mumbling "i'm just a girl" for the remainder of 2023

I got my own copy of Rookie Yearbook 3 yesterday from the mail and I couldn’t explain what I felt while leafing through its worn pages. Wistfulness, if not nostalgia, dominated–there’s still this rager inside with whatever’s left of what was extinguished when reality compelled me to be practical. I had a good eye scrolling the other week; If it weren’t for a friend's post saying that she bought one, I wouldn’t have arrived at this Conclusionary Emotion (It’s from a warehouse sale I ordered from and I only got it for P99, a total of only P137 including the shipping fee. If you told 16-year-old me that I’d get it for more than quadruple of its original price nine years on, I would have laughed; one copy used to cost almost P3,000, excluding the shipping fee.) 

The year was 2008 and I’ve just been given my own PC set at home, complete with an internet connection. It was the peak of Windows Vista and I always had the best time coming home to it from school; weekday afternoons meant scrolling thoroughly across varying gaming platforms, poring over Disney edits on YouTube (my favorite was High School Musical edits of Troy and Gabriella while a cloyingly sweet pop music plays in the background), and of course the endless pages of blogs I’ve read. I read opinion pieces, pages upon pages of fanfiction, learned how to copy-paste articles from international websites in lightning-speed mode before the paywall activated the scroll-canceling screen of grey on my face. All these efforts, all the hours owed to being online, fortunately–if sometimes regrettably–built my long-standing claim that I want to write, I should write for a living, I will die a writer. It's flooded with cliche, that thought process, considering how my career trajectory over the years spouted from me resenting everything I did to save face and be perpetually known as a writer. I actually believed that being “raised by the internet” garnered me the right to document whatever there is to document. I'm literally the most embarrassing person I know.

I have Tumblr to thank for that part of my pre-adolescent years, my cliche grrrl-power arc–I saw people my age get too in-depth with how they felt toward something so trivial, like their lunch food, wax poetry over an episode of a sitcom, or express this kind of glow they feel for a song, a poem, or a book. It influenced me to be an introspective 12-year-old who would yap about her crises: are mismatched Chucks cool? Is cutting my own bangs rebellious enough to send my Dad into a frenzy of remorse for not allowing me to go to a Mayday Parade show? Am I tweaking my Greying by Gabrielle Wee Tumblr theme enough for people to find me laid-back but still cool and a bit rough on the edges because I listen to The Strokes and The Psychedelic Furs? There was always something inside that needed to punch its way out to be seen, to be heard, to be read. What started as a penchant in asking my mom to buy me the newest Total Girl or Candy Mag issues ended up being a stepping stone to a girlhood owing its shelf life to dreaming of a life à la-Andy Sachs.

Then came Rookie Mag, a virtual dream that I treated like a best friend, a sister I come home to every afternoon after school with a few simple clicks. It was a refuge of all sorts, an educational trip to survive girlhood and how to actually live it in the style of kitschy, dreamy zine. It became my first online friend, my own garden of plans as a teenager who wished to be like Tavi Gevinson: a self-serious online savant, a genuinely cool word fairy, always knew what to say and how to translate it as doodles and collages. Much of what I know now about pop culture–Greta Gerwig, Broad City, film photography, Sonic Youth, and the Fanning sisters–and life’s in and outs, I learned from Rookie during my formative years.  

My wild guess on its personal pull on me is that it somehow serves as a reminder that my 26-year-old anxieties could still be weathered by parsing through material that serves as guides for 12- to 15-year-olds. That version of me, an older cohort-slash-reader of this record of eternal youth, could be likened to finding a puzzle piece that completes the navigation process of Growing Up and Making Decisions.  

Every time something from my childhood (or teenhood) resurfaces, I sort of ruminate, limning on the identities I'd had over the years, hence the moments (days) I pored over this thick book that bridges me to a life I used to have, which I lived through a bit too fast for my liking. And that’s all there is to having this book with me: seeing glimpses of my past quirks like mixtapes and artists from my young adult years: deciding that it has been too fast, too quick for me to see the ending of. So owning a piece of my past can be a bit of a special montage-viewing experience.  

Being in a corporate job is not always gratifying. Sometimes it’s thankless, sometimes you’re just thankful to end the day because you know it’s gonna reflect in your next paycheck. What I treat as a highlight may not be the same for those who do it by heart, with purpose. For me it’s not an office day without doing my makeup, arriving at the office in style (mostly, if not everyday), drinking my coffee in my favorite insulated mug, and admiring my desk setup with my three Sonny Angels. I do my tasks diligently and never miss a deadline, but I may be the shallowest, most useless fixture in this setting. Nobody has to remind me that I was handed this job because of my privilege; I remind myself of the fact everyday so I try to be good at it and not appear like an ingrate. It felt like implanting my own agency when I started entering free Google courses on mastering Microsoft Excel, planning corporate strategies and branding. I wanted to be relevant, I wanted to be useful, I wanted to stop believing that everything I do should be glamorous and cutesy, Lisa Frank-esque. The only time it should be will be how I decorate my desk, hence the Sonny Angels on my right to “watch” over me.

