dear cloud: 20

•••

06

April 1, 2018

Sunday

________________

Dear Cloud,

Hi baby.

It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon right now. I’m currently onboard a plane, the destination: back to our country, to home.

And since it’s a Sunday, that means we’re allowed to be honest.

 

Since that’s the way it has always been for me.

Today, I’ve never been more happy.

I’m happy and overwhelmed and excited because the Springtime brought you to me and because of you, I was allowed to restart my life over again. I am able to reinvent myself until I become a better version of Me. To continuously adapt and transform with everything life has blessed, gifted and thrown at me so that I can make my way towards You.

You who are everything and you who mean everything to me now.

Which is why I now know what’s in store for me. What’s waiting. It’s such an impossible dream but I know, I feel it in my soul, that I’m shaping my life to become better for you.

To prepare for you.

I also know that right now, I’m the one thing, and only thing in my life I can control and yeah. I do have a lot to work on because a convenient, easy, safe yet wonderfully challenging, and happy life is what I aim for, what I want to give you. And while it will take so much hard work, patience, faith and time, mixed in with more blood, sweat and tears, these can and will be built in 6 years.

For now, I’ll do right by our promise and begin piecing our life together with what I have. Laying down the foundation for the next great adventure of my life. To start working on and writing out the first draft of tomorrow—a tomorrow that leads to the reality of you.

And these will be built from love and everything I love right now, and the happiness I chase. Because the best things in life are mostly free and I am blessed to be able to grasp most of what makes me incredibly happy in my hands because they are right in front of me.

Such as being blessed with the unconditional love and support I get from my family—our family. Like the wonderful opportunities of being able to see the world and everything it has to offer with new eyes. Being able to enjoy the Universe’s kindness through the reality of real friends and strangers. To also seeing each day as an opportunity to keep learning and growing, while also failing upwards too, towards the best version of ourselves.

But do you know what’s a favorite of mine from all these, the one that can make me instantly incredibly happy?

It’s the music and all the songs I get to listen to. And all the rest that’s just waiting to be made and discovered and then listened to—once or always, anytime, and on repeat even.

There’s so much of the world to uncover, and I promise you we will do these together, but the hard cold truth is that sometimes that takes time and a lot of money—things I don’t always have. But, mang, we are so lucky, so blessed, because music?

Music will always be there. It has been there for me, for my Home, and now it will be there for you.

It will be there for you whenever you need it, or even when you think you don’t need it. For music has been there for me since I can remember and will play such a huge part in our lives.

It has helped me go through hard times and happy ones. It’s what keeps me sane and pulls me back from walking off the ledge, over and over again. It’s what helps me keep the faith and keeps me a little farther away from the Bully and Death, helps me manage my Issue, drowns out what might hurt me and shields me from all the words that can cut me down like knives, words shaped like bullets aimed at my soft, human heart and my struggling hypothalamus. It’s what anchors me, keeps my heart in the clouds and my feet on the ground, and reminds me constantly that music connects me to Home—no matter how far apart we are from each other.

And I am excited for you. Excited for you to hear and feel how music and songs will be there, just for you, patiently waiting for you.

I can’t wait for you to listen to your first song. To discover new music and see what makes your ear holes and soul so happy you can’t help but dance.

I’m also excited for the songs that will pull at your heart gut and make you feel everything. And the music that makes you cry. And cry.

And cry some more.

I want you to hear, and really listen, and let your soul, mind and body embrace everything and I am so, so, soooo excited for you. You have no idea, my darling.

I cannot wait for you to find your favorite band or musician, discover what you’ll consider as your favorite songs. I cannot wait for you save up your allowance to buy your first CD and listen to an album straight for the first time, because that will never ever happen again. To really crack open the plastic wrapper and mull over the album and absorb everything and anything from this piece of important plastic. I cannot wait for you to beg me to take you to this gig or ask for tickets to this concert for your next birthday—and I promise, to always, anytime say yes, begrudgingly even when I know you have school or exams the next day (but if you’re grounded, that’s another story, dear).

I cannot wait for you to cry over a band breaking up, or a music legend you look up to passing away. I cannot wait for you to get weird and sad and whiney over a musician that makes your heart burn. I cannot wait for you to keep discovering and listening to new genres and getting to learn how to appreciate every one of them without bias because good music is good music is good music, regardless of what other’s opinions are about them (—music appreciation is yours and yours alone. Accept rec’s, but my goodness, don’t stop listening to what you like just because someone else doesn’t appreciate these. Don’t also force your favorites on anyone. Just offer these and then allow them to build their own appreciation or opinion on your musical taste. But don’t worry, I have amazing taste in music so you’ll definitely have this as well since it’s ingrained in our DNA.)

