It's been a while since I posted here and I've mostly posted about things that bother me or that are negative. So, to make up for it here's a "special post" about me and my life thus far.

In 2015, Pixar released a film titled "Inside Out." The film itself is centered around a girl, Riley, and the personification of her emotions that control how she acts, what she feels, and so on. The main items in the film are Riley's "core memories," memories that shape who she is as a person. Basically, the core memories are the things that define her personality. I, too, have some core memories of my own and I'll be sharing the most significant of them with you all today. (And I'll be categorizing them based on the picture above as well.)

Joy

Joy and sadness are the usual memories that dominate my "core memory holder," so you'll be mostly seeing memories of them here.

My first core memory of joy is about those times when I was with my family. My cousins and I would regularly watch TV and Filipino movies with each other, and it was such a fun experience. A treasured memory I have with them is when I was watching Tom and Jerry on Cartoon Network with my cousins. We were in my room back then, just watching them fool around and it was a blast. Another memory I have was about the time when we watched a movie in the theaters (I think it was "Dubai," but I'm not sure).

When I was a young teen (around 12-13), I mostly went to Internet cafes to browse the Internet. We didn't have Internet at the time and I didn't have my own laptop, so I usually went outside to browse the web. I had a lot of fun times there that solidified my love for computers. I learned how to use Photoshop, how to flash firmware files onto my Nokia 5233, how to use Facebook, and how to put YouTube videos on my PSP. This was an important time in my life as I had picked up many of the skills I would later use in the latter parts of my teenage life (like writing, photo manipulation, and so on).

I can't really put an exact date or timeframe for this one, but this core memory mostly revolves around my friend Jean.

My first core memory of Jean is when I first met her. It was on March 1, 2012, and we first met when I gave the spare chocolate bar I had to the person sitting behind me. I didn't know who she was, and I didn't really care who was behind me, but I'm glad it turned out to be her. This was on the bus ride home and we talked during the whole trip from Bataan back to Taguig. I can distinctly remember her stories about the time she went to Hong Kong with her family, and I showed her some videos of Girls' Generation on my other PSP. We exchanged numbers at the end of the trip and, well, that's where my chapter with her began.

My second core memory of her is from April 2012. We've known each other for 1 month and we've grown to be very close friends. Being the weird kid I was, I asked her if she could be my "pretend girlfriend" for one week. I still have all our text messages to each other from that time and, reading them now, it makes me cringe. I said some super cheesy Pinoy pick up lines (which were very popular back then). Still, I remember feeling a lot of joy when I wrote those. Plus, there were some text messages where Jean messaged "I love you" and those messages made my heart skip with joy because it was the first time I ever saw an "I love you" messaged directly at me. (And I never got another romantic "I love you" ever since :^) )

My third and final core memory of her was when we played Minecraft and "Skyped" a lot back in 2013 or so. I was into Minecraft at the time, and I learned that she was slowly starting to get into the game, and I introduced her to it. I had the most memories with her on one server, Meloncraft, and we built a castle mansion together there. The mansion was based on the Scarlet Devil Mansion and it was from an anime/manga/something that she introduced to me. We both had a blast building it together, and I got to play with her little brother, too. Near the end of the summer, she prepared surprises for me. She wrote little diaries about me and our adventures, and they were pretty sweet. Unfortunately, I lost access to the diaries once the server we were playing on shut down. I took some screenshots of some of the pages, but those are the only things I have left.


Of course, my memories of Jean aren't my only memories filled with joy. I have some of other friends as well.

I have as more core memories of Elaine than I have of Jean, but, for the sake of simplicity (and because this list is getting long enough already), I'll cut some short.

A favorite memory I have of Elaine is when we used to have late-night talks about Girls' Generation or about each other. Around June-July of 2013, I was in a really horrible state of depression (more on that later), and Elaine was the only person who saw the light in me through and through. She cheered me up at times when I was lonely and she often was my voice of reason. What makes me happy about it all was that she had no reason to do so. We've never met before and yet there she was, cheering me on and telling me to be happy when almost no one in my life cared about me. In a way, she was like my big sister, and I eventually considered her as my big sister, even until now.

Plus, I met Elaine recently, this November, and we went to different art galleries together. I skipped a day of classes for it, but I don't have any regrets about it. That day is important to me because it was the only day I had genuine fun in recent months. To be honest, I've been feeling down lately and that day with her was the only day wherein I got to go on an adventure with someone—and that someone is a very dear person to me.


