Miami


Rest in Peace.

Today I've learned that I do fear death. Today I knew someone who died.

When my friend told me the news, I felt my body getting tense with terror. It is not the first time I get news like this. Earlier this year, I received similar news about a person whom I held dear in a corner of my heart. I am not gonna lie.
These people were not my best friends. Not even my friends. More like acquaintances. I am not going to say how wonderful they were because I haven't seen them for four years, maybe five. These were not people I hanged out with in high school, but they were people I knew. People I said hi everytime I saw them and I would engage in small conversation if I found them around. But I knew the people who were their friends. And I knew how close they were to them. And I can feel their pain from afar. And that pain breaks every single fiber inside me.
Once I said I wasn't afraid of dying. Maybe that's true. I am not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of death. Death terrifies me to my core. Maybe is because I am terrified of loneliness because people seem to walk out of my life more than I like. Maybe is because when I love someone, I love them with all that's left of me, and I would give anything for their happiness, and thinking of causing pain is out of the question. I don't know why. Sometimes I don't understand myself. Sometimes? Most of the time.
I hope their families and friends are holding up.
I am thankful that all the people I love are still around. The ones that are still around.

Rest in Peace.


PS: As I was writing the previous post, it came to my mind that, if I was a superhero, I would have the power of empathy.

Retrace.

Coming back to the place where you were raised should be a great experience. You get to see how much you've changed and how different things were back then For me it's a painful and strange sensation. I have so many good memories in this place, great moments, great people, great memories. But when I know everything I know now, I sometimes get angry at the fact that most of those memories surrounding my family were never true. I send most of the time back home wanting to go back to Boston, where all I can think of are the great memories, but not the one that got shattered years back.
Once I get here, everything comes back to me, good and bad memories, and I doubt myself if I ever want to come back.
A year ago, I would come here and spend most of the time trying to hide my anger, but I've learned to let it go.
I always end up coming back. And I'm pretty sure I'll keep coming back. The good memories overcome the bad ones.

Last day before Christmas Break

Today is the last day of my semester.
It was not a good semester, it was not bad either.

There were things I would have done differently since day one, but I can't change the past now, can I? And even if I can, I would never change it. "Never regret anything that once made you smile." In the last few weeks, I've felt as if I'm ready for a new chapter of my life. Somehow, this semester made me "grow up" and mature more than what I already was. I've learned to live with my angels and my demons, and to know when to listen to them and when to not. I've made new friends, lost a couple ones. I've found love, I've lost it, and found it again. I can't be more happy with where I am now. I see all my effort being rewarded, all my dreams getting closer and closer everytime.
I've learned that when you do something out of pure love, it will come out pretty good. I've learned that not anyone is to be trusted but that does not mean I won't trust the person coming after. I've learned that the only way of looking at life is through eyes full of color and beauty, and that even in the ugliest and darkest moments, there is always beauty and light. There is always something worthy of you being in there, in that moment, at that time, in that situation. Everything is worth it. Everyone is worth it.
I finally understood how to stop worrying and loving the bomb.

Dismantle. Repair

There are some songs that, no matter how old they are, you never skip. Maybe it reminds you of something or someone, or is just a damn good rhythm. But this is not the case with this one.

This song does not have a special meaning for me. It is not about someone, or something, or a special event, or something I can't seem to let it go. I have no idea why this song is so special to me. Everytime I listen to it, it makes me think, but I have no idea what I'm thinking about. I have no idea how I am feeling. I have no idea why this song stay in my subconscious ever since I listened to it for the first time in 2007. It is a complete mystery to me.

Thanksgiving.

I can't believe how much I've changed since last Thanksgiving. I was insecure, unhappy, no confidence, no self respect, and I was living a life in Black and White. Today, I am completely the opposite. I have found myself, and it is not in the reflection of someone else, but in my own reflection.
Today, I look myself in the mirror and I love what I see. I am not perfect, but I'm not striking for perfect.
I love my friends, and I've learned to love my new family.