 

I cannot wait for you to come up with your own playlists and mixtapes, arranging the songs and letting them flow and sound good to you and to whoever you want to gift these to. Or when you make these for yourself to commemorate your favorite experiences or even those that suck or make you feel like shit. I cannot wait for you to associate songs to feelings and experiences and even people. I cannot wait for you to feel the most kilig over songs, muling the lyrics and connecting them to your latest muse. I cannot wait for you to rage about something that annoys you, that you listen to angry music so that you could be as spiteful and petty without hurting anyone and just release all that violence by listening to anything loud and mad and then calm down after such a deafening but mood-changing music experience. I cannot wait for you to hide away and tear up when someone breaks your heart and you listen to sad songs on repeat for comfort (—I’ll make sure to bring you chocolate, bought or homemade, and wrap you in hugs and pepper your face with kisses, and just stay quiet, and to just listen if you want to share the sadness with me.)

 

But most of all, I cannot wait for you to love OPM, to really listen to the lyrics that come in Filipino or English, or both, or in a different dialect, or any genre or form these songs come in. I want you to love old songs, the classics, and appreciate and discover new local artists and support them by sharing their music with more people. I want you to love the songs that make up your history and the songs that you will carry with you forever and will fit into any mood, or your feels, or experiences you live out.

There is so much to be excited for, my dear. So while you are not here yet, allow me to make you playlist after playlist of the songs I love and I hope you will soon love too.

 

But if you don’t, it’s okay. I just hope you still listen either way.

Love, always, anytime

Your mother

️

dear cloud: 19

To CLOUD(y with a CHANCE of anything and everything because you will be the child of the girl made of storm),

I want you to love running.

Yes, you heard me, right.

Let me repeat myself: I want you to love running.

And, my dear, I don’t want you to just like it—you’re going to hate me one day for this, but I don’t care, because I am your mother. You have to love running.

And if you don’t, you’ll just have to learn how to love it.

Just like how you should learn and teach yourself to love anything and everything that excites and interests you, anything that catches your eye, everything that catches your fancy.

My darling, only know how to love one way, my way, and now yours.

Two words: Love. Hard.

Love hard, Cloud.

Go big or go home, right?

In school, at work, on stage, in life and especially in love—love like I do. Love like we do.

Love. Hard.

Love so hard you wear your heart, proud and unashamed, be as you as you can be, on your sleeve for the rest of the world to see always, anytime.

Love so hard it sets your heart on fire, makes you burn inside out, hurts you but still transforms you, makes you feel so alive always, anytime. 

Love so hard it changes you, teaches you, challenges and pains you, knocks you off your feet and the air out of your lungs always, anytime.

Love so hard you laugh and you cry, confuses you, makes you smile so bright your cheeks hurt, makes you bawl so bad you feel your soul cleanse itself through every tear always, anytime.

Yes, my dearest, my last hope, my CHANCE, I want you to love.

Love hard always, anytime.

But only second to how much you should love yourself. Again, always, anytime. 

Now back to running.

I want you to love running, Cloud.

I need you to love running.

I need you to run.

I need you to run as fast as you can.

I need you to run as fast as your legs can carry you.

I need you to run as fast, as if you were running your very last, making you run even faster than you know you could, surprising yourself.

Surprise yourself. 

I want you to use your two legs to jump and run, and feel the stretch of your muscles with every stride, allowing you to swing your legs, allowing you to leap and leap and leap, and go even further.

Further away from me if you want to.

Just keep running.

I want you to run and run and run.

I want you to love feeling out of breath, holding your breath, preserving the air inside your lungs, the only way running so hard can teach you.

And I want you to run so hard that you always end up feeling that way—out of breath. So that you live your life looking at the world, allowing anything and everything to steal your breath away at how wonderful it really, truly still is.

Run my dearest, darling, you.

So that when you run and reach the point when you think you’re already out of air to breath, promise me you’ll gather whatever strength you didn’t know was still in you—and then.

Keep running.

Full speed ahead towards the direction of what makes you happy.

Keep running.

Full speed ahead towards the direction of uncertainty and what scares you, and what makes you uncomfortable.

Keep running.

Full speed ahead towards a destiny of your choosing and work twice as hard for.

Keep running.

Full speed ahead towards a life you are allowed to shape into any form, making your own choices and decisions, and owning them.

Keep running.