There’s no contextual meaning behind why I added this anecdote. Maybe I wanted it to sound like a situation-versus-desire scenario; it’s not. I’d like to think that this is me heralding my girlhood with respect to how my late-twenties panned out. Not totally what I envisioned, but somehow just floating with lots of looking back on the island of teenhood and how it feels fast-forwarded with circumstances that I couldn’t help. 

Revisiting my past like this, even writing extensively about it, feels like a taxonomy of sorts filled with feelings that will once become previously-felt emotions too in the long run. Teenhood lasted me a full lifetime, but was still so fleeting, so limited and short-lived. There have been numerous moments I remember from those years, and like most adults my age, I would give anything in exchange for me to be young again and be free from the limitations set by myself and the environment I grew up in. 

Coveting youth, taking ownership of my past, and establishing my self-will on all things ‘me’ didn’t always have to be sad. I thought otherwise when I first laid my hands on this particular Rookie book. It felt like I was gonna mourn what once was, the first time I held it, and grieve the lost time I used to spend on reading old material or collecting magazines. But it didn’t feel like grief at all–it was still the same, still a bit rusty on some parts but wiser nonetheless, with the age that came with it.

So the reflection and recording, the writing of a whole ass essay on finding a piece of myself and how I felt about it, is me finally paying back what I owe myself all these years: a space for acknowledging every stage of my life, both the good and the bad, the dumb and the wise (mostly clueless). In the different stages of life I’ll arrive at, there will always be little Forevers that will accumulate, which I will, most probably, come back to and rewatch like comfort episodes from a comfort TV show. 

I’ll always end up looking back on my younger years, and be emotional over it. Never in a Fuck-Time-Passing Vibe, (although it would’ve felt as such if this were in 2018) but in a Life-Is-Funny Vibe. I’ll never be that kid again, and I’ll never be that woman again–all pertaining to particular stages of my life. Transitioning is not as scary as it did before, awful parts and all. Somehow knowing that everything in life has a temporal aura is a comforting thing. Yes, I’d always be pining for certain parts of my life to happen again, or to have some semblance of what it felt like before when the world wasn’t as crazy as it is now, but it is what it is. I can be cold and bitter over the fact that time is not slowing down for me, not for anyone, but it’s up to me if I want to roll with it with my 14-year-old mind, or be present for my nearing-her-30s self, while still carrying my 14-year-old heart with me in the shape of a book I received not over a week ago. 

Allison from The Breakfast Club said that your heart dies when you grow up. I used to always carry that with me, through high school and college. But I wish some time machine could take me back to that moment of pure belief and whisper to my young ear that no, it’s not fully true. Maybe sometimes it brings some truth to it, but most of the time it’s just me being upset that the world is too real for me to receive what I want, or for me to experience some tenderness when everything feels cold and concrete-hard. I was a cynic growing up. I thought being that way cushioned whatever heartbreak I’d experienced and saved me the pain and hassle of being human, excluding myself from the time it exhausted for complaining. I bemoaned the fact that the Vans Warped Tour never reached my country, but I’ll never cry over a boy, I thought. I was dead wrong. Heartbreak shaped me and taught me so much about myself, partially thanks to Chiquitita by ABBA. 

There may still be moments where I wish I understood what my teenhood was about, and most especially why it happened the way that it did. But I no longer wish to stay there, as it kind of lessens its impact in my (present) life, all the while losing the sincerity I feel towards it. There is nothing for me to forgive from those past selves I came to know and sit with, for there was nothing wrong with how I let it happen; not even the lack could cancel out the full and good ones. More importantly, I don't need to understand all of it. These books, archived websites, glossy magazines replete with tutorials on how to make beaded bracelets or homemade hair dyes, and the monthly updates of Batrisha Comics, old journals and keychains, are minutiae that serve as a reminder of an era whose lifespan lasted as soon as I started Googling about sanitary pads and what diets should I practice to be thinner. My world suddenly became scary wide then, a bit too loose in some parts that I found hard keeping close and tight around me–and it was supposed to be that way. I can’t always chase after an outcome that best fits the scene in my head. This is what my whims, quirks, and hobbies are for, to pad whatever disappointment I choose to moan about and to retreat to. If it weren’t for my (rather shallow) crises, I wouldn’t be so committed to any of these. 

I was wrong to assume that being a writer is a glamorous choice, or to decide that anything I partake in would come easier, notwithstanding my degree or the university I graduated from. In college I thought it was gonna be a breeze, because I spent two years in the school organ having my own desk, having free rein over the choicest coverages for the arts and culture beat. It gave me no chance to thwart my expectations in the coming years as a journalist by practice. The movies I watched and the TV shows I spent my time absorbing were all wrong, and admittedly I lacked the contextual knowledge about the real world. And it’s thankfully so, as I can confidently pronounce now as a 26-year-old that it's okay, I turned out okay. Not everything is as it seems, and I continue to be grateful for that.

