unconventional: in love and life

(this post is in response to people harping about my flighty nature, especially on the job. warning: a lot of boasting and self-appreciation follows. don't proceed if you don't have the stomach for such things.)

"rightly or wrongly, transparent people are always judged. more often than not, misunderstood." -- mahatma gandah.

my life would have been easier and much, much better if i were like everybody else. if i would just be easily contended in a cushy, comfortable job with a regular paycheck, while doing something that anyone else could have done had they been more persistent, patient and a little crazy. but no, i am not simply everybody else. i get impatient right  away, i always crave for something new, i always hunger to learn something else instead of just improving on what i already know.

some flashback...cue theme song -- maalala mo kaya......

dear ate mahatma gandah,

my life was great. i was a bit successful in my field. if we abide by society's definition of greatness in your own way and success in your little pond, then i was. sure, i didn't own a villa in lake como where i could spend the summer quietly snuggled beside the infinity pool reading the classics by edith wharton or jane austen or even barbra cartland. then hobnobbing with george clooney and his multitude of superstar friends like julia roberts, matt damon, brad pitt and angelina jolie, over cocktails.

nor did i win the pulitzer for journalism. nor did i drive a bentley around. nor did i date then heartthrob rob lowe....hmmm..come to think of it.

on second thought, yes, my life wasn't really great. nor successful. i was just well, doing well. surviving. no chos!

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having said that, let me go back to my opening line. my life would have been easier if i were just contented and even took pride in the fact that my stories were sometimes published in international publications like the new york times and the international herald tribune.

on one occasion, the president of the republic read an article that appeared on the iht in a televised news conference in malacanang palace. she even read my byline and in the process mispronounced my last name. the event sent the new york office in frenzy and demanded that we ask the palace for the tape of such a press conference so that they could use it to attract more clients. but of course.

then my mobile phone (i was away on vacation when it happened. it was my birthday!) became busy with calls from friends congratulating me, and from an editor of a local newspaper who was asking me how he could reprint the story, a day after it came out in iht, because his publisher (bless his soul) had been pestering him about it. 

it would have been easier if i were just like everybody else who would think that he was on top of the world just because the central bank governor would call him even late at night just to ask him about some issues that he read on the news wires, or to tell him the latest gossips about certain high-ranking government officials, bankers and businessmen, and even about the president.

it would have been lovelier if i would simply be contented to have the governor announce the latest monetary policy decision by texting it on my mobile, ahead of everybody else.

or if i were just like everyone else who would make a big deal of the fact that the finance secretary would call him even late at night while he was having fun in a bar in malate just to tell him about the latest budget deficit figures and how the government planned to fund the budget gap. or when the treasurer of the republic would announce a dollar bond deal and the names of the global banks that were picked to handle such issuance, while he was already a bit tipsy in the wee hours of the morning.

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but then i wasn't that kind of person.

once i think everything else is too easy to get, when i could already second guess, for instance, what the top bank executives or the policy makers would say about a certain issue, then it's time to leave and look for a new challenge. when a finance official would just give me the carte blanche to quote a figure on the forecast budget deficit and to just attribute to him whatever it was that i wanted him to say that would perfectly fit on my business article, then time to say adieu and look for a new adventure. 

no i didn't do such a thing (make up a budget gap forecast and a quote). i have a high regard for business journalism that i won't resort to making up figures and quotes just to outscoop the competition. a million chos!!

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i have always been low key is all i am trying to say.

i never sought prominent positions other than be a reporter. a top executive of an european publication with a strong position in asia pacific once asked me to become an editor in london just a few months after i joined his company. when i said no, he was so aghast and could not believe that i turned down such a juicy post even without thinking about it first.

well, i already know what i want. i already have the job that i enjoy, so why bother? i just love being a reporter.

although come to think of it, it would have been sweet to move to london, noh? enjoy the outer jacket and scarf weather that suits my surly personality all year round. be able to watch all the broadway shows and learn a little of the queen's accent and diction, and be able to ask friends to come to have high tea at my flat, and to please use the lift carefully, or give directions on how to find the loo after taking off the tube. 

it would have been lovely to be able to walk on notting hill and retrace hugh grant's footsteps while he was trying to decide whether to take back julia roberts, who once broke his fragile heart, or not.whether he would buy julia's "i am just a girl, standing in front of a boy" speech at his near bankrupt bookshop on notting hill.

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unlike other young, eager, ambitious people, i always avoided the spotlight. while i talk a lot when i am with friends and even with strangers, i hate public speaking.

a former editor was so mad at me because he once asked me to host (emcee) an event (an awards night for the publication's loyal subscribers, mostly the biggest banks operating in asia-pacific and the people behind them). i was amused because i just joined the company two weeks before and already he wanted to exploit my beauty and put it on display. haha. double chos!!

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so why did i keep on changing jobs for the past several years when to some people those employers were already the "blue chip"companies that most of them would be happy to stay until they die or they retire, whatever comes first. simple, i was no longer happy. i no longer feel the adrenaline rush when i woke up in the morning. i was no longer eager to work. when i felt like being sick on sunday evening knowing that i would be at work again for the next five days. when i no longer learn something new and thus felt like the world was changing and i was rotting inside. doing the same.

some people are happy just having a job. the security that a regular paycheck offers. i am too. but there is so much more that i am looking for. i want challenge. i want to explore and do something new. it would kill me like totally if i would be doing the same thing all over again, day in and day out, for the rest of my life. that's why i am single. not because i am gay, but because i can't stay faithful to someone for the rest of my life, and definitely it would bore me to death staying just that -- married. 

i just have to clarify, in case i am misconstrued -- i am not against marriage. i have nothing against the institution, nor of people who want to get married, are married, or will stay married. that's just not my thing. i read somewhere that it's against our human nature to stay with just one sexual partner for the rest of our life. i rest my case. chos!!