Full speed ahead towards the best version of you, and continue reinventing yourself over and over again, so you never stop learning.

Keep running.

Keep running.

Keep running.

Keep running and save yourself.

dear cloud: 18

Hi baby,

I thought of you today, about the person you could grow up to be.

And I got excited and teary eyed, ‘cause I know you’ll be a handful and you’ll be a crazee kid just like me. But for sure, you’ll be hella smart—and I just know it, because. Well, you’ll be smart, but for sure you won’t get that from me. 

But whoever you become, whatever you’re meant to be, I really hope and pray that you’ll love everything and anything—just like your mommy.

I pray you’ll love music, especially OPM. And maybe you’ll like My Chemical Romance, and even Mayday Parade, and you’ll fall in love with my favorite songs from the Eraserheads.

I hope you’ll love books and reading! But if you don’t, my goodness, I’ll read to you every single night so you’ll love Harry Potter, and comic books, and C.S. Lewis, and fairytales and spooky stories. And if you’re not too sleepy, I hope you don’t mind a few pages of history books, which I will read to you in a way it’ll feel like an adventure and a journey to the past.

I wish you’ll love movies and TV shows. I hope you’ll enjoy Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, Regular Show, We Bare Bears, Steven Universe, and Star vs the Forces of Evil. And like other OG classics, and late-night shows that were my favorites. I hope you’ll love Harry Potter, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings marathons on the weekends, and Pixar and Studio Ghibli movie nights on Friday’s. And I hope you’ll enjoy Disney movies as much as I did, kid, because they made me want to have a happily ever after, no matter what happiness means to me.

I pray, hope and wish for a lot of things because of you, Cloud. But I think that no matter what you’ll grow to love, I know you’ll be strong af, you’ll be hella strong. I feel that you’ll command and demand attention, and lead because you can, but listen and serve because you know what it means to be a true leader. You’ll be lazy, but know when to be hardworking. I know you will be kind and you will put others first, but always second to yourself, because you’ll be an arrogant, dragon for sure. I know you’ll love running and I know how much you’ll love dancing, or at least try to, for there’s a 50% chance that you grow up to have two left feet—like me, but don’t ever let that stop you. I know you’ll learn to love commuting, and train rides and bus rides. 

And my goodness, I can only imagine the places we will go. 

There is just so much in store for the both of us. I feel it. I know it.

Cloud, we’re so far away, but yet, I feel so much closer to you now. Everyday I take another step closer to you. Everyday feels so good, where I just know I’ll be able to hold you in my arms. Everyday I feel a new sense of hope, that no matter what bad shit comes along the way, whatever happens to me, I’ll find a way to you. 

I’ll fight for you with everything I’ve got. And when I’m close to giving up, I’ll pull out whatever strength I didn’t know I still had in me and just.

Yeah. 

I’m never giving up on you, Cloud. 

I love you so, so much.

You make me believe even when I cannot see you. I only have to go out, look up, and see—well, clouds, and there you are.

You make me so happy, you have no idea. When I see baby clothes, or new things, I always think, “I think Cloud will love this, I think Cloud might enjoy this.” And I just burst into laughter, or cry, because it’s so ridiculous, the idea of you, but. You make me happy, you really do. And most importantly,

You make me strong, stronger than I am. I’m not as strong as Home, God knows that. I’m limited, I’m weak, I’m powerless at times even when I want to keep fighting. But, Cloud, you have to know, you make me so strong. You make me believe I can do anything and everything for you. You make me feel like I can turn my weaknesses into my weapons. You drown out all the noise, when people talk bad about me, when things go to shit, you just. You give me this strength. It’s so overwhelming how powerful you are. For when I can’t breathe and on the verge of breaking down, or when I’m suffering from a panic attack, or I’m just in tears because I’m so tired—you’re there to help me pick up the pieces and try again.

And so, I thought of you today, just like every single day, but today I thought of who you could be and where else I could take you, my dear.

And to be honest, I haven’t really planned out the last part yet. I mean, I love planning of course, my dearest, darling, you, but.

Like Home said, We plan the first half and then.

We see what happens.

You’ll be the most awaited adventure and the greatest escape and I cannot wait for you.

Love you, anak. Alam mo ‘yan.

Love, always, anytime,

Your mother

☀️⛅️🌦

how I've missed you

I cut class just so that I can finish cleaning my room.

My side of the room was starting to resemble Mordor for the past few weeks and mom gave me a warning this morning before she left for work. I got the shivers when she closed the door to the girls' room, and it was not because of the sweater weather. I don't want a repeat of when I woke up to a clean room, but with Arielle junk piled by the stairs, all in plastic bags ready to be thrown away and given to macho basureros.