Remembering should suffice, always. I owe that to myself (I think), if I can’t remotely fulfill any dream or plan I had for myself. Every recalled song, movie, or pop-culture event that I closely followed then, is an act of pouring what I can for my younger self in the form of chronicling a single feeling and expanding it into vast meanings, as wide as the ever evolving world (and life) I used to be scared of. Re-telling is a form of self-love, I believe. It can’t change the world, no. I don’t certainly contribute anything useful for society by writing this down; I’d be delusional if I believed so. But maybe this is me doing myself a favor by recognizing that I can never be anyone else, and that this little piece of writing belongs to me, along with the time and emotions and other pieces of media I claim to love. 

Several years ago, I used to always check prices of every Rookie Yearbook that came out, even months after its first press came out just to imagine if I could afford them. As expected, my parents didn’t agree because it cost a fortune. Understandably so, because as a working class family, buying a P3,000-worth book couldn't be justified. I wish I knew back then that I’d only have to wait around 12 to 13 years to physically own and hold one in my hands (and a signed copy at that!). And that the time it took was an ultra necessity for me; the in-between years served as a prologue.

It’s all in good faith, and timing, this little, minor moment in my adult life. A mere blip in the radar, but consequential nonetheless. And because this is the first time in years that I wrote something for myself. 

la lang

The first time I heard Dynamite play on the radio, I was with my friend Winona on the way to Dean and Deluca to meet with our Varsi friends. It was almost 9 p.m. then, but the traffic was still kind of heavy. It was bearable, though, because the drive wasn’t very long, and I was with company. The whole moment felt real and present when Winona out nowhere said that she really liked their cover of Fix You. I was delightfully surprised; this is how people know me now: a passionate fan. Someone her friends would tag on Facebook on anything BTS, like memes, random compilation videos, or tl;dr posts about them.

It became even more heartwarming when she said the whole song sounded great when I asked if she heard the whole thing or just a snippet of it. I felt seen, understood, and appreciated. I was feeling very lightheaded during the whole conversation because Dynamite was playing in the background. It’s a song I didn’t fall in love with the first time I heard it. I guess the fandom had always been split when it came to the song’s realization as a hit, but I always told myself that if the boys were happy, then I’m also happy. (Wow ah.)

The months following the day I officially declared myself as an ARMY (again, after a two-year hiatus) weren’t all that easy. I had a lot of fun being a fan during those times until the present, though. Circling back to old videos, coming across two years’ worth of material from them, and even going back to Twitter this year so I could follow their activities more religiously. It’s a ride, honestly. But it was also the time I was struggling with the (deteriorating) relationship I had with my parents. I even found myself deleting all my social media accounts that one time for a few days, then finally blowing up and straight up writing a letter addressed to the boys. I cried my heart out writing then because I realized I can never be this open about my feelings to anyone, but to them it was catharsis. I was a whole mess and I only got to admit to myself when I wrote them that letter. 

It took me three pages.

It was an endless bout between me being happy and feeling fairytale-like, spending time with them through livestreams and me being mentally and emotionally exhausted because of how my parents treated me at home. And so I moved out. It was the most exhilarating moment I’ve had in this lifetime, because I remember playing Life Goes On while packing my things and emptying my room with my mattress, my side table, the stand mirror, books, everything. It literally felt like I was running away from home because I had a vicious fight with my parents. Only it didn’t, because I never spoke back to my parents, always just falling silent and having palpitations.

The day I was moving in to my new apartment, I didn’t remember what song I was playing. All I remember was me just watching Las Pinas’ establishments fade into view, as the moving company  (thanks, Transportify) sped its way through C5. 

I’ve been living in Taguig for almost two months now. This is what I’ve always dreamt of: waking up early in the morning, without the anxiety of thinking about how to interact with my parents downstairs, or how I can prepare my merienda without trying hard not to make a sound in the kitchen. Most of my days in that house I spent alone in my room. This happened for most of the lockdown period. It wouldn’t have been that bearable if it weren’t for my siblings who hung out with me regularly, though, so that one’s a redeeming factor. It was always just the three of us. And my dog. 

The whole ride to Dean and Deluca with a song I don’t resonate so much with was spent on me actually falling in love with it. I don’t listen to it regularly the way I do with some of their older work (it’s Hold Me Tight and Butterfly for me), but right now it’s the song that defines a phase, with how the things in my life gained currency. Life Goes On is the soundtrack of my second chance at a healthy life when I moved out. Dynamite was the hasty reminder of how alive and meaningful it is for me to move at my own pace, and be calmly content with it. 

So much has happened since I re-downloaded their albums on my Spotify’s local file back in October of 2020. I was scared, because I might have forgotten their songs already, thinking of ways to rewire my brain back to 2015. When I heard Hold Me Tight again after so many years, I was immediately brought back to that dingy dorm room I used to share with Chey and four other girls. It had the faint smell of aged wood that has been wet for years, and the erratic wifi connection that only seemed to work when you closed your eyes and prayed to whoever. 

The first member who caught my eye was Jimin. But the first one I really fell in love with, even without knowing who he was in the group, was Jungkook. The sweetest thing about all this discovery was I just know how his voice sounds like. When the Save Me music video came out, I finally established how he looked like. The rest of the group came next, but I didn't fall in love just yet.

