William Shakespeare famous monologue from the comedy As You Like It starts with the lines, “All the world’s a stage and all men and women mere players.”

In a way he’s right except life does not hand you a script for you to rehearse nor does anybody give an applause when you finally bow out. There are no retakes but you are expected to do things right in the eyes of your fellow men, your standards, or God’s. But it’s not really the parts we play that I am have been musing about lately, it’s more of the music.

If the world’s a stage and we are mere players, what music would be playing?

Bach’s Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major Prelude would be the music that would best describe my life. Melancholic. Turbulent. Hopeful. Every time I listen to this classical I hear the story of my life. Each of the arpeggiated chord is like each event in my life that has struck me down, pulled me up, pushed me forward, made me stand still. How I started out naïve until I became angry and spiteful for all the adversaries in my life until I experienced grace and being forgiven and the slow rise to maturity and living up to my name “Love” started happening. It’s still happening. I’m still evolving. So the part at almost the end of the prelude where the notes crescendo like one victorious triumph has not happened yet. But I feel it coming soon.

At the stage of my life when words fail but my emotions cannot remain silent I let this music play to let my emotions unravel and for a moment refresh my soul.

Secrets, everyone has them. No matter how candid you are people keep secrets. I don’t know what the reasons are, but usually it’s rooted from deep-seated fears and insecurities. But there are also some things we do, think, or say that sets us apart and makes us unique. And then now and then a trend happens in the internet or specifically in Facebook/Friendster where you answer a list of questions. I’ve read those notes, those posts, and those shout outs. And while some questions have almost gotten me to copy and paste it with my answers and tag it to my 197 “friends”, I haven’t really done it because I find the entire process meandering. Since the questions listed in these posts are posed in a hypothetical manner I find the answers shallow and irrelevant in my desire to know that person more. I still want to quench people’s curiosity of the real me, so I made my own list. Of course if you know me, you know I am not much of a follower and most times do things differently.

Everything you will read here is true, whether if be funny, sad, painful, shocking... it’s all me. If you view me a lesser person or a lesser woman after reading it, I can take it. If you view me much the same or more *insert compliment here*, let me know please so I can thank you.

1. I find it easier to trust others than myself.

2. But at times I am quick to judge people as well.

3. There had been one point in my life when I shaved my head.

4. I had been cheated on before.

5. It was at that point when my cheating ex shook me so hard and my head banged on the wall that I became physically violent.

6. I've learned to master being apathetic rather than get angry because of that. Even if I can justify it as protecting myself, the thought of me enjoying shooting him with a gun that moment horrified me.

7. I've always felt the odd one in my family. That feeling was so strong that when I was six I asked my mother if I was adopted.

8. I have no baby pictures. My older sister has a special baby album, my brother has special baby albums, my youngest sister has so many putting it in an album is impossible.

9. I'm still afraid to ask my parents why I don't have baby pictures. It's what they say that I fear.

10. I long to find my half-brother and build a strong relationship with him.

11. I was proposed to twice. The first one I said no. The second one I said yes but did not push through, obviously.

12. I sleep naked. Unless my sister sleeps beside me.

13. I'm messy. But like most messy people, there is order in my mess.

14. When I say "I love you" I don't expect the person to say "I love you" back.

15. I say "I love you" even if I know for a fact my love is unrequited.

16. Dancing on top of my bed wearing only undies is my way of relaxing.

17. I love challenges.

18. But I'm learning to be smart which challenges to accept.

19. I can smoke a joint, but only if I want to. Which is rare.

20. Out of the handful serious relationships I had I only introduced one guy to my parents. It was embarassing to reveal to them after a month that we broke up because he was cheating on me.

21. I gave my graduation speech in Filipino even if I'm more fluent in english.

22. I'm afraid of having babies. I fear being worse than my mother as a mother.

23. Despite my fear of raising children, I want to have some.

24. Only once did I cry because of frustration with my boss.

25. I've learned that God does not say "because I said so" when I ask Him "why".

26. I feel shame that I can't put my faith in God the same way a kid trusts her dad.

27. Break ups and boys don't make me cry anymore.

28. But beautiful love stories do.

29. I've lost some friends because of owed money they didn't repay and refuse to account for.

30. I have the gift of discernment.

31. Many times though I didn't heed it because I often give people the benefit of the doubt. In the end, my initial perception had always been correct.

32. I get angry when people whine and say they had no choice to justify their wrongful actions.

33. I had begged to be loved once. I lost my self-respect and decided no guy is worth losing my self respect for.

34. I had never been bothered by what people think of me. It's what I think of myself that matters most.

35. I don't believe that you can learn to love someone.

36. Neither do I believe in love at first sight.

37. I am fond of many places but I don't have any one particular place I can consider "home".

38. Finding out I acquired herpes was the hardest phase in my life.

39. Revealing it to a guy I really like is the most difficult.

40. Before writing #38, only my family and four other people knew about it. It was a my dark and twisted secret.

41. Writing about it now is like being released from bondage. People will tattle or be disgusted and some will pity and I can’t have sex anymore. But it’s not the end of the world.

