel, in Night, primarily describe events that are bound to stir similar reactions. Wiesel's very displacement from the events in the memoir show a chilling kind of illusory reality that he found hard to accept.
Case Three: Even fantasy novels are all about the showing and not the telling. There's an obscure book, I even forgot its title, where the author reveals a grotesque caricature of Hitler to be the next reigning evil. He describes it so blatantly and so without tact that I could not help be disgusted, whereas in the seventh Harry Potter book, in the scene where Snape looks into Harry's eyes, searching for something-- now that's a poignant moment that is only intensified by the next chapter.
See? It's all show and not tell>.

Keeping such silence, though, comes with drawbacks, especially when you're around the rumor mill. Gossipers have no material to work with, so they are free to spin whatever rumors; their audience will probably not know that they have no basis for those rumors anyway.

It also makes it harder to forge connections with the people you care to know better. Unless you're willing to share your flaws with others as well, you cannot call them close friends.

Unless-- unless you're willing to admit that you wear a mask, and that you have your own insecurities, those friendships will remain as casual friendships and nothing more.

Perhaps this is what this society really needs, right now, to combat all of those complaints about superficial relationships-- people to receive other people kindly, so that they can feel comfortable in exposing their flaws.

(This, of course, doesn't mean that we should simply have a crowd of people bemoaning the lacking luster in their lives and cursing themselves forever and ever without being content with their mediocrity. Such a society wouldn't find the motivation to move forward.)

It is for a fact you should never depend on someone else to become all you have; therefore, you cannot tell them everything. Some things (in the name of decency!) must be kept to yourself.


-----------
She first sits up in her chair a little more when she sees the worried look in his eyes. The second warning signal comes when he shuts the door behind him as he comes in.

Her hands nervously tug at each other under the table. He cannot see them.

"It is... the nature of our relationship that makes it in our best interests to be open with each other."

Those hands momentarily tense. She is slightly still, trying to appear unaffected.

"It's my job here--" and at this, those hands relax, "to know what's troubling the students."

She realizes, at that instant, that he worries about her recent grades. She seems hardworking, diligent, yet her performance does not catch up-- and he seems to have considered the possibility that maybe, something else was bothering her. Something inside. Something psychological.

For that moment, she almost gives in. This wouldn't be an issue if she was talking to an other person, but this man understands. He, too, does not take matters of the heart lightly; does not brush them aside as mere side effects to a mainly calculated chain of events but rather fundamental parts of the human equation. Then she sees that said understanding as a still unbroken light in his eyes and knows that he talks to an illusion. An illusion that she had never striven to maintain but had never managed to knock down, either, and all because of her reserved silence.

She did not want that light broken, to let him know that the bowl he thought was whole was so long was, in reality, barely patched together from recently cracked pieces, for this means he has to exert more effort to help her act as a whole, safe bowl again-- if he still wanted to.

She doesn't want to change the casual nature of the conversations between them, nor change the light in his eyes into something more weary.

"No, I'm fine. In fact, I've been feeling better recently." She adds mentally, well, circumstances have been better; inner turmoil hasn't settled yet. But then again, has it ever?

He does not look directly at her when he talks. He surely couldn't be scared of her, he was older than her (though, she did remember a time when she, not even out of her primary school years, stared a tutor straight in the eyes for almost a minute until he broke the silence with a brusque "What?"; some days later her mother talked to her tutor and said that he seemed to be scared stiff. What did she do to him? She lied that she hadn't done anything, really); maybe he felt foolish for suggesting such things. He says the last words while looking to the side. "At any rate, I'll be here when you need me, okay?"

He exits the room most likely feeling as if his words met a dead wall. The girl, on the other hand, allows herself-- just for a moment-- to lean her head into her arm, hoping that she made the right decision.

The only thing she knows is that she's not ready yet to displace herself from her words.
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There. Now that's off my chest, I've got to primp up my smile--

For I've FINALLY realized-- due to some very hard life lessons-- that yes, in order to be prepared for life's big challenges you've got to prepare, so that you'll be able to take care of the small stuff first! Yay! (Oh geez. seriously? Me, prepped up about having a paper, two labs and a major test all due/administered on Tuesday? Gimme a break).

At least I dare to hope now. I've listened to a particularly pertinent sermon today and it reminded me that it's okay if I don't meet the world's expectations, or that I'm imperfect in general, because the smallest amount of bread could be turned into thousands in Jesus Christ's hands. (It was a really nice sermon, but this post is already too lengthy, isn't it? Maybe later...)

Sometimes I can't think myself out of the sudden loneliness that strikes my soul. It comes just as I'm planning the next few steps that'll hopefully take me somewhere, and it reminds me that no matter how many friends I have, this is a path I walk alone. No one will applaud the goals I have, nor will any sane human be there to give the right advice while not controlling my every decision. I have to face my own failures and be responsible for the consequences of my actions, and I have to savor my success in just the right amounts, too. No other person can carry my past for me: I ultimately have to decide what my past means to me-- and for my future. These feelings, these (childish) dreams are all mine and no one else's. I am alone.