Before all this, I remember it was during their hwa yang yeon hwa era and I knew nothing much about them. It was just the I Need U song and music video for me, and that was it. When their album, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt. 1, came out, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I didn’t even know it was coming out that year. But I grew to know all the songs. I was about to enrol for the first semester of second year, was just learning how to chain smoke in Antonio Street, asking my block mates other commute alternatives to Pasig aside from the UV Express shuttle. It was a boring year but I remember being in love with Hold Me Tight. A couple of months later, I’d find myself in that dingy, old dorm with Chey, praying our shitty wifi doesn’t fail us while waiting for the premiere of their Fire music video. We were on her bed sitting that night, suppressing our screams (and laughs at Jin as the cooking stove) because our other roommates were studying. It was prelims season in UST. 

I had an on-and-off relationship with their music.

When I think about those years I first discovered their music, there are regrets. Because those were the years I lost them to white indie bands I thought I’d get to keep forever, when eventually the frontmen I held so much regard for, and the members I admired with all my (young) heart turned out to be assholes. I hate that I devoted so much time for these ignorant band members when there was Min Yoongi, who made hundreds of handcrafted gifts for the fans coming to their fan meet. There are so many endearing moments I can write about, honestly. None of these pseudo-deep, underground bands can ever amount to.

2020 was the year of coming to my senses, the year of actualizing what girlhood really is for me. This was the year of realizing things, humor aside. I really grew up with BTS, and I failed to tap into that for so many years. Somehow all the moments of recognition happened to me last year, when I slowly unearthed past Messenger conversations I had with friends that contained mentions about BTS, some Facebook Memories that showed past posts on my profile. (The latest was for their Wings Tour here in Manila, which I wasn’t able to go to. Heartbreakingly so, it was the last show they had here.)

As I’m writing this, there are only less than 24 hours before the Grammys. If someone told me that it was gonna happen back in 2017, I would do a double take and just laughed. Even for someone who really loved them, back then it was all still a pipe dream. But to echo what Namjoon said to his dad over the phone when they found out about their nomination, it really does happen. The triumph, the endearment, the overall happiness, it was all there. I was a mere spectator when I saw their post on Twitter that night, but I was screaming with them. I felt it with them, and for once I didn’t feel like I had to hide, like I was dreading something outside my room. It was just me and… some friends. On screen. 

I don’t know how much ran through me that night when I heard Dynamite on the radio. I didn’t mean to grow all wistful, but it was a happy night, because I was alive, and looking forward to March 15. This is the age where I feel younger again, like an actual teenager living a normal teenage life. I’m in love with a band, constantly on the look-out for album sales, going crazy for pieces of photo cards and stickers. One night I came across a picrew generator. I played around it when Future by Red Velvet played on shuffle. This was what I used to dream of as a child—things that scream 15-years-old-on-a-school-night. I was calm, and I felt young.

But it’s not always me falling in love with all this everyday. Most of the time I ask myself why I’m still here, when I’m just as a dreamer as them. There is a slight twinge of envy in my heart: why are they achieving so much, while I’m here, probably going to die working and living on a pay check without even getting the chance to do what I love on a daily. 

When a feeling like this arises, I go to my bookmarks and rewatch their 2020 Commencement Exercise speech. The number of times I’ve watched this is innumerable now; I’m now at that point where I associate calmness, acceptance and love with them. There are days I forget that they’re musicians, because I feel like they’re just close college friends I can message anytime. When the going gets really bad, I just repeat Jin’s part about starting earlier to study a choreography than the rest of the members because he is a “slow learner” and he needs more attention than the rest. The first time I heard his part, I cried my heart out because no one really told me about pacing myself without also hating myself. It turns out that I didn’t need to suffer every time a problem arises.

For a long time, I would cower in fear and anxiety over the simplest tasks I cannot do, for things I’d find hard to learn. The jobs I’ve taken the past two years all gave me anxiety. But Jin’s words really pulled me through. I still get panic attacks in the middle of my shift. The only difference now is I have them for a constant reminder: I’m doing okay. And I’ll be okay. It’s just a bad day, not a bad life. 

My Grammy day will come. I know it will. But as Jungkook proudly puts it, they were lucky, but they worked hard for that luck. 

—

When I think about all this, I count the months it took me to fall back in love with them. I started October 21, 2020, when I rewatched my favorite Jimin fan cams (he was my first bias!). After that, I treated rewatching their past Bon Voyage episodes as a pilgrimage. The last dregs of their activity that I remember so clearly before leaving the fandom was their Hawai’i trip. I never got to watch it in whole, so it was the first thing I checked out. The laughs were still there, and I still know all their names.

But here’s the thing: There are just too many things I can associate with their music during my formative years in UST. I can list down a handful of songs that remind of the momentous events in my life. For Hold Me Tight (again), it was the song I woke up to after a very long nap that one August afternoon in 2017. That same afternoon, my would-be boyfriend would send me a message hitting on me. It was also the song I played on repeat the night we broke up.

