Holding Back

Lately, there have been many times I wished I could write down everything that has been happening on my mind. But every time I try to sit down on the swivel chair, open a blank document and start to frame my mind the words the rich thoughts vanish in thin air. I could not point to a specific factor that blocks the stream of thought from my brain to my fingers. . .on to the keyboard and into the screen. Maybe it’s just that I have too many concerns right now, too many problems at hand, too many obligations to perform, too many expectations to meet. I am overwhelmed by the fact that I can’t barely make a scratch or a dent out of all these. I mean I can’t even run the process of figuring out what to do with them. It’s like I am staring blankly at all of them pokerfaced devoid of any emotional attachment. To me, they’re not stars, they’re not a school of fishes whirling around in the water, nor a rainbow. . .they’re just a pale and dull book from the cover waiting perpetually to be read. As I stare at them, they breathe infinite silence and I do not want engage in them.

I wished I had the freedom to mention them here so that I could finally liberate all the hitches inside me but I loath about other people and the world over knowing the details unnecessary for them to know. I mean everything has a boundary, a wall that needs to be fortified, an enclosure that needs to be secured. Every man who does not want to shed all of him would know the feeling of hesitance. There are regrets of deciding not to remain anonymous here in this corner for I am now bound to keep secrets and not write them here. So, I would have to limit and become a rigid writer for days to come not until I decide to leave this refuge which I started about three years ago and have the archive tell the visitor that the last post of the author would be on this day. That has been the case ever since. Back in college, I remember a professor in a writing class tell me that I write in general terms. . .that I hold back too much of me. Not until I had the opportunity to explore in another writing class to tell haunting stories about my childhood and the unexplainable torment I had to go through. Not until I thought about blogging and had the venue to pick up the pieces little by little. However, this I tell you that whenever I end up writing something about my life there’s something inside me which tells me: I wish I could have told you more. . .I wished I could narrate the back stories. There’s still too much to spill to erudite you and myself over.

I have to breathe deeply for most of the time. Heave a sigh. Imagine a scene in my childhood where I stand in a door opening, stolid like a post, watching the shafts of light penetrate the window and hit the floor illuminating the room and creating an incandescent look. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. I could see the sun glimmer. I stood there until the sun was finally lost in the horizon. I stood there alone seeing the sun reflect its last rays of light for the day among the leaves of the trees, on rooftops, on children’s faces throwing cracks of laughter with each other; reflected in a child’s eye who was wondering how could have the sun brought momentary peace to him. I stood there wanting to be with the fading sun forever.

I don’t want this feeling. Experiencing dualities: bliss in the evening, and struggle the morning after and not being able to chronicle such travails here in this corner.