Ako Si PEDRO!

Nakita ko nanaman ang sarili ko. This line really struck me. It's so simple yet so complex and meaningful.

I was on my way home from work yesterday when i saw my tattoo artist/friend alex checking things on his new tattoo shop. He then called me the moment he saw me. He ask something about increasing the free space of his partitioned hard disk without losing any data, lucky him that i have my software utilities with me and since i realized that i dont have anything to do at home, i decided to help him and do it by myself instead of just telling him the instructions.

I dont have any intentions of staying long in his shop, i said to myself that i will go home immediately after i finished the thing that i am doing, but then he said, "pare trip mo bang uminom? tara, shot tayo!" then i replied "parang totoo ah, kala ko ba pass ka muna sa mga alak, kung iinom ka, cge ok lang" i said those things because i knew for a fact that he's been sobber for already more than a month. After he heard my reply, he called his tattoo model/brother nog nog and he texted few regular customers/friends like my older brother jude, dr. tan tan and arman just to name a few, to come over and have a drink. Then he gave money to his henna artist and asked him to buy some booze. After that, my cellphone beeps and when i read it, it's a message from one of my newly found friend, saying that she dont have anything to do and so bored, so i decided to invite her to come over. I went out of the shop for a while to puff a stick of cigar and i felt the cold breeze of wind brought by the typhoon cosme. I love the chillin' sensation. Wheeew! I was still taking a puff in my cigar and before i finish it my friend arrived...

The night is so young and the weather is so inviting. Large number of beers are already on the table, some tube ice, fried duck and pig's face for pulutan (yummy-high-blood-stuffs). Alex and i were starting to get drunk while waiting, then one by one, the invited ones came as fast as a speeding bullet. While sound tripping, we drank, we shared stories, we had plans for our future tattoos, we tease each other, we bullied everbody, we clowned each and everyone of us, we had fun and then alex stopped for a while and looked at the mirror, then he said "nakita ko nanaman ang sarili ko" then he laughed. The sentence was so straight forward. Literally, he really saw his self in the mirror but what he was really trying to say last night was, he saw his real him again. I knew alex for quite a while now. And i know that drinking booze is not a hobby for him anymore, it's already part of his lifestyle, but recently, he decided to lay low for a while. He's not drinking for almost two months already and for me, in my meek opinion, that is already a huge accomplishment to a certain extent.

It's alright to moderate things, it's alright to stop bad habits, it's alright to be health conscious, and it's definitely alright to change things for the better. But you know what is not alright? It's not alright to change things if some part of your personality will be taken away from you. When you change for the better but in reality, it's not making you better, when it's already making you a different person, that's definitely not alright. Hindi ka na nag eenjoy, masaya ka nga pero kulang na kulang yung araw mo. Hindi ka na masyadong nagsasaya at natutuwa, para sa akin, hindi na maganda yung ganun. Hindi ko naman sinasabing maging lasenggo ka, ang sinasabi ko lang, mahirap alisin ang isang bagay na alam mong nagpapasaya sayo. Bakit mo ba itinigil yun? Para sa ikakabubuti mo? Eh pano mo naman masasabing nakakabubuti nga sayo yong ginawa mo, kung sa kaloob looban ng sarili mo eh nararamdaman mong may kulang sa pagkatao mo?

My point here is, it's hard to change, especially if you dont want the new someone that you'll become. I will change if it's for the better, if not, then I will stay as what I am right now. I don't want to happen that one time, when I'm standing in front of the mirror, I will not see my real self, all I can see is a different person that i dont even recognize. I will not allow that to happen me. Magpapakatotoo lang ako, magpapakasaya ako at mamatay akong masaya...Yun lang!