So after my second class, I ninja flew all the way home in order to clean le room. Still had enough time to drop by a store to buy something tho'. It's for le fantastic plans >:) that's all I can say.

~

The room is not of Mordor proportions, but it's still not as clean for the parental units' standards. But whatevs, man. I can see my bed! Finally! No moar crashing on the couch. I'm seriously praying my bed takes me back, rips up the divorce papers and marries me again. I miss my bed.

I know it missed me too.

Speaking of beds. I've been having pretty.... odd dreams since Saturday night. No pictures under my pillow dreams, but they were. Darn. No words can describe how weird they were. Oh, Arielle's subconscious what the hey hey is up with you right now?

Don't feel like sleeping. So many beat tapes need to be listened to.

For my 11:11 wish later, I will wish that I will not have a fail pail day tomorrow. I have fantastic plans!

And jazz hands. And funky fingers.

- >:)

p.s.
Seriously tho, the dreams? So very, very odd.

And I'll be here in the morning if you say stay

So I've decided to go on a twitter hiatus. Facebook is out of the question, because no one is old school anymore and this is where school shizz goes down. Everyone just lives off the internet now.

I will spend most of my time trying to get new dance-y tunes in my head, listen to the radio at 2 in the morning (how I missed this), think of interesting things to talk about and to learn how to make chunky bracelets. I am a multi-tasking ninja. Also, hey chores!

Today I was set to do the following:

• bake cupcakes
• buy boxes for cupcakes
• buy ingredients for fifty cupcakes
• be a ninja on a mission to spread happiness

I was asked to bake cupcakes for someone's debut tomorrow. Might even start working on them cupcakes tonight. I've done seventy five before, hope I don't die from this. No rest for the wicked.

~

Friday. Today was Friday. And I wanted to cheer someone up. I was a ninja on a mission. A never-ending mission where it was my duty and way of the ninja to make people happy. For today I was going to try to make someone happy.

I've known this person since high school and she is precious. I think I owe her my soul. Or maybe one of my future unborn children.

I call her Taemin.

Taemin actually is .... hmm... Well, she is precious. And she is also fragile. And I took it upon myself to be the one to tell her that I love her and will forever be in her debt. One, because I really do and two, she also has a pile of letters as evidence of why I must do so in the first place. Very embarrassing evidence of the person I was almost five years ago. It was scarring. I actually read all of it.

It took forever, but I finally found her. It took an MRT ride, the longest jeepney ride of my life, losing P20 to load that was never sent my way aaaand walking. Lots of walking.

But whatevs. I got to spend a day with her. Her dog, Gus, loved me. Or I think he did. He kept hugging my legs, smelling my smelly feet and chewing at my bag (I left Diablo at home, phew!). She fed me with fried chicken and I swam in gravy. We watched music videos and parodies, and we laughed at all the gayness. I made her listen to new music and she made me listen to SafetySuit. They sound nice. She also did my nails and gave me really cool Killjoy nails for my right hand. She is amazing at nail art.

 Killjoy Party Poison inspired nails. Man, she is amazing

Mismatched nails. She did the awesome one, I made the plain one

Me making Taemin a bracelet. Will make her a new one. A better one.

Besides me trying to make her laugh and make a funny, she also helped me remember how much of a douche past!Arielle was. It made me feel like poop. Because past!Arielle was too obnoxious, too full of herself and asked for so much things. Also she was the weirdest person to ever walk the planet and she never always kept her promises. I may be in the level of uncool and emo forever, but I'd rather be that than go back to being.... that. I was embarrassing, oblivious and I ruined people's lives. And apparently broke hearts. An ugly girl who hurt people's feelings without even knowing it. So very, very sad.

Today she kept saying this: "Arielle, you are so paasa". I don't even know why. Is it bad to give people so much attention? Or shower them with affection? Or tell them that if they felt all alone, someone out there loves them? That that person was me? 

Hey, that doesn't sound too bad. It could even be a song. 

But seriously, I am too oblivious and get lost all the time that the ninja title doesn't suit me.

Me + Taemin 

(I'm so thankful we stayed friends, I'm always here- forever making it up to you >:D<)

Oh, who am I kidding. I'm a ninja. I still did get to share the funny and make someone happy. This was what I want to do for the rest of my life. All I want to do is make people happy. 

And maybe dye my hair pink. And meet Spencer Smith.

- >:)

p.s. Must make an entry about last weekend. Too many pictures, but I will try.