My memories of Elaine, Windows 8.1, Girls' Generation, and 2013 as a whole are stored in an important place in my heart. Some people also tried to cheer me up during my suicidal times, including Jean, Jeramil, as well as a few others. I still keep the love they gave me in those hard times of my life, they keep me going in the times where I have no one to help. After all, love, joy, and happiness that was given to me aren't easily forgotten.

I still have a few core memories that I have yet to discuss, like my memories of winning hackathons, late-night calls with Jean, playing Minecraft with my RC brothers, my two proms, staying overnight with Loy, using Photoshop, my "blogger life" with Elaine, SS151, the people who helped me when I didn't eat at school, and so on. But this portion is long enough already. Don't worry, I'll be talking about them in a later post about my other set of core memories.

Sadness

My memories of sadness are a lot, but most of them are just short bursts of melancholy at odd times of the night. Rarely do some of them make a lasting impact on me, but I can share a few that did.

This is going to be odd, but I was stuck in a really, really deep depression back in the middle of 2013. After playing Minecraft and calling Jean the whole summer, I found out that she met a new guy and he instantly became her boyfriend. I was young, dumb, and instantly became aggressive towards her and everyone else. I thought to myself that I wasted an entire summer with her and instantly became super depressed and hateful towards everyone (except a few).

There were nights when I cried and screamed until my tear ducts grew dry. I constantly thought of ending my life and just dying, all because my best friend and love interest got a boyfriend.

Eventually, I had this "emo phase" wherein I'd usually listen to "The Black Parade" by MCR, I'd browse forums about cutting (though I have never allowed myself to do that), and I usually just spent my nights crying whilst dreaming about a relationship with Jean.

Looking back, it's a dumb reason to be suicidal for, but I understand why my 14-year-old self tried to do it. Thankfully, Elaine, Jean, and a few others were there to pull me out of that dark hole I dug myself in. And in the end, my memory of that time eventually became a fusion of sadness and joy.

Another core memory of sadness I have was a recent one, from August of this year. I'm still mostly keeping this private, but I can share a few details about it.

Around August, I was in this house (not this one) and I was feeling extremely unwanted. I had spent prior days skipping meals, crying myself to sleep, and so on. I didn't know what I felt at that time, but it was just an intense feeling of being unwelcomed, outcasted, and things like that. It all built up one night when they got mad at me for "messing with the Wi-Fi."

I cried a lot that night—the most I've ever had in recent times—and I just felt so unwanted and thrown away. I thought of my mom, my family, and all the memories I have of them and it broke me down even more. In the dead of night, I was undoing all the tech I had set up and packed my bags while listening to "Dear Mom" and remembering the meaning of the song.

That night was pure sadness, honestly. I only had my mom to contact and I asked her if I can go back to my old house (this one), and she helped me through it. It was a painful, painful memory and it still makes me weak now because of my memories of it all. That's all I can say about it for now and I can only further talk about that story with the closest of my friends, so, sorry.

My last core memory of sadness revolves around Jean and Elaine. This one was more recent than the last one. It wasn't as strong as the other ones are, but this did leave a lasting impression on me. Earlier this month, I felt a looming feeling that someone was missing from my life. I quickly thought of Elaine and I missed how I used to talk to her about SNSD and how we used to spazz to each other about them. But I met Elaine this month as well, so it turned out all right.

Although, I can't say the same for my relationship with Jean. I contemplated about my actions toward her when I was young, and I instantly had a million regrets. I was very mean and disrespectful towards her, and I basically treated her badly and downplayed her when she was nice to me. I pushed her away and got angry with her when she wanted to help me with my depression, and I just realized how valuable she was in my life. I looked at my current situation, thought about how it could be better if only I had valued her more, and just broke down at the APC library alone.

I miss her, I really do. I want us to get along again, but I don't want her to use me as her "schoolwork slave." Honestly, I don't even want us to be in a romantic relationship right now. Rather, I just want to have her as a friend again—a friend I could talk on Skype with, play games with, share our life stories with, and introduce me to new stuff (like Tohou, Hetalia, etc.). Having a friend like that now would be nice. Currently, I have a few friends who are like that, but they don't really know me that well and don't seem to care about me or my stories.

Fear

Fear doesn't really shape me much as a person, honestly. Hence why I have trouble recalling if there are any memories I have filled with fear that shaped me as a person. I can only share one, so I hope it will suffice.

When I was young, I lived in this house with my uncle who just got drunk every week. He got drunk so often back then, and I just expected him to go on a drunken rampage every other week or so.

