Life and Movies

Life isn't like the movies. Life, and love, is harder in real life than they are in movies. In cinema, the guy always gets the girl and they set off into the sun, holding hands without a care of the world around them. They are happy, and no antagonist or cruel witch can ever destroy that happiness. Everything is possible in cinema. A poor lumberyard laborer gets the rich, affluent girl of his dreams even though years after their summer love, she’s already set to marry a lawyer from an old Southern rich family. Two bookstore owners hate each other in person but falls in love over the Internet. A young lady spending the summer in a holiday camp with her family falls in love with the dance instructor and they had the time of their lives.

            I’ve always been in love with cinema. Ever since a little girl, I’d look forward to movie dates with my parents. Every Christmas day, we would watch film fest entries. I’ve daydreamed of writing and directing my own movie based on some real people I met in my life. My life, or some parts of it, even unfolded like a movie scene right in front of my eyes. Some in color, some in black and white. Some ended abruptly, like a bad movie you would want to be refunded for, while some lasted more than the usual 1 hour and a half run time of a movie. A few chapters even ran longer than the longest Lav Diaz film.

            Having an eidetic memory does not seem to help at all. Every pain, every bit of sadness I’ve ever experienced can sometimes be like a movie projected reel by reel, frame by frame. Sometimes there would be a voice in my head that would shout “Cut!” while often times, the projectionist inside my head seems to fallen asleep while he projects that pain I have been through, making me relieve every bit of pain involved in those memories. It’s harder on those days that used to have a significant meaning for me. Like the day of a first date with a guy I really fell for. Or the day I fell in love with someone. Or, the day my boyfriend married somebody else. Most of those dates seem part of the whole movie entitled Gillian’s Past.

            In cinema, the guy would always arrive just in the nick of time. The words “too late” do not seem to be welcome in any romantic movie you will ever watch. The girl would try to leave, the guy would run to where she is, arrive in the nick of time to tell her he loves her and asks her to stay. In life, “too late” seems to be the norm. We’re too busy taking for granted the people who love us so much that when the time comes that they are gone, we realize how much they matter. Or how much we love them too. I should know. I’ve been “too late” more than once. Too late to realize I’m in love with a guy, too late to realize I’m taking someone for granted, too late to tell someone how I really felt.  And unlike a movie where you can always press rewind if you missed a scene, in life there is no rewind button to push when you’ve missed an opportunity to tell someone that you love them.

            Life isn’t like the movies. Life’s harder. Love is sometimes bitter. But unlike the movies, life continues on after 1 hour and a half. Life is much more dramatic, but much more colorful. And love, well, love is much more complicated in real life but much sweeter when you finally realized you want to spend the rest of your life with someone who loves you just the same.

random thoughts at 3 in the morning...

When I took this job last September, I stopped writing. And I miss that. When I was jobless, I had all the time in the world to sit down in front of the laptop, and conjure words from nowhere. My creative juices weren’t failing me. But the moment I sat down on that desk job, seems like the words just won’t come to me anymore. It’s not just the fact that I travel miles to go to work and to go back home that I did not have time to sit down in front of the computer and write. I tried. I even tried saving some words on my mobile phone while I’m on the road to work or home. But it just wasn’t there. The words seem to have left me and the inspiration to write seems to have left my soul. Ever since I was a kid, if there’s one thing I’m sure of, is that I want to be a published writer. Not the kind you see in movies who writes in coffee shops, looking at people and observing them while sipping a hot cup of Americano, and living a happy uncomplicated life. That’s not what I envisioned myself as a writer. I envisioned myself locking myself up in my room, all day typing the words and re-typing them, deleting words that don’t fit in, writing until it hurts and no longer a delight, and editing until my eyes hurt from looking at some of the errors I have made, emerging only when I have finished a brainchild.

But that never happened. Yes, I’ve had my fair share of writing for school publications from grade school to college, writing for company websites and blogging on my own website, I have never really finished a book. And that is what I have always wanted to do. Finish a book. Any kind of book. A novel, a semi-autobiographical piece, a fictional piece that revolves around a certain person I know. Any kind. But I want to be able to publish a book. I’ve tried. I’ve started writing a manuscript. And it revolves around a huge chunk of my life. Someone once said that the richest resource a writer has is his own life. With the numerous heartaches I’ve got throughout the years I’ve had relationships with the opposite sex, I thought I had all the resources I need. But it wasn’t easy writing about men who might be hurt by the things I have to say about them even if I hide their identity under fictional characters. I envy an ex-suitor of mine who has already published two books, and one of them has pieces about me. I wasn’t mad. I did not become mad. Because I know that there won’t be a soul who will know that he was writing about me, unless they know of our story.

Now, I have no excuse for not continuing the manuscript I have started because I have already resigned from that job. And while my husband is at my side, sound asleep and snoring, I found myself opening a word document to type my thoughts away. Mind you, I have just finished an episode of Pretty Little Liars, a show I am a bit addicted to, but at four in the morning, my mind is still wandering. Wondering if I still have the capabilities to finish what I started. Here I am, a newlywed 25-year old lady, munching on some snacks to keep me from getting hungry while contemplating if I should continue the story I have started to write, or write another one.  Ever since that rejection from a major magazine company, I have lost confidence in my ability to write. Though my two biggest fans, my mom and my husband, say I am good at writing and they know I will get published someday, I’m seriously starting to doubt that. It doesn’t help my confidence at all to be rejected four times in the past 3 years by the same major magazine for all the positions I applied for. I’m not hoping to be a Laida Magtalas who got a job as an editorial assistant and bagged the heart of his boss as the major grand prize (and plot of the movie). I’m just hoping to be able to write and be published by starting from the lowest position in any publication group. But Lady Luck was not on my side. At least not yet, I hope.

A few commendations on a short piece I posted on my Facebook wall about Tim Duncan brought in some much needed push to bring out my writing pen again and start letting the words flow in. The Spurs Nation fan page even commended it as a well written post.

 “Spurs Nation You hit the nail on the head with this Gillian, excellently written – JT”

So, should I try to finish this manuscript I have been putting on hold for quite some time now? The thought of it being finished makes me nervous. What if, it gets finished but gets rejected by publishers? What if, no publishing house in the country would accept it? What if, some really good writers I admire tell me it is full of rubbish? What if.

Every time I try to finish it, I get scared. Blame my lack of confidence on my writing skills on someone who once told me I’m not good in writing. And maybe I never really got over that blow. It is always at the back of my head every time I try to add more pages to the work I have started. Then whenever I get scared, I remind myself of this scene from one of my favorite TV shows from the US, Criminal Minds. It was from their Pilot episode entitled Extreme Aggressor. On that particular scene, one of the members of the BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit) needs to crack a password for the UnSub’s laptop. UnSub is their term for Unknown Subject, a suspect or unknown criminal that they are looking for. If they don’t get to crack the password, they might never find the missing girl. The BAU member, Derek Morgan, only has a few tries left. Their unit chief, Jason Gideon, tries to motivate him.

“Jason Gideon: Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Dr. Spencer Reid: Samuel Beckett.

Derek Morgan: Try not. Do or do not.

Dr. Spencer Reid: Yoda.”

Fail again. Fail better. Some of us have tried and failed. Some have tried again and have failed again. But have we failed better? Have I failed better?

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P.S. As of writing this, my manuscript still remains untouched. But tomorrow, or should I say later because it’s now 3:53 AM, as soon as I wake up I will continue writing my manuscript. Everyone who believes in my work and have said praises about it have given me the much needed boost to continue. Thank you. J