In 2018, I avoided the release of Euphoria, Idol, and Fake Love. The first two was because it was too happy, and I couldn’t seem to focus my eyes on something… euphoric that time. I dreaded our graduation. For  Fake Love it was because I didn’t like relating my situation then to a “stupid” song. I was still processing my heartbreak. I didn’t want to hear anything about love being fake and dead and hurtful. When 2019 came, I was completely unaware of their new material. I didn’t push much effort then to know more. 

I wouldn’t go much into detail about how I changed all that last year. All I know was how it felt like coming home to the things I left behind because I was such in a hurry to grow up. Every time I open a new album, about to pull out a photo card, it feels like 2015 again. I read somewhere that your 20s is just basically you falling back the things you used to love as a teenager, only with less shame and more passion, and if you’re lucky, with more money for merchandise. I am 23 and I treat pieces of paper and sticker sheets like precious crystals. It makes my heart happy. 

The fact that I became closer to some friends who are also fans is also a plus. It feels as if I'm in a support group. If someone asked me what’s my favorite part about being a fan is, I would say it would be the people, and how BTS taught me a lot about community. Listening to Friends hits a lot different when you’re isolated because of the pandemic, and you really miss your friends. I think at some point of being a fan you’ll reach a point where you’re just thinking about the people you share the band’s songs with. 

Tomorrow, I get to see them again onstage (online), with millions of eyes awaiting around the globe. I keep wondering how many more moments like this am I going to witness, knowing that they were just like me before, working hard, now reaching for the stars, owning the world. Or how many are still left before they leave the spotlight. Lately all I ever do is be anxious about things being temporary. But I'll just be counting on tomorrow to remind me that things are beyond okay right now, and that I don't need to worry about the future. For now, it's me, setting a 4 a.m. alarm for the livestream, and the waiting game for their stage and acceptance speech. Yes, they'll win.

Crazy how a single song on the radio takes you so many years back. Maybe I love Dynamite now. 

Ang daldal ko. Hindi rin cohesive ang essay na ‘to. Pero masaya ako. 

home remedies for emptiness

When lockdown protocols officially began last March, everyone thought the shitstorm of protocols would revert back to normal after a few months, which garnered everyone unprepared and expectant of things to be of normalcy again in no time. 

This included me, who thought that a short excursion to my parents’ house was only necessary for weeks, leaving behind some clothes at my place in the city proper near the office. And so I went home with only three bags carrying some essentials. Four months later I’ll find myself coming back to my place to carry out the rest of my things, eight bags all in all including some books and pillows and stupid trinkets that I ended up throwing away. I also ended up giving up the place. 

Having just quit my job last October, everything seems too bleak and unsure, but I felt rested, at ease and satisfied. It was the rest I very much needed (and deserved) after the mental torture I experienced in my last job. I bought a guitar, studied a little French, wrote a few essays here and there, and took my journaling seriously. On top of that, I was reading four to five books a week.

But between all the mess and the incompetence of the government so blatantly shitting on the country it’s beginning to feel normal, I found myself a safe place I can call my own. Or maybe millions of other fans’ safe place.

Recently I’ve decided to start where I left off back in 2016, just to see how it would make me feel, how their music would push a button in me, or not. It wasn’t really something meaningful per se, but kind of momentous because I have varying interests that grew when the lockdowns began. Apart from reading numerous books, I became passionate about coffee blends, writing on my journal thrice a day, and watching animated adult cartoons on Netflix. (Midnight Gospel is a good one.) I’ve also grown more resentful and angry towards our government if it’s a surprise.

I started off with some “funny moments” videos on YouTube; some I’ve known from the heart since my early college years, some I missed during the four years that passed. It was a rabbit hole from then on; I mindlessly slid down, and a different opinion was already resonating as I rolled off. The feeling was more than just a favorable squeal and excitement; it now resembles a moment of remembrance of a time when everything was falling apart, and yet I am building a new world for myself. 

With their recent Grammy nomination, the prizing fondness just grows, the admiration broadens. I am but a small blip in their radar and yet I am a big person within my own universe where their presence is just as domestic as mine as if they are next-door neighbors. 

I can list numerous situations where I’ll find myself questioning the daily shit I do—from my job, my hobbies, to my everyday choices, if I should still go on—only to circle back to the Spotify playlist containing their full discography. It grows on you, harshly knocking on the temples of your head, reminding you that you can feel shitty and ugly but still deserving of all the good in the world. They literally taught me how to breathe and accept myself, flaws and misgivings included. This all happened within a month; it was a healing experience.  

I refuse to sound deep and high-commanding of the English language anymore, but BTS gives me that feeling of fulfilment every day like I always have something to look forward to, something to get me through the day. Speaking these words at 23 is like going on a time machine: like getting ready for a long yet necessary drive back home to your childhood home after long, draining periods of exams. Packing your stuff after a draining week at the city to come home to home-cooked meals. 

Many still question their influence to this day, still finding it absurd that a non-English speaking group from a (relatively) small Asian country headlines the industry with their music. But I come to the discussion as defensive as any fan can be: it’s that they refuse to differ themselves from their fans, those who are below them. It’s because they never release an album without a track criticizing societal maladies. It’s because they never shy away from self-awareness, of the fact that they are also just human, and that being an idol comes second only to inevitable feelings of human dissatisfaction, disappointment, and fear.