On Friday, we watched three movies: Brave, Elf, and Love Actually. I am in love.
In love with life. In love with laughter. In love with art. In love with rainy days. In love with him.

Somehow, in the past few months, I've found a way to see everything with a different light and, no matter how crappy it looks, it will never be something else other than happiness. Because, quoting one of my screenplays, "happiness is not a place to be. it's more like a state of mind."

Let Christmas come, my favorite holiday of the year.

The Leader and the Followers


Letter to an old friend.

Hello,

     Hope life is treating you well.
     Last night, I found myself thinking about you, and it hurt. Not as much as it would hurt if it was a month ago, but it did hurt a little. I guess that's how you feel when you have an unfinished business in the back of your head, and it pokes you once in a while, reminding you it exists.
     I don't know what I did wrong, or if I did something wrong, but your silence makes me think I certainly did. Lucky me, I've lost so many people I considered important to be depressed over the fact that you left. People just... tend to walk away, and that's alright with me. I've came to accept that people will come and go, and only a handful (up to today, two) will stay in my life forever. I've never been a person of connecting with everyone. Truth is, when I was younger, I had to do some research on how to react to certain situations because I had no idea what to do. Once in a while, I will meet someone that I can truly connect with, and that person has always ended up walking away from me.
     When I met you, I instantly felt that connection, and I was scared of letting you know of it. Mostly because I did not think I was able to see someone else walk away from my life once  more. I've had a lot going on in the past three years of my life, and although to people (or you) it might seem like it could've been worst, it was pretty bad. I had the help of no one to hold me in my darkest days, and I went through it myself. I was the one who decided to get out of my bed everyday, even when my entire body just wanted to stay in there the entire week. So when the good days came, I was finally happy. I made it through, and I knew the only one I needed to make it on this life was myself.
     As our friendship progressed, I grew scared and scared of the day I won't see you in school, or the day I would leave to pursue my dreams, or the day that you finally would walk down the path of everyone else. I was terrified, but the good times were more than the fear.
     Out of nowhere, our friendship starting growing up into something else. It made me happy, but, ultimately, I wanted you to be happy. I guess you weren't. So you left.
     I asked you one night what went wrong, and you never replied. Thanks for that. Thanks for not having the courage to tell me, to confront me.
     And I thank you because you made me stronger. You might think I should hate you with all my life but truth is, I can't hate anyone. I don't hate you, I will never hate you.
     With time, all I will remember would be the good times: our conversations late at night looking at the ceiling, the day I won at pool, the first day I talked to you, our days at the library, at the hookah bar, and the night I asked you, "so... are we okay?" and you looked at me, and replied, "yeah, why you ask?"

Walk-in.

A smile. A hand shake. Or just a look. Sometimes, this is all it takes.

There is this cool guy that comes around once in a while. He has talked to me once in a while, and it's a really cool guy. A little nerdy, somewhat cool, maybe a geek, I don't know, but he always comes, says hello, smiles at me, and walks away. I respect people who do that. I love when people I don't know come to me and start a conversation. You don't see that so often these days.
Sometimes, when people approach me, I tend to give them some unusual backstory. I don't know if it's because I read too many comic books, or if that's what every writer does, but I entertain myself in figuring out the person with what little he or she says.

Camera.

There is something... magical about doing what you love.
Yesterday, I woke up at 4:30AM, drove about 3 hours, filmed two scenes that took about 7 hours and drove 4 hours back to my house, getting into my bed around 11:30PM to wake up today to go to work at 9AM.
Sounds insane, but I don't regret any second of it.
I prefer doing this for the rest of my life than have a desk job at a company where I'll get bored out of my mind, going through papers, phone calls, moody people and more papers. There is something fulfilling everytime I go over all the footage I took on a shooting day and see it's great.
Most of the time, I'm sleep deprived, but it makes me happy. Most of the time I'm working on multiple projects at the same time and I want to pull my hair or scream out loud, but I'm happy. Sometimes I whine about how much work I have or how little sleep I get, but at the end of the day, I go to bed with a smile on my face.
I love what I do, and although it's not perfect, I'm not looking for perfect.
Happiness is not perfection. Happiness is knowing what you want, and enjoy every single second you have doing what you love. And if you don't know what you love? Well, the journey does not end there. Keep going, that you will get somewhere. The goal is not the thrilling part, it's the journey. It's sounds awfully cliche, but it's the truth.
This month, I've been... somewhat productive:

