I have never been comfortable presenting myself the way I “really” am to people. Leaves one open to criticisms. Leaves one’s character open to unneeded criticisms from people I do not know and really do not care about. Yet their words clearly leave a dent in me that would leave me bleeding for quite some time.
Anonymity is my good friend. But one cannot remain living in anonymity for the rest of her life. Sooner or later, if people think you are good at something, they are likely to notice it. So I create my own characters which people can look at but can never touch.
It was like this one very uncomfortable but extremely revealing situation I found myself one Tuesday night.
There you sat at a coffee shop late one night trying to decipher what is it I’m hiding from you. Staring at me with those piercing eyes, trying to read me.
“You seem shy!”
And in my mind, “You’re looking through me and you’re trying to read me. Very disconcerting, very unnerving. Didn’t your mother tell you it’s impolite to stare? Please stop reading me…”
“Ako? Mauwa??? Nganu gud tawn!
And so I continued with my gay, animate, half-real, unemotional, superbabaw stories so that I could fill the void and distract you. But your next words almost caused me to fall from my seat.
“Nganung daghan kag layers? Daghan kaayo kag patong… murag sibuyas, daghag panit.”
Now that… I was not expecting. God, he’s good! He’ll make a fortune out of reading other people if he were in Carbon. It was quite unfortunate I did not ask him about my lovelife and my financial status for this year.
But he won’t stop peeling me. I hate that. He’ll stop at nothing to have a glimpse of my core.
“Hadlok kang masakitan no? And these layers, gusto kang makit an sa uban pero since mabaw ra sad sila, di jud sila tawn makakita”
I began to cry. How come he’s the only one who took the time to see it? For the longest time, all the people I loved never saw that person.
There I was crying at a coffeeshop with a man who’ll make a fortune if he decides to become a Carbon fortuneteller. And I regret not having sexual fantasies about him nor romantic notions of us under the moon and under the stars ‘cause I have found there someone real---a real friend. (Sigh) Real friends are hard to find.
Speechless as I am up to now everytime I recall that revelation, I ask myself why. Why the layers?
I have always been a storyteller. I love stories… fairy tales or real-life stories never had much of a difference for me. I create stories most of the time I would believe in, gullible as I am. I go to one-on-one eyeballing in the hopes of getting a good story. I frequent chatrooms just so I could exchange experiences with somebody totally anonymous or somebody from another place on earth.
In my mind, I create characters. I live those characters. Fragments of them would come spilling out once in awhile…sometimes in outbursts, sometimes in trickles, sometimes in a constipated way that leaves me bleeding for words.
His revelation can never stop me from creating my characters. They are a part of the me, myself, and I.
I am living in my own shadow in a protective shell I created---a place of solace from the harsh and cold surrounds, a place to nurture a more creative me. A place where no one knows where fiction or reality begins. A place where only I am the only one who knows which of me is real. Where “real is really real” only when I say it’s real.
But who am I tell you people which is real and which is not?
You make me real.
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