Of course, this feeling stretches back from when I was young. When I was younger I would sigh, think that I am worthless, or yearn for more friends, more companions to walk this dreary road with me. I would wish for someone to understand how I'm feeling. These days, however, whenever I feel lonely I think of something else.

I think... I think that the loneliness that we all feel at times-- that searing pain, that sense of abandonment, the sense that you're alone in this world and nothing is worth living for, that silent spread of snow in a dark and bitter land-- is but a pale reflection of the searing longing He feels during every single living second.

He's lonely.

It's hard to imagine the all-powerful being as lonely, isn't it? "Loneliness" is closely associated with "loner," and "loners" are often regarded as lost creatures deserving pity and no respect. Loneliness also has the concept of being alone all the time. God does not fit either of these descriptions-- he is too great and too merciful to be pitied, and he is probably surrounded in heaven by his most dearly beloved people: Abraham and Jacob, David and Daniel, Elijah and Enoch (and females such as Miriam and Mary).

True, he was lonely in the beginning. That's why he created Adam, right? Since he had no equal, he wanted to create someone in his "own image", someone who could talk and converse with him, and share his days in happy communion. It was idyllic, a bond that was supposed to last for life. Yet his creations proved not his resistance to sin, and were seduced by the serpent's sly syllables. So he had to chase them out, for fear that they'd become knowledgeable as well and be so swayed by the knowledge of the world that they forgot what was left of the purity of their heart.

And yet-- yet-- he didn't give up on his creations. He followed the bloodline of Adam through the age of Noah and on and on.

What did he feel, when he saw the creations that he so lovingly shaped neglect the only commandments that he ever made? What did he feel when he saw humans worship cold, non-living idols which could give nothing of the love that he gave them? What did he feel when the descendants of the human he created for companionship made him jealous of the things they spent time on, leaving none for him other than perfunctory rituals?

The New Testament shows the fermentation of his jealously, his slight bitterness, his rage. By the time Job has come around, his shell, his unwillingness to shower promises upon a people who will break his heart makes him rage at Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sand together and all the angels shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4-7). Each additional line emphasizes the fact that he was there from the beginning, and thus far more knowledgeable about earth than all of the philosophers in the world.

To be alive for all eternity! To wish for someone to kill that bleak loneliness of knowing All and seeing All! How miserable that must be, when for us mere humans we feel it as an ache in the heart whenever the latest boyfriends dumps the girl for more computer game time, or when a friend leaves us at the time of greatest need.

He has no equal to share his thoughts and his feelings, because they're on a plane that none other than a equal will understand. So he invests his time in us.

But then, if he wants companionship, then why does he desire obedience? He just wants us to obey him simply because that'll be how we express our faithfulness. Adam and Eve were chased out of Eden because, by disobeying him, they betrayed his faith in them; it will be through obedience that we come closer to God, again. We also acknowledge his greatness through obedience, as it should rightly be-- while a mere human would have cracked under the strain of carrying such a heavy burden, he manages to radiate joy whenever we seek it.

So as humans, since we cannot help him any other way, it is our duty to chase that loneliness away.

I say this to myself, whenever I'm reminded of the path I walk--whenever I remember how everyone else got a good grade because they turned in homework frantically copied from one another but I didn't because I opted not to cheat, whenever I bite back the things I want to say in order to listen to those who want their ideas heard. I also remind myself that I don't need resent the fact that I have to walk a narrow path. The one who desires me the most waits at the end of said path.

At this point you might be thinking, preposterous! Me, a pitifully mortal human, dares to try to understand the heart of an All-Powerful, everlasting and eternal God, who has raised up and struck down things I can only begin to fathom? Compared to Him who has lived for all eternity, I am just a mere speck in the thundering waters of time.

Well, yes, I do dare-- if only because He loves me, and if I want to reciprocate it, I first need to appreciate it. (It's a lost cause whenever any love is taken for granted, because in the end, the recipient ends up leaving yet another scar in the giver's heart. The ordeal is even more heart-wrenching when the recipient never realized that they held another's precious feelings in the first place).

And-- and... because I think he wants our understanding too. He wants us to follow him with our eyes open (and blinded only by His light). Blind love rarely ends well.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps he's happy beyond all understanding, and perhaps he just wants to share the love and joy that abounds in Heaven. Perhaps, although he is sad for a bit when his people defy his words, he is innately happy and satisfied with the companions who he already have. Maybe he's just content with guiding us wayward sheep and never desires for a true equal. In that case, then-- I am truly glad, for at least he can finally live forever with treasured, devoted followers at his side.

After all, the friends closest to your heart are the ones that give you something to live for.

And-- maybe this means that true loneliness doesn't exist at all, only just self-pity lavishly mixed with hopelessness...