42. I'm a kid at heart.

43. It wasn't until my older sister went to university that I felt a strong desire to bond with her.

44. I used to cut classes so I can pursue my job as a dj.

45. I believe that everyone is superficial as much as everyone lies. They just vary in degrees.

46. I used to hate that my older sister is always right.

47. Saying "I'm sorry" is not easy for me.

48. But when I say it I actually mean it.

49. There are times I get tired of being a strong person.

50. I cheated once in High School. Shame was there. But pride has kept me from repeating it.

51. The fact that I’m a very good liar scares me.

52. Being single and not in a relationship does not bother me. The people who pick on my being single and not in a relationship does.

53. Talking to me condescendingly pisses me off.

54. Cello is my favorite musical instrument.

55. When someone tells me a secret, I forget what they shared so I won’t tell.

56. I am grossed by snakes. I will not buy or even touch anything that looks like snake skin. Even if it’s an imitation.

57. I am anal-retentive about my cooking. Telling me how to do it when I don’t ask for your advice is one of my pet peeves.

58. The last time I watched a horror movie I hyperventilated.

59. Oftentimes, I had always been mistaken as a hooker when I was working at the call center.

60. I don’t eat breakfast.

62. I would rather have cold juice in the morning than coffee.

63. I eat like a guy but my body does not give justice to the copious amounts of food I ingest.

64. Music is an integral part of my life. So much that there is always a song in my head and I can’t help myself at times to sing it aloud.

65. For a time I dabbled on theater.

66. I am not a registered voter in the Philippines. I find the politics there too dirty and the politicians deceitful that I will not waste my time, energy, and trust on those scums.

67. I am not homophobic.

68. I don’t say “I love you (too)” unless I mean it.

69. I’ve always been passionate in helping people.

70. Despite my competitiveness, I don’t vie for the medal or glory. I derive pleasure from outwitting the competition.

71. I used to dislike my name.

72. It’s the challenge of the job or project that drives me, not the salary and never the praise from my superiors.

73. I have to put a lot of effort in focusing on what I am doing because I get distracted easily.

74. Even if I’m drunk I can recall events and conversations that happened during my drunken state.

75. I am very good with my hands (yes, that statement is very very loaded).

76. It never concerns me when people say I look older than my older sister.

77. I used to be very depressed when I was a kid that at one point I almost committed suicide.

78. I can admit that therapy worked for me.

79. I am very loyal to my friends, but also frank.

80. When it comes to my family, I walk away when they say mean or cause me pain rather than fight back.

81. For everyone else, I would give them a piece of my mind.

82. I don’t ask ridiculous questions like “Am I fat?”or “What are you thinking?”

83. I still giggle.

84. Me dying young is more appealing than old, wrinkly, and being incontinent.

85. I appreciate it when people correct me if I’m wrong even if how they say it sometimes stings.

86. I can’t tolerate incompetent people.

87. Like everything in this world I believe nothing lasts, including love.

88. I stopped playing tennis for some time because I was afraid only my right arm will be tone and muscular. Silly, I know.

89. I get bored with men who don’t know what a “conversation” is.

90. When a guy says I’m hot the first thing that comes in my mind is “I know, tell me something else” I don’t say it though because I know men first appreciate looks.

91. Self-righteous Born Again Christians has turned me off from religion.

92. Despite having a lot of gay friends, my gay-dar is broken.

93. I’m not a perfectionist, I am detail-oriented.

94. I am very good at accounting.

95. I am not a writer. I can’t string words into eloquent sentences as my younger sister. But I write because that’s how I process my thoughts.

96. My spoon, fork and knife has to match when I eat.

97. I have only felt hatred to a singular person in my life. My rapist.

98. Despite the many hurts inflicted on me, I can still absolve people from the hurts they’ve given.

99. I am an optimistic realist. I hope to get and keep something or someone I really really like, but I won’t feel any spite if I don’t.

100. I keep on learning, relearning, and unlearning. It’s how I become better.

101. Writing this post is the hardest I've written so far. Maybe it will be the hardest I will write ever. It dredges very painful memories, reveals my darkest secrets, shows my vulnerability and the emotions I felt then are coming to me now like I felt them the first time.