 

In their album “Map of the Soul: 7,” they took it hard upon themselves to admit that their “first death” might already be happening, as they come to terms with the loss of their passion and excitement for the music they write. That their passion is now only a job to fulfill a contract. In one track, the youngest member laments the loss of his childhood due to the extreme conditions the industry has put him (and his group, really) into for the past nine years. One of the elder members also put his disillusionment as an artist who has become less of himself and more of a machine of the show business while pursuing his ambitions in an industry that is already a battlefield from the ground up. 

I feel closest to this album (next to their HYYH era ones) because it resembles so much of Carl Jung’s theory of the multiple selves, where my 2018 undergraduate thesis mostly revolved in. I chose this understudy because 2018 was the year I really struggled mentally about who I was and what I wanted to build myself. Fast forward to 2020, this record harkens me back to that year when I unpacked so much of myself to fit the mold of a job that doesn't fit me. It comes at a time when everyone is lost, with working and studying conditions drastically changed, leaving everyone confused, tired, and literally broke. The record may serve as a gospel for those re-figuring out themselves in a limited world. 

These are just surface-level reasons that endear them to me. I never knew this journey would go beyond finding out their birthdays and where they grew up.

Maybe because I saturated myself with too many posts and videos of them crying onstage over their fanbase, thanking them with such sincerity that one of them even got “ARMY” tattooed on his knuckles. It’s like an ode to how they are always down to throw fists for their fans whom I feel they sincerely care about, with every “ARMY, we did it!” remark every time they win an award. I wasn’t around much with them when they slowly became the biggest group in the world, but I’ll always circle back to when Jungkook and Hoseok hoped that they’ll become the group fans will always be proud of, even when they’re long gone, without any ounce of shame. 

Growing up we were taught that young girls loving boy bands and other “girly” quirks and expending time for it is a stupid, childish, even grotesquely obsessive trait to be decent enough to be acceptable to the dominantly male-gazed society. The internet raised us to view this fixation as a “girls’ world,” something untouchable and embarrassing to think of like it’s something taboo to discuss. But when girls like music from rock bands whose members play instruments and don’t dance with cloyingly sweet moves and pomp, bubblegum beats, it’s real, serious and of immaculate taste. What even is having “good taste in music” anymore, anyway?

Whoever decided that two things are under different spectrums? What is so icky about young girls liking these types of things? 

There may have been some shame that grew when I refused to dabble in their music mid-college. I was barely 19 and was put under the impression by everyone that I only like The Strokes, Wolf Alice, obscure arthouse films and hard-to-find pulp fiction copies of books from Booksale Cubao. Liking something from “mainstream” artist, let alone from the K-Pop genre, I thought, would somehow stain my indie credibility (I feel gross typing this) and my place in everybody’s expectations. This year I still question this (shallow) identity crisis I had; how can you even measure someone’s love for something when you are just looking from the outside? 

Now with more than a month’s worth of time dedicated to extensively bathing myself with their material—Run BTS episodes, V-live streams, live shows, BangtanTV vlogs, and even fan compilations of their funniest moments—I pride myself with the identity as part of the biggest, kindest, even the most chaotic fanbase there could be. I think it's safe to say that I am lucky enough to be alive in the same millenium as BTS are, at such a monumental time for music that taught me so much about community. 

While writing this, I am undeniably still haunted by the choices I have been making lately, career-wise and self-wise. But I’ll never fail to remind myself that I’m one and the same with BTS, not far off to where I am and where they are: human, and also experiencing the same human emotions I go through in my 20s. In their Dear Class of 2020 Commencement Speech, I am reminded that it’s okay to slow down, to take a break, and thank yourself for the road you chose to take, despite the uncertainty that’s manifested along the way. 2020 is a very strange and violent and lonely year, but they refused to treat it with full positivity and fake motivation. Instead, they saw it as an opportunity to remind their fans to sit with their heartbreaks, their misgivings, and move along with the difficulty. 

I can’t count the times I sat on my table while staring at my workload while listening to 2! 3! and remembering its poignant lyrics telling me that it’s going to be okay. Coincidentally, this song also played when I sent out my resignation notice (second time this year) to my very difficult boss. I know there's a stark difference between me and the boys and how they actualized their dreams, but knowing how Yoongi left his hometown with no money to pursue a career in music without a single ounce of support from his parents grounds me. 

As a 23-year-old, it would be presumptious of me to ask for emotional guidance from my parents but I am currently lacking in that department. I long to hear them tell me that they are proud of me, that I am alright. So far all I'm getting is the constant "be grateful" spiels because I am "taken care of" by a company they think I'm still working for (I quit almost two months ago). Nobody here knows that I've resigned twice in a month already. BTS doesn't know that as well but, with each member talking about their struggles, is already comforting. Encouraging, even. 

This is the BTS I came to love and know years ago. Apart from them criticizing those who reign on the struggles of the youth and their commodification, they are here to present themselves as companions who share the same frustrations. It's like we're all in the same universe with similar growing pains. Buying their merchandise means I have something to show my future children, to tell them of a time when their mother was going through multiple heartbreaks at once, that then turned to emptiness and then sudden redemption. And as a million times cheesy this will sound, but as powerful yet calming it is, they were successful in teaching so many people to love themselves.