  • I rewrote Looking For Paradise, which will get published on Naked Acts, the school's screenwriting journal. 
  • I'm in the middle of producing/shooting my Senior Seminar, a short film called Ashes.
  • I started a new untitled screenplay.
  • I'm working on a graphic novel.
  • I added close to ten pictures to my photography portfolio.
Somehow it looks weird that all those sentences start with the word "I."
Am I being egocentric? Or am I being selfish? I don't know. I just know that I want things to work. I want things to happen, so I decide to make it happen.
Because seeing things happening make me happy.

Rock My World


Woods.

Everytime I come back to New Hampshire, I take a walk on the woods. Close to my apartment, there is a railroad. At first I thought it was an old railroad because... well, it seems abandoned. Supposedly, there is a train that passes there everyday. I've been living in here for over two years, and I haven't heard it once.
This gave my imagination something to wander about.
There is a railroad in my backyard, guarded by trees and autumn leaves. On first sight, there's nothing more than old and rusted metals. No one walks around it. Some say it's haunted, others don't mind it. But everyone knows.
Close to midnight, the clocks freeze, time stops for a whole minute. Only those who wait for it, realize this. In that minute, the stars shine. The soft hissing of the whistle comes to the ear as sudden as wind. With every second it comes closer and closer. That's when a red and black train travels in time through those railroads.
For a whole minute.
If you stay in the woods at midnight, and plan carefully your escape, you can hop into the train of memories and time traveling.

Let us play in the summer.


Present


Grasslands are now grey like ashes
with a bloody sun up in the sky.
The Kings and Queens of Earth,
at the bottom of the food chain.
I lay my eyes across downtown
The great city, now gone,
piles of dust under smoke and bones.
People in filthy, torn up attires,
Looking for food and water everywhere,
a mix of broken bricks and despair.
Where I stand, the belfry of the church,
the broken body of the bell saves me
from unwanted stares.
It looks like the stage I used to play,
but it is reality. Welcome to existence.

Like.

I like quotes. I have a sketch book and I collect quotes. I am not a person who lives through other people sayings, but I like to reflect myself in what other people think of the world. It is fascinating for me to read what other people has to say about the time we live in, how we are supposed to interact with each other, and how it is to fall in love. Quotes make me think of another world, where words are the songs of the soul.

I like words. I like to have words on the walls of my room. They fulfill me, and they fulfill my desire to have a beautiful poem on the walls of my room. Somehow, those words reflect what I can't seem to say. How much I love. How much I fear. How much I think that paradise is right here, with us, right now. How perfect the world is because it is not perfect. Because people come and go. Because people will hurt you.

I like optimism. I like to see the world with all its beauty and accept that, in order for beauty to exist, it has to have some counterpart that must of us call ugly. I prefer to see the glass half full than half empty. I might be a pessimist sometimes, only when I'm tired and in desperately need of sleep. Once a new day comes in, I can't help but to feel overwhelmed with everything around me.

I like people. I like to talk to people and to laugh and to smile. I like to think everytime I smile to someone, I'm helping them to have a better day. Smiles can change people. Smiles have changed me. Culture clashes and people clashes, and it is fascinating.

I like pain. I like hurting because at the end of the day, pain develops areas of myself I would never be able to without it. From the pressure comes diamonds. Crying until falling asleep? Been there, done that. But those are the things that had made me who I am today. I can't help but think, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, it's darker before dawn, and it has never failed me. Success is inside you, and you are the one who decide to succeed or fail.