This was really, really scary for me because, when he got drunk, he would often call everyone names and just berate everyone. Being the little kid I was at the time, I couldn't do anything about it and I just hid under my sheets every time he did. He threw chairs, plates, and almost anything he can find when he got into a drunken rage.

There was this one night when he fought with my mom and he was drunk, so we scurried into our room crying. We were so scared and we didn't know what to do. He went to me and apologized but I was too scared and tearful to understand. The extreme smell of alcohol and Red Horse was permeating from his breath and body, and it just made me cry and scream. Fortunately, mom was there and we didn't really get harassed that much.

There were other times when he would hit and punch my door because he was so angry and he would call me names while he was drunk while I just hid under the sheets. Those weren't the only times, but they were scary enough for me.

You see, all these memories have a lasting effect on me (which is why I called them "core memories"). This one has the most effect on me thus far. I now absolutely abstain from all forms of alcohol. Sure, I drank a some with my friends in high school while we were having that bartending class, but that was only a few. I went out for drinks one night with my "orgmates" and I got 2 bottles of Red Horse, but I quickly remembered the smell, tasted it, and gave the 2 still-full bottles to another friend.

Needless to say, I don't want beer, and I hate it. Cigarettes are a no for me as well. I don't want wine, too, and I will never allow myself to get drunk or go into a drunken rage. My self-control and trauma from that childhood event are too strong to allow me to consume a full bottle of alcohol.

His actions are haunting him right now, to be honest. He suffers greatly from health complications, constantly feels weak, and our grandmother (his mother) is more able-bodied than him. I guess the cigarettes and alcohol eventually caught up to him.

So, yeah, that's the only fearful memory I have that ever left a lasting impression on me.

Disgust

Like fear, I don't have many memories of disgust, but I have a few. I can only recall one in particular right now, and recalling it again still disgusts me.

One day, on my way home from school, I was sitting quietly in the school bus and minding my own business. As I we were about to reach my home, we slowed down next to a crowd of people. Our neighborhood is usually quiet, so not much happens here, but this just shocked me.

In the middle of the road, there was this dead body of this guy, on the ground and bloody. This was when I was in grade school or something, so it was a long time ago. I just saw him dead on the street, lying in a pool of his own blood. I didn't know the guy, but it was scary to see his dead body.

So, yeah, I don't really like seeing bloody things and they creep me out. I already have a fear of needles and blood, and this has to add to the list. Is this memory traumatizing? Not much, but it was disgusting.

Anger

Finally, anger. Like the past two emotions, anger doesn't really shape me as a person, as I rarely ever experience it. I guess I'm not the type of guy who frequently experiences anger. I get annoyed like everyone else, sure, but I don't really consider it as an emotion fit enough for this category. So, this will be short.

My core memory on anger is tied in with sadness, and it was about the time when I got really depressed and suicidal. As I said, I hated almost everyone back then, and I was super stubborn when anyone tried to help. It was mostly blind rage because I was young and didn't know how to deal with things accordingly, but yeah, it's tied in there with sadness.

The final core memory I have to share with you all is about Jean. In this post, I talked about how, in the latter part of our friendship, she mostly used me as a means to get her projects and assignments done. She didn't even thank me or acknowledge my work, and it was at a time when she only talked to me when she needed something from me. I was filled with extreme anger at this time, and I hated her. I didn't want her to use me as a robot that does her schoolwork and since our friendship was already dead at the time, I decided to burn the bridge between us one final time. This was the last time we talked to each other on Skype.

As a side note, I have many memories of my dad filled with hate, but (thankfully) I have written a separate post about that. My post about my dad can be found here and you can check it out if you want to.

Conclusion

Well, that's about it for this post. If you reached this part of the post and have genuinely read through it all, then congratulations! I owe you ice cream or whatever snack you want (but make it easy to afford, please). I'm not kidding, so, uh, yeah, just come talk to me about it, or something.

This was fun to write and it made me realize that I have such a rich memory filled with joy and seeing how most of these memories shaped me made me feel a lot better. My life isn't all that bad, it's filled with people who have shown genuine compassion, love, and care towards me.

What I hope is to have more core memories in the future. Hopefully, most of them will be filled with joy, but other emotions can suffice as well. Not everyone can have good things happen to them all the time, so I'm cool with whatever life throws at me and shapes who I am as a person.

I hope you had as much fun reading as I had writing. Now you know more about me and my life, hooray! That's all for now and I'll see you soon!