Pushed to the Limit

Have you ever been pushed to the limit? When either your skill or patience was brought to an excruciating bend, so close as to reach its breaking point? In school? At work? By friends? Parents? Or even by love (and/or its permutations)? Ahh... love. Wait, I'm getting in way ahead into my favorite topic. I can hardly contain my excitement. No, seriously. This is me, excited. Oh well.

In school, there are a few things given (or even driven) to pushing you to the edge: the bully, the terror teacher and the omnipresent and bone-crushing, mind-numbing MATH. These things either break your spirit and make you cringe at the mere thought of them, or they make you stronger by surviving their ordeal. In my case I survived both the bully and the terror teacher unscathed. I learned that you can sweet-talk yourself out of compromising situations with people, but with MATH?! NO! There's no reasoning with MATH! I had to dive into countless algebraic equations and swim through a horde of numbers just so I can finish my studies. Fortunately, I made it. But the emotional scars left by MATH will forever be engraved in my psyche. Aargh!!! MATH!

After unsuccessfully dodging Statistics, Math 101 and General Accounting (ugh... reminiscing about it still gives me the chills) during college, I finished my degree in Behavioral Science. After graduation, little did I know that the objects of my anguish will become insignificant as compared to those that I'll be encountering when I enter the corporate scene.

I landed my first job in a manufacturing company. Actually, I didn't apply personally for the post there. I sorta tagged along with my classmates who were called in for an interview. I ended up filling the vacancy instead of them. Lucky for me, I was eased up rather smoothly into my job. I was having a breeze with the tasks assigned and finished earlier than scheduled. Things were quite, how should I put it, nice. Or so I thought.

The first few months passed quickly. I didn't notice that my boss was slowly piling up work on my table. It was just fine for as long as the tasks delegated were found along the lines of MY job description. Not that I minded doing extra stuff. I did a lot of 'detours' in the course of doing my job. 'Detours' that often took more time doing than what I should be really doing. I didn't mind. For a time. But when I started doing stuff found in my boss' job description, well, that's when I draw the line. At first I just thought of it as some form of training, an initiation of sorts, a succession thing if you would. But he started giving stuff to me to process, and later on present it as if he was the one who actually did it. No mention of poor me. I said fine, "Okay. I'll let it slide this time." I found myself letting the same situations slide and go, until I got pissed. You know why? Imagine a servile staff up-to-his-neck in tasks plus tasks by his not-so-nice boss plus deadlines for the following day plus client demands and requests. Then imagine this servile staff (with all of those tasks) seeing his boss: 1) talk on the phone with his posse for hours; 2) watch basketball on TV; 3) go home early despite the number of tasks served on our (or in this case, MY) plate. That was the last straw. I got so mad, I shot him. With an AK-47 automatic rifle I have been reserving for such an emergency. (I would have settled for the Molotov cocktails I made the previous night, but I figured the impact from the blast might send shrapnel flying in my direction.) I fired at him until I was satisfied. Blood splattered across his room. With innards gutting out from his stomach, he was dead. Well, at least in my mind he was dead. Ahh.. to be gifted with such a sane disposition. I love myself. Now moving on. I'll just let the janitor stuff the dead body (or what's left of it) in a black garbage bag and dump it somewhere in the vicinity.

Peer pressure. Not actually pushing you to your limits but more of testing your constitution, pushing you to do stuff you wouldn't normally do without being, well, pressured. A test of how long before you give in to a boyfriend asking for a taste of your most prized possession (well, until you lose it that is): virginity. Or even a test of how well you can fend off the influence to smoke. Or how often you resist not to binge on a bag of spuds when they hand one to you. It's akin to the marshmallow test, except in this test, friends are there to shove the darned marshmallows down your throat!

For the record, I'll be turning 28 come October. And yet my parents, my mom in particular, are still keeping a tight leash on me. I'm almost a 30-ish freakazoid tethered to my mom like my umbilical cord hasn't been severed yet. On occasion, this can be quite self-assuring and might give you that warm fuzzy feel all over. But when it becomes more frequent, it later evolves into a sentient overbearing entity that comes between me and my mom, it then becomes a problem. I guess my mom has just grown so fond of me (and of chasing me with whistling-kettles full of boiling water around the house), she has fed this entity with so much care and love that it has already clouded her better judgment. I am an adult. Wait, that sounded odd. I AM AN ADULT. Wait. I am an adult?! What the friggin'... I am an adult! Sorry but I digress. I am an adult. A 27-year old PC-gawking, cartoon-loving, spud-binging, spectacle-sporting (and did I forget to mention responsible) adult. Our neighbor's kids wouldn't even count diddly-squat when pitted against me, and I don't mean to compare (but I'm going to anyway) but it seems that they enjoy more freedom to do things that they want. And I'm going to rub it in a bit more to show my utter frustration and lack of maturity. Considering that they are bums, and don't have decent jobs, and can be seen promenading the street (almost all the time) half-naked, I wonder why their parents let them be. I can't see the reason why my mom can't let me stay out late at night (my curfew being 11:00pm or earlier) when all the neighbor's kids practically stay up all night drinking. Unfortunately for me, the curfew has caused a virtually nonexistent social life.

And now for the reason why this blog came to be, the driving force behind this written outpouring: love. Ahh, love. Normally I would be swooning with the mere mention of this ubiquitous word. Unfortunately, now is not one of those moments. It would've been nice if this blog was conceived with the idea that I was inspired by love. Quite the contrary. I was frustrated with it. So frustrated that, instead of moping around or just sulking in the corner, I decided to utilize all the force this melange of emotions affords me - to come up with something creative and positive. And here we are. Again, I digress. I easily get off-topic when it comes to love and/or its other forms.

It has been a while since I have been tinkering with the idea of blogging and starting my own blog. I love reading. I love writing (well, I should - it's my job). I was just held back by the idea that I have to set things up, maintain it and stuff. I lacked one thing that I needed to jump-start my blogging life. And that is, motivation. Luckily, enough (or unluckily, if you pause and consider things) love provided that ingredient which has been lacking for a time. It provided me with the drive, the driving force, to push through and voilà! Aargh... Me and my digressions. Getting back on track. I was recently re-acquainted with the pain, frustration and anguish brought about by love. It was early January this year when I met someone. This particular someone had been the object of my affection since late August of last year. It has also been a while since somebody caught my fancy like this. I didn't think that I'd get this far in knowing the person. For me, this was waaaay beyond what I was hoping for before we met. I never would have thought we'd get this... well, close. Way too close for comfort.

I was pushed to the edge with frustration. I had so many plans in mind. The new budding relationship proved to have so many promises. A lot of things to do, places to go, and stuff to get to know and talk about. But alas, the plans set still remain as plans. Hopefully, this will be only for the time being. There is still a tiny fragment of hope left within me, and I'm looking forward to having a lot of these plans seeing fruition.

Another thing that pushed me to my limit: jealousy. It can work miracles or mishaps, whichever way you may want to look at it. It's another driving force behind this blog. But I guess I'll be saving that tale for another time... when I'll be needing to vent off some steam. Enough ramble. ;)