With their recent release titled "BE," the band emphasized its goal to promote "healing" and taking things slow in a time where everything  both fast-paced and stuck in one place. No one really knows when this pandemic ends and how we'll get out of this alive (or sane, at least). This is their first record without politically-driven songs, which is perfect because it somehow represents a generation screaming to the void how everyone is so fucking tired. Somehow "Life Goes On" and "Blue & Grey" gives you that extra boost of motivation to get up, send an e-mail, run some errands, finish a sentence.  

To say the least, BTS gave me that small push in the back, that hopeful elbow nudge telling me to "hey, you're still yourself." There are so many layers to explain how much I love BTS after years of forgetting about them, but the exact sentiment goes like this: You find BTS when you need them the most. 

I orchestrated my girlhoood and bleached my hair

It is and always will be a universal practice among women my age to go undergo multiple layers of trauma and decide to do something stupid with their hair just to feel something; the burn in the scalp, the thickening of every strand of hair as it fries to total dryness, the tangle in every stroke of the brush.

It was almost two weeks ago when I found myself in my room rubbing the soft blue goo in my hair to bleach it in an unfamiliar blonde so I could dye it to a candy-like lavender shade. Of course it turned brassy the first try. Beyoncé’s “Blue” was playing on my laptop; I had it on shuffle on under Beyonce’s discography because it was, I internalised, gonna be a me-time that should be soundtracked with hits telling me that I am running the world, wearing my freakum dress.

“We can last forever,” Beyoncé croons, while her daughter, Blue Ivy, cameos for a small part in the end. While I was slathering my already dead hair with the bleach solution filling up my room with the smell of chemical funk, I can’t help but think back on the one thing I wish shared with my mother, who went away when I was young. 

There had been a million of moments I’d seen between a mom and her kid; on the train ride to work, waiting in line at the grocery store, walking down the sidewalk. But I recently, once again, came back to the desire of her fingers brushing through my hair as she combs it to a nice, smooth fix. I used to have curly hair then, even wavier than it is today. As a child I hated how it looked, because my classmates all had straight, thin hair. In disbelief I found myself laughing at the thought of me wanting for my mother to comb my hair again, just this once. A connection I was deprived of for the last 13 years. 

I am not kidding when I say I remember all the times she fixed my hair at the quiet stillness of the morning, the sun not yet around before the school service picks me up. She’d wake me up, prepare my bath and breakfast and then proceed to dry and comb my hair, then tie it into fancy braids with these pink fluffy hair pins she bought at a tiangge. This is how I will remember my mother, erasing with effort the pain and trauma. 

The months before she left, I made it a point to always want to stare at her face, and memorize every outline because I was afraid to forget how she looked like. It was a hard feat for a nine-year-old to endure. But because I had this (bad) instinct about her leaving, I did everything I could to be with her, to feel her everywhere. Somehow, back then, I’d known she’ll have other plans—plans that did not involve me and my dad, plans that did not involve her combing my hair everyday. 

Growing up I did not have a hard time, that’s what I always told myself. I was too strong for a kid whose mother had just flew across the globe and made promises. I was too strong for a kid, that I forgot how to be a kid. Every waking hour for me was picturing that one classmate I had whose mother went to school every lunch time to bring her food. Sometimes I’d see them go straight to the church beside our school in the afternoon. I used to follow them, and just stare at the mother. I never imagined that it was my mother and me. I always just thought how this mother endured staying behind for a kid.

I developed a sense of self, and learned a handful of things from women staking their claims in the world. Women becoming leaders, writers, teachers, lawyers, activists. Women becoming mothers. Women who refuse to become a mother. I’m still not as adept to how women should make decisions in a society so built around the practice of complicity but I made it a point to just go about telling everyone that maybe being a mother wasn’t my mother’s destiny. And as a woman of her own, she did everything she can to get away from that job that so weighted her down.

I recently watched “20th Century Women” by Mark Mills. It talks about three different women who have differing ways of surviving the last dregs of the 70s, getting educated by feminism—which was then still a ‘new thought’—and talking about menstruation on the dinner table with men. It was and still is taboo to do so but the scene made me happy and seen. 

In the movie, the three glaringly different women break apart every aspect there is when it comes to moving on—city to city, person to person, and from an old logic to new opinions. I’d like to think that this was when I fully understood what really happened, what really came to my mother: she became a woman, and in becoming one she had to run for another desire. 

The clinching moment was when the pre-adolescent character, Julie, ran away from home, from her mother whom she does not have a relationship with, who never talks to her despite her being a psychiatrist herself. I told myself maybe I have it better than her because not having a mother growing up was better than having her live with you but never forming something solid between you two. But I’m wrong to assume that. Because we may be on the same path of womanhood, we may have taken it on ourselves to be persons of our own upbringing, but the tenderness of a mother will always be yearned for.

