Avoiding Awful Days

I'm seriously wondering how I've avoided awful days in my mood calendar, but today I knew my answer. These days, I'm more positive and I'm not fully swayed by my negative emotions. I try my best to really steer myself from being sad and those efforts came in clutch today and prevented yet another would-be horrible day.

So my day continued from yesterday's horrible situation. I still didn't have electricity but I was able to talk to my friends. I felt relieved, sure, but was still largely uncomfortable because we had no electricity and no Internet, and what made the situation worse was that the summer heat could still be felt at night, and my Internet connection was so horrible. I still tried talking to my friends and streaming something for us to watch. I told them that aespa released a new song titled "Long Chat" and we found it so cute and adorable, but I didn't stream it on account of my poor Internet connection. Still, I was able to order McDonald's for myself and I treated them as well, I was supposed to buy coffee and a chicken sandwich but I couldn't even load the Grab app properly because my Internet connection was so shitty. So I just gave them the money for them to buy it and we had our coffees. We watched scary stories from Sapphire Sandalo and it was a marathon of them. I enjoyed my coffee a lot because it had a syrup that tasted like cereal. Even though the night was rough, I was constantly sweating because of how hot it was, and there were so many spooky things going on around me, I still somewhat enjoyed it. I was still in a call with my friends and talked to them about their life problems and how they needed a change of pace. I listened to their problems for a bit more and we eventually went back to watching more horror content from Sapphire Sandalo. It was way past 4 and around 5 a.m. when we decided to leave the call, they tried to get me to sleep. While this was going on, I just asked to take a leave from work because I really couldn't work with no sleep, no electricity, and no Internet. My MacBook's battery was also almost close to dying and my situation was starting to get dire.

I tried to sleep for a few hours, but kept waking up every now and then because I was drenched in sweat and felt so horrible from the heat. It was unbearable and lying on my bed, trying to sleep was the worst part of this day so far. Eventually, I woke up and couldn't stand it anymore. It was around 10 a.m. and I was thinking of what to do now. Part of me wanted to go to an Internet cafe so I could at least have a working PC and then play Lethal Company with Luan and my friends later, but I decided against that because I was weary of how unhygenic those PCs are, plus also if there was spyware embedded in them. I then tried to think of any of my friend's places to hang out at and I thought of a few, but my closest friends were outside of Metro Manila, so I couldn't. I had my friends and I thought of them, so I decided to shoot my shot and try it out. After all, they had a friend stay over and come work with them last year, so I figured I would do the same.

Eventually, an intense argument followed because they told me no and I called them out. It sucked a lot. I was here for them, helping them out, giving all I can until I ran dry, sacrificing my health and sleep by accompanying them at night for 1 year now, and spending more than 2 years with them. And yet I'm met with the same result, the same excuses. I'm not close enough to be with them and they're not comfortable enough with me. They proclaimed before that they "would help their friends no matter what" and I only asked for help because my situation was so dire. I had a rare in-office meeting for tomorrow that I need to prepare for and I didn't plan on lollygagging. But I was turned away with excuses, but somehow their other friend was given a free pass because they were friends in high school.

This was honestly my breaking point and it wasn't long until they blocked me, then they left our server again. I didn't try to call them anymore to talk, I didn't want to spam them with messages. I was just done. These were people who I stood with through their worst times, gave them so much, sacrificed and endured so much, and I essentially tried my best. Whenever I speak up about how unfair they are to me, I'm always not heard properly and my side would never be understood.

I've been mentally preparing myself for this day, honestly. The point where things would just break. I knew it, and I was honestly not surprised to have it all end here. I'm honestly ready to cut them off for good and never come back. I guess this will be the case and thought to myself how fitting this ending would be. We ended because they couldn't help me, after all we did together, the nights spent, the games played, and all the fun moments. All that meant nothing to them and some person was worth more to them than I was. It's a perfect ending and, to stop myself from feeling sad, I thought back to this passage from a review about Past Lives (2023):

There are things in life that we just can't control and Past Lives represents coming to terms with those events that we hold no authority over. Nora and Hae Sung both hold different character themes that tie into the overarching message of the plot: letting go.

As much as something may hurt now, holding onto such things will only cloud your vision of what's ahead of you and prevent you from living happily in the future.

I personally don't want to come back anymore. I'm ready to throw away everything from the past 2 years and just mark it as a loss that I shouldn't chase after anymore. I've done everything I literally can except let go, and it was time to do that.

I booked a ride to BGC, went to my usual hangout spot at Starbucks 32nd Street. My phone's signal was horrible throughout, which was surprising because it was never this bad before. Still, I tried to nurse myself and prevent this from becoming an awful day. I watched a few videos about productivity and envigorated myself in continuing that certification path. It was also weird because the feeling I'm getting isn't sadness, it's the kind of righteous anger I'm feeling towards myself for not doing better, and that I should strive hard to prevent situations like this from ever happening again. I should have trustworthy friends that I can lean on, a better place that won't have these constant electricity problems, and so much more. My feelings just burned and burned, and I was on the verge of booking a hotel or Airbnb so I can de-stress.

But thankfully, power was restored to my house in the afternoon and I didn't have to spend on an expensive room I'll stay in for a few days. I watched some hype moments about Counter-Strike and felt so energized from seeing how the pros play and get wins. On the ride home, I played a few songs that bolstered my mood. One that I could relate to the most was Katy Perry's Part of Me. The lyrics perfectly encapsulated my emotions of being angry and of feeling slighted, and it was nice to come back to this forgotten gem.

When I got home, I was relieved to have electricity again and played Overwatch 2. I bought that new D.Va Porsche skin. I played 1 round of competitive and did really, really well. I had extremely good stats like high kills, few deaths, and fought a good fight. I was at my happiest at this point and that really made me realize that today wasn't awful at all. I remember my awful days vividly and they didn't feel like this. I was happily angry, driven, and determined. I'm looking forward to my future and I'm now in full control of my life.

After that, I trashed everything that we had between all of us. I unfriended all of them from Steam, uninstalled Sons of the Forest, left our server, deleted their messages, and just removed everything. I'm ready to let them go and live happily in the future I'm supposed to be in, putting this chapter to a close.