life's choices

One day, when you least expect it, a person will come into your life and jolt you our of your comfortable world into a realm of wishing, and wanting, and hoping. He is everything you ever wanted. And your heart does not make that pitter-patter whenever he is around really but it swells like a batter rising into a delectable piece of blueberry muffin too hot to devour and which therefore needs some cooling. Suddenly, the life you've lived doesn't at all seem enough. You begin to wonder what it would be like if this person were truly a part of it. Somehow the space you've set around yourself expands in its own volition and has become a little bit too large, a little too empty. Am I in love?

For more than a month, I have been in my own dream world until..."HOY! Tanghali na! Gumising ka na diyan...diyan...diyan...diyan." Why is it that when you are in the state between wakefulness and dreams every sound seems to get a little bit louder? I rub the sleep from off my eyes and head to the bathroom. A heavy feeling sinks in my gut as I remember this morning's dream. There was so much in it: some futuristic battle with me drenched in sooty rain going in and out of time warps. The only thing worth going into detail I guess is that I am in some sort of trip with around six to seven people. I am staying in a room perhaps in a hotel or a room of a spaceship. As I am drying my hair after a cold shower, lo and behold, the object of my month-old infatuation comes barging in without a word and uses my bathroom with the door wide open. So smug about himself, He finishes off and leaves the room in silence. And I go, "What the hell was that?" It was only now in the middle of the day that I ask myself. Is he really the one I ever wanted to be with or is he the one I wanted to be? When we get attracted to somebody, do we get attracted to the person simply because, or do we get attracted because there is something in him or her that we wished we too possessed?

I've always been a sports buff. I always watched, though. I never played. All through my adolescent years I watched Game Plan in Channel 7 and dreamed of climbing mountains, plying rugged waters in a canoe, scuba diving. I drooled at Ironmen and I wanted to be able to finish even just a marathon. I watched NBA, and every Grand Slam tennis tournament. I always dreamed to be able to ride horses without a freaking guide. But, as I've said, I never was able to live my dreams. Now he...he had these. Not without some bitterness, I can say that he is someone I never had the courage to be. And in my dream, he actually was mocking me. I make it sound like this guy's a monster. In reality he is not. He's not at all smug as in the dream. Well okay he is a little, but he has this boyish aura when he speaks. He also is quite a spiritual person and I find his perspective on things a little amusing but sensible. I can go on.

Still, the point is this: Is it always like this? Do we get attracted to the people we somehow would like to be? When I think about it, I wonder if this also applies to our choosing friends. Sometimes I catch myself wishing I had the same uninhibited spirit a friend of mine has, or another's confidence in dealing with strangers, or yet another's creative streak. Does this principle also work in choosing our place of work (maybe we would want to be more chic so we work in Makati) or even with merely choosing our soaps (perhaps would like to be whiter?). Does this principle apply to everything? In the end, are all our choices geared toward ourselves?