I have already forgiven my mother. We talk constantly online. But I will always feel this space, this wide gap between us that I cannot seem to jump over, because I never grew up with her. My step mother, who is sweet, loving and loves me like I’m her own, may be on the same page for me. I’ve been growing with her for six years (and counting) now. We’ve formed a strong bond, and we know each other’s quirks. She calls me out on my bullshit, mother style, and I love it. But I (unfortunately, on all levels) also feel a space between us, a door I refuse to open, a conversation I refuse to engage with. 

Maybe I’m not meant to be someone’s child, except for my father. Somehow all the women in our family who tried to reach out to me growing up, I turned down. I was polite, I was accommodating, I accepted their heartfelt sinigangs and hand-me-down clothes. But I always turned down their warmth, rejected them an access to my heart. Was this caused by the impactful leaving of a woman in my life? I still can’t decide. But I always found it hard opening up to people trying to be a parent to me. To people who have tried to be a parent to me, including my step mother. But she understands, and loves me the same. 

Turning 23, I never thought I’d ask these questions, and ruminate so much on the years I held my own hand, the day I got my first period and not knowing what to do. (I was too shy to tell my dad. So I went to nearest sari-sari store and bought the first sanitary napkins I saw displayed on the grills.) I turned out okay, combing my own hair. I may have failed it when I decided to bleach it and basically fry it to death. But I’m glad I did because I am committing to it. I know I am.

I keep wondering what I’ll be like once I become a mother. But it only ends up to me getting scared, fearing the decisions I have to make. What if I end up walking away, therefore leaving my child so conflicted just like me? But I’ve been so tired and out of breath for the last 13 years now that I know I’ll never stop holding my child until the day I die. There might be roads I have to walk thought, but I thought I’ll never take them unless my child is with me. 

I might not become the best mother. But maybe I’ll be good at committing to it.

In “20th Century Women,” one of the characters get the harrowing news that she might not be able to bear children because of what the cancer did to her cervix. It made me cry, because I have the same fear, the same anxiety of being a woman but lacking the capability to get pregnant. Post-feminism thought tells us that women are not defined by their uterus. But it depresses me, the fear, because I might lose something again that I have lost before—companionship between two women. 

And as I sat in front of the mirror destroying my hair follicles, I remember the first morning without my mother, the first time I combed my hair in the mirror, figuring out how I should part my hair. “The right side should be fine,” I thought, because I looked cute. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it only took my two hands and a pink comb, already greying on the sides. 

Now I part my hair in the middle. I'm maintaining bangs now. Because I am allowed to leave behind something, I allowed myself to look new, to look different. 

Because I allowed mama to be herself. 

Watching Abbas Kiarostami during isolation

Known to so many a cinephile, his films broadened the space yet tightened the gap between art house cinema and the simple, effortless act of watching a film.

Kiarostami’s movies always ran between fiction and reality, wherein some scenes from his oeuvre show a bite of documentary-like mood. Reversing the stereotype to create his own flavour, the elements of a became truths that one cannot miss—because Kiarostami is a man of urgency.

In presenting his film’s narratives as a bowl full of lies was a cinematic proclivity for him to arrive at the truth without a trace of lie. It is unforced, it did not look like a struggle: it simply just is, and that’s how reality works. 

Marked by scenes of apparent quietness and contemplative, thoughtful conversations, Kiarostami comes to terms with his films both as director and as part of the audience. How he paints the picture of being lost is of another realm: it is not dependent on anything, apropos to nothing, just like loneliness—it can stem from nothing.

In Close Up (1990), the act of blending fact with fiction becomes a blurry experience. Is this a documentary? A drama based on a true story? Kiarostami’s decision to hire the actual people involved a fraudulent crime that actually happened, and reenacting actual conversations, the film achieved a greatness that rarely crowns a director that marks him as prolific. 

Shaping the reality with the words and angling he chose, the film took a turn from being a film to being a slice-of-life sermon masquerading as pure cinematic imagery. You never really learn how to get around Kiarostami’s narrative, and that makes him a positive enigma. 

In Taste of Cherry (1997), the structures of a talkathon engages more than conversations. It is, after all, a man wanting to end his life and talking about his desire to do it three complete strangers he drives around the capital.

The takes flight in long shots, deep silences, and sparse dialogue between the main character, the earth surrounding Tehran’s not yet developed lands, his car, and the people he meets. The emptiness of Iran somehow how filled the story with such grace and meaning that it somehow acts as the purgatory between hell or glory. 

A crucial fact in Kiarostami’s films is its desire to retain its silence yet disquiet treatment of a story and how it should take evidence in the screen. Man’s loneliness manifests in his films like a conversational confession between a doctor announcing to a family that their relative jas succumbed to an illness.

Evening the scope between the personal and the political, Kiarostami never forgets that Iran, a politically challenged nation, also never forgets to clear the coast with talks about the effects of fascism, and what it does to a community, what it does to a man. He never leaves space for cultural myopia to have an exposure. 

In a politically-charged time like this, where majority of the populations is on isolation, it is without question that one must engage in Kiarostami’s features. Because we never know what we find out within ourselves, what we learn about ourselves, in the most intimate ways as his characters find themselves.