SHARINGS FROM THE PAST
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I have actually found myself to be comfortable with myself. I mean, I just love who I am. I love all my quirks, all my depressive qualities, all my faults. I actually accept who I am, all my limitations, all my potentials, all my past. And I actually like being the noisy, wacko kind of person that I have been ever since I was born. I also like being weird, being erratic, being charming, being flirty. I like my individualistic intelligence, my flair for drama, my tears. And I am not saying I am not changing, or that I am not striving to be a better version of ME. What I am saying though is, I am secure with who I am today and look forward to being secure with the person I am becoming.

But that is when am all alone. Because sometimes, a person just makes me feel unworthy, insecure, envious, jealous…a victim. Sometimes, there are just people who, without meaning to I guess, make me feel that there’s something wrong with me, that I have to change…and change according to his or her expectations. And these people just make me feel bad about myself. And I don’t like that. I hate being made to feel that I am not good enough just the way I am. And I hate the idea that had I only been prettier, had I been more disciplined, or more reserved, or more lady-like, or less emotional…they’d love me better, or they’d accept me more.

Luckily, it’s easier to surround myself with friends who actually care about me, and not just one or two of my qualities. My friends don’t even demand that I satisfy their needs, or the image of me they want to be. They love me just the way I am, supporting me through difficult times, appreciating me in my better moments…and not enabling me when am being bad.

It’s harder to have that kind of acceptance from colleagues…especially if they’re not of my generation. And they don’t have any need in them to actually know where am coming from. Working together only really requires that I behave professionally and do my work. It’s not in their job descriptions after all to make room for individuals like me.

It’s harder still to have the general population just respect that I am a person apart from them, without any obligation to conform to their expectations. Then again, I don’t really care about the opinions of people I don’t know.

And I’ve just realized that a man who will tell me he wishes that I am less this or more that simply isn’t good enough for me. I’ve realized that he doesn’t really love me, worse, he may not be capable of real loving. Accepting me should not depend on what my past has been. Accepting me should not even have conditions. Understanding me shouldn’t require rationalizations and explanations. If he met me this way, he would love me this way. Because if he couldn’t, then he really shouldn’t even try nor pretend that he would…someday.

And yes, I am guilty of also wishing some people would be more this and less that…but I like to believe that among my friends and significant others, I haven’t come close to making “strings” of that. Despite my friends’ weaknesses and idiosyncracies, I love them anyway. Despite a man’s weirdness or irresponsiveness, I love him anyway. Because, it’s the loving them that’s important to me. And changing for the better is something we all do in our own time, at our own pace, of our own volition.

Now, to surround myself with people who actually just love me. Period.

- August 10, 2001 after watching Bridget Jones’ Diary

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MY VAGINA MANIFESTO

Ok, everybody here probably knows that this is an aftershock of the play I watched last night….THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES…

I do not really know what to say, but I will play the fool and say things anyway (in this case, post anyway) because am gonna burst!!!

I was fetched by my date for the night and we met with my friends at Shangri-la before heading to Greenhills. My girl friend and I were very excited, being away for too long from our NGO and missing talking about such stuff. Anyway, I indulged everybody with seats 3 rows, dead center from the stage. And was it an experience.

It’s not so much the monologues, it’s not so much the personalities that they were able to re-create in front of us, it was not so much the faked-but-sounding-real moans, or the puns, or Monique Wilson, or the stories…

It was more than me being a woman who can relate with the issue….it was about ME! I was and I still am that issue.

It was the things I realized about myself, and the things that I still have to do. And it was such a comforting feeling that these women on-stage are giving voice to what has always been an important but very sensitive matter.

I have always prided myself about being a strong enough woman with a healthy attitude towards my sexuality. And last night, I was able to celebrate that fact. I cannot put in words how entertained I was, how enlightened, how awed, how everything sounded like it was ME talking, whether they were going on about heartless, insensitive pigs shaving a woman’s vagina without care, girls being raped, women with women lovers, women who had good experiences with men, giving birth…

And now, I post this, not to create another controversy, not to be naughty, or whatever. I am posting this because I want to affirm my choices. It wasn’t always a pleasant trip…and I still have a long way to go. But I am a sexual being and I celebrate that. I am mighty glad that I have a clitoris and a vagina and a uterus, the ‘things’ that actually make us different from men, and that I know their purpose. I am glad that I have experienced my sexuality. That I have had orgasms. I rejoice in the knowledge that I get wet when pleasured. That I can give pleasure. That I am not frigid. That I have been with men who knew how to love a woman. That I will someday give birth. That once, my own mother literally opened herself up and bore intense pain just to have me in this world.

And please, I am not espousing that all women out there go out and have sex. It is not about being a virgin or not, being married or not, being pregnant or not…

The important thing is that women, other women, know and acknowledge the fact that aside from being spiritual beings, we are also sexual beings. WOMEN, LADIES…you are sexual beings. You have a clitoris, with double the nerves than a guy’s penis, a thing that has more nerves than your lips, your hands, your tongues. You have a body. You have a vagina. Explore yourselves. Be yourselves. Dress in the way you want to get dressed. Love your bodies. Give yourselves a voice and make yourselves heard. Take care of your bodies. And be with men who love women, who know how to look at YOU, smell YOU, adore YOU…celebrate YOU!!! Be with men who treat women with wonder, with respect, with gentleness, with understanding, and with acceptance.

And for those married women, or sexually active women…initiate your men in the art of adoring you!!!

And for the men, who are active, never assume that because you’ve had gazillions of partners, you already know how to LOVE a woman. And never assume that just because a woman’s wet or moaning, she’s already orgasmic. And be gentle…work with us!!!

And for men who still haven’t done it…well, start learning great sensitivity right now.

And for those who went before us…those who had bad experiences, traumatic experiences…those who were raped or molested…those who were abused by their own family or husband…those who were raised to repress and deny themselves… I am so sorry for the pain you must have felt. And I hope to at least be an instrument in saving at least one woman in my time from non-sexuality.

And for mothers, or expectant mothers…thank you. For the courage. For the love. For the faith. For your heart.


Darn…am just so happy being a woman. And I so love my vagina!!!

(September 2000)