I watched Sesame Street when I was young. Besides learning Spanish, Mr. Snuffleupagus is not just Big Bird’s imaginary friend, and Miss Piggy has a serious case of narcissism and bipolar disorder, I learned about decision making. There is a segment where a little boy was holding a helium balloon and was voicing his thought, “If I pop this red balloon, it will make a loud sound. If it makes a loud sound, it will wake up my sleeping sister. If my sleeping sister wakes up because of the pop, she will start crying. If she starts crying, my mother will get angry. If my mother gets angry, I won’t get milk and cookies for my snack.”

How elementary the producers and writers made decision making seem. What they failed to teach was how conflicting emotions will combat in your heart and mind. Even if we are raised right or our principles are well driven in our being, there will be instances and situations when our moral compasses will alter and we would make loathsome, undignified, and disconcerting choices. And there are also situations when our moral compasses are aligned or realigns and we make principled and well-founded resolution. But whether we choose what is right or choose what is wrong or choose what is wrong but then correct it by choosing what is right we go through a singular emotion that is not all the time warranted. Regret.

It is quite natural to feel regret when we do the wrong thing. But why is it, when we do the right thing, a part of us regrets it? The desire to take back what we have done, do something, do something else, or not do anything at all shakes us. I find it ironic that even if we do it or not do it (the right thing) we still experience regret. And when doing the right thing matters the most and to reverse the decision is

I am not overly concerned how one deals with their regrets. There is no right or wrong for answer for that. Okay, maybe there is, but I am not in a position to judge what is right or wrong in that arena. However, I am more bothered why we feel it even if we are doing the right thing. Ideally, when we choose to do the right thing we should feel a sense of triumph, maybe somewhat smug about it. But remorse?! That emotion seems so out of place.

When you think about it, doing the right thing often means sacrifice rather than gain, inconvenience rather than ease, being alone rather than well-liked. Sacrifice, inconvenience, loneliness all seem like a steep price to pay for the doing (or not doing) and saying (or not saying) what is right. Yet there are times (and I hope “all the time”) we do what is right despite how much it costs us but to feel regret on top of it is overwhelming.

My life has been roomful of helium balloons which most I’ve popped making me unworthy of milk and cookies. And while I enjoy milk and cookies, I do not live for them. I am not saying I can’t help but pop the balloons and cause a racket or make people hurt and cry. I am saying as much as I would prefer a life without remorse, I brave it and pop the balloons that I must.

Whether I choose right or wrong, I have weighed all the risks at all it's angles and as much as I know I will hurt more people and more of myself by choosing what is wrong or what is right, I choose either simply because the question "what if..." looms in either direction and what that question looms, I've resolved not to live in regret because of that. I would rather have regrets about not doing what people said or think should be or should not be done rather than regret not doing what my heart has led me to and be inconsolable with wonder of what my life would be like or had been if I only just been myself. It's a hard choice to make. A strenuous code to live by. Often times I've pained more than I've pained others. But I am driven not by selfishness nor anger neither am I moved by depravity.

Over the years of making choices I am slowly able to accept the pain that comes with it gracefully, cherish the joys timidly, and resolve the regrets with humility. Hopefully, when the time of accounting is upon me, I can say with confidence and conviction that if I had to live my life over again, I’d do it all the same.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought

Except for love's sake only. Do not say

'I love her for her smile—her look—her way

Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—

For these things in themselves, Beloved, may

Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love's sake, that evermore

Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Choice. Free will. Options.

These three things I didn’t learn until later on in life when my shrink was helping me cope with my BPD. It may seem absurd but it’s true when I write I grew up without having to make choices. Everything was pre-selected. Clothes, food, friends, classes, bed time, games, shoes, books, and anything you can think of. My parents made the decision. And it encompassed everything in my life. The upside was I had simply follow, wear, read, think what they’ve decided upon. The downside? Well losing my identity and becoming dark and twisted when I tried to know it.

It’s quite ironic that despite the fact that majority of the human population at this age live in a democratic environment, people do not exercise their right to choose. And it’s quite interesting to note also that most of the people who exercise their right to choose, they don’t choose wisely. We often compromise to what is convenient, easy and beneficial to ourselves or to our loved ones rather than deducing the possibilities, weighing the outcome of the possibilities, and acting on what is right to the standards of God rather than man. But there is nothing surprising about that. Man’s obvious depravity has left little room for wise choices.

Do not misinterpret me. I am fully aware that the common man do not wake up in the morning plotting evil deeds. I am fully aware that man strives to be good and accepted by all. But I am also fully aware that when decisions have to be made, esp. hard ones, man often thinks about which choice would hurt less emotionally, financially, physically, psychologically. I think, even before Sheryl Crow popularized it, people already knew that if it makes them happy it can’t be that bad. And even if a person can justify that their choice was to benefit others it is still often mired by personal necessity, guilt, wrongful passions, skewed reasons, or just plain stupidity.