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that's why i can totally relate to michelle pfeifer's character countess ellen olenska in martin scorsese's flawless adaptation of edith wharton's novel about conventions, social mores and the three lovers faced with the dilemma of either following these rules that have been imposed upon them for generations or breaking them to follow the calling of their hearts -- the age of innocence.

of course i wasn't pretty, cultured and well-educated like the countess. but like her, i am stubborn. strong willed. passionate. adventurous. wanderer. i love challenging social mores, traditions and conventions, though at the same time i would sometimes wonder what it would have been like if i were simple-minded and just kowtow to these traditions and conventions without question or fear?!

in fact, i always consider myself ordinary looking. that's why i was surprised when some of the most gorgeous guys around fell into my charms. a billion chos!

or when a former high-ranking government official slash top banker slash academician once chased me, always asking me to drop by his office for an interview. then after the interview, he would ask his driver to take me to my beat at the central bank or any other events that i had for the day.

this was the time when i was still young, with a thirty-inch waist line, smooth skin, thick, black hair. but already a few years in business journalism. still naive, but nevertheless already had an understanding about such things. this official would ask me to dinners, with the caveat that he would introduce me to some banker, or economist, or treasury official that would be useful for digging up informations or just as resource person for a news article.

one time he asked me bluntly: "what do you want? what will make you happy? do you want to study abroad?" i froze. from then on, i stopped taking his calls.

there were others like him. unfortunately, i like younger men. oppps!

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i just want to write, was how i once responded to the managing editor of a canadian-based news wire agency who flew to manille from singapore and offered me the job of a bureau chief in hong kong. i don't want the added responsibility of managing a bureau, i added. the editor hired me on the spot, no exams, no mind-boggling questions about where do i see myself ten years from now.

when i was already in hong kong, thinking that i changed my mind, she would ask me if i wanted to bring my career to the next level and be the bureau chief. i must have turned her down four times before she decided to appoint a colleague to become the bureau chief. this colleague, by the way, was surprised to learn that she accepted me for the job in hong kong without asking me to take an exam and be subjected to a series of interviews. she was incensed because she had been in hong kong as a reporter, while i was still in manille reporting about the philippine economy and monetary policy and fiscal deficits, and yet the hiring editor had asked her to take an exam first and then face some interviews before taking her in.

well, dahlin, i kidded her, i am charming that's why.

*****************

my old mother was surprised a few months ago when she learned that i left my job again in hong kong. she thought that being in an european publication surrounded by colleagues who sounded like lady diana and prince charles or even hugh grant and gwyneth paltrow when she was playing british (for the record, her accent was way better than the naturally born british. haha) was already enough to calm my restlessness.

what can i say? i am just like you, i thought.

a bit of a flashback. again.

my parents are unconventional too. wanderers in the real sense of the word. my father was in the military, so we kept moving around the country because he insisted to take the family with him wherever his job took him. so we lived for a while in camp aguinaldo, fort bonifacio, mckinley, quezon city, then in far away zambales, baguio, then in mindanao and finally in the visayas.

it was in the visayas, an alien place for my mother who was born and raised in tuguegarao, cagayan, where she decided to settle down and stop following my father around.

"the children need some roots," she told my father. "they need to feel some sense of security, familiarity and establish long-term bonds with other people. have friends that they can keep for years."

my father, who loved my mother so much, was adamant, of course. he was a man of his generation, a typical child of parents with strong spanish blood in their veins -- i am the man in this family, whatever is say is the golden rule. no buts, no ifs.

however, the old man finally saw the wisdom of my mother's words when one day one of his kids arrived home from school crying. when he asked her why, she said her schoolmates made fun of her accents (ilongo, ilocano, tagalog and bisaya). she added that her classmates could not understand what she was saying because she was speaking in tagalog, ybanag, bisaya, spanish and english. 

so there.

but even when they were already settled in the visayas, my mother, a restless spirit, would still be traveling because of her multitude of businesses - shipping rattan, lumber, almaciga, abaca fiber, among others, to different parts of the country, sometimes abroad. i remember she would be away from home for weeks, but when she returned home, it was like christmas. we would all have new clothes and toys, delicious food from different parts of the country, baskets and baskets of fruits, boxes of chocolates.

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still, stubborn as countess olenska, my mother would want an answer to my restlessness, not contented with my explanation that it's in the genes. she couldn't take it in her conscience that she probably ruined my life and that she is the reason why i want to stay single for the rest of my life. maybe she even blamed herself why i became a bona fide member of the pink persuasion.

"mother," i told her, "i have always been unconventional!"

she smiled. she closed her eyes, probably remembering those days of my youth when i broke all of my fathers' rules including the cardinal one: thou shalt not become homosexual!

that's all!

xoxo

gossip gay

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(ps:  i don't own the photos that appeared on this post. all pictures in this entry were taken from the web. no copyright infringements intended. if you want these pictures taken down, please just say so. thank you very much.)