Seeming like yesterday, the voice of my shrink talking to me about choice still echoes strongly in my head. Having your emotions swing in a pendulum was hard and we were discussing this when he said, “Feeling angry is not wrong. How you manifest your anger, however, is the question. How long you want to be angry is another thing. Remember this always... You have the power to choose. Even your emotions. It doesn’t mean that if you are in an infuriating situation being angry is wrong. But you can choose not to be. You can choose how long you will be. You can choose to make your anger productive instead of destructive. You have the power to choose.” It was a stupefying revelation. All those years that you’ve lived without having to choose anything and then you are told you can choose. It felt liberating. It felt intimidating. It felt overwhelming. Because it is easy to choose. But it’s difficult to choose the right things at the expense of your own personal convenience or comfort.

Some weeks ago, I’ve made one of the poorest and lousiest choice in my life. It’s the kind of choice you cringe remembering and you’ll remember for the rest of your life. The most convenient option for me was to shut up and live with it. But I couldn’t. Being fully aware that I’ve made the wrong choice and it’s hurting someone else made me edgy as my conscience picked on my brain and my heart. It got to a point when I had to choose again between the pain of discipline or the pain of regret, both options neither palatable nor beneficial to me and so was the possibility of the person who trusted me will despise me.

Last week, I exercised my freedom to choose and that time I chose the right thing. I lost my friend after doing it. It’s been some days now and I am slowly able to recover from that ordeal. A part of me wish this will be the end of it, but we can never forget the ones we fail. Overall, it's about taking responsibility of our choices, learning from sacrifice. Because even if we are free to choose, there is a price on the consequences of the choices we’ve made. But the price we pay are still up to us to decide on. Whether we choose to regret later or hurt now, enjoy this moment or work double time eventually, provide self-satisfaction or be self-sacrificing is our choice.

It's the hard lessons that shape us and how we respond that determines we who we are and how we will become. I don't believe any person has lived their life without them ever regretting anything. But how we choose to live our lives after we've failed is within us. And that, I think, is the ultimate meaning of the power of choice.

George Orwell said "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act."

In military school, my father lived by the code of Courage, Integrity, Loyalty. Growing up, we lived by that as well. We were raised not to lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate among us those who do. The cheating and stealing I was able to avoid. But the lying somehow stuck. It's hard to tell the truth when you get hit or, the least, get shut down by your own father. Having this encounter made me an adept liar. The lies I had fabricated when I was growing up were so good there was a point I myself couldn't tell the difference. But I wish I was always truthful to myself and to the people I care about. I wish I wasn't afraid of the bad possibilities of telling the truth. I wish that people I love can accept the truth when I say it. I wish truth doesn't always hurt.

We'd find it odd that despite the technological advancement, educational attainment, or plain life experiences we'd be wiser and have integrity or at least tell the truth when it matters especially when it matters the most. But more often we don't. We hide the truth behind white lies, small lies, and just not opening our mouths and spilling it.

We justify that what they don't know won't hurt them anyway or be all Machiavellian and shrug our shoulders seemingly brushing off the guilt that starts to permeate our conscience. But do we really not hurt them? And does the end really justify the means? I don't think so.

Despite the fact of knowing and understanding the probable and often times painful consequences of our actions we still lie to people not realizing we're actually lying to ourselves. We do it because of fear...fear of rejection, fear of intimacy, fear of being labelled, fear of being alone, fear of seeing who we really are. It's a catch 22.

Trust, they say, is earned. How ironic. Because despite this old adage we lie blatantly and indirectly to earn people's trust. And it's not simply the people we encounter at the grocery checkout or the paper boy, we deceive the people who matter most to us. The same people we make breakfast for in the morning, the ones we kiss goodbye, the ones we hug and say we love them, the ones we care most.

There is no lie that will be kept hidden forever. Eventually the truth eases out through circumstances or simply confession. Simply confession. There is nothing simple about confession, most times it's even harder than telling the truth the first time it was called for. For confession brings about another wave of fear...yet the same fears that has plagued us when we were wrestling with telling the truth or not.

It is a vicious cycle. When the truth is too painful to deal with, too difficult to face, too overwhelming to say we lie to ourselves first and the cowardness becomes our false bravado that encourages us to deceive others as well. Yet when the truth has finally emerged and regret starts to happen it is our one chance to rise above the lie and accept the consequences of the wrong choice we've made. That one chance is our redemption, maybe not from the person whose trust was broken, but a redemption to ourselves.

But then redemption is not always gonna happen. We can never be sure that if we lie today to this person the consequence we might face will not break us. And if we really digest this and understood the ramifications...why bother lying in the first place? Why bother lying at all when the fear is nothing compared to the outcome of a lie outted...