The Extraordinary Introvert

Lately, I have been super ungrateful to God. I have spent too much time comparing myself with others. I would lurk on Instagram clicking on stories of those whom I follow. I would look at their day and the activities they post, and from there, envy arises. “How I wish I was doing this! “How I wish I was doing that!” A few moments later, I would scroll through Facebook posts of those with 1000+ likes and 100+ comments. Once more, a sense of emptiness and a feeling of envy would inevitably arise. Indeed, I only have myself to blame for the self-inflicted enemy I created, as well as the unnecessary self-pity to which I succumb on certain times and certain days. I recently talked with my mom about my feeling down on myself, and boy was that the most intense and concerned she was. The tone was serious and the message was clear: she did not want me to go down like this. At one point, she even asked me if I would really rather be sucked into the quagmire of self-destructive feelings...

Yesterday felt like the most depressing afternoon of my life. I felt lifeless. It’s as if the weight of the world on my back was too heavy to carry. It was a slow walk to the car. It was a slow drive home. Walang buhay, walang malay at wala nang paki. I was looking down, not giving a damn anymore of what people would think of me. I didn’t care anymore if people thought I was walking stupid, or if I’m just making up my depression. I was just out of it, and I felt emotionless. However, as I stepped out of the car and into our house, the tears began to flow. This magnificent gift of sadness came to my rescue. The moment I saw my parents by the door, I just let it all out. I was so scared to show my scars to them, but sadness was telling me to just let it all out instead of bottling it all inside. This seemed to be what Riley was going through in the movie “Inside Out”.   As she rode the bus that would take her away from their new home, she felt lifeless and emotionless. Her...

Being an introvert is hard, isn’t it? The fact that you’re all alone in the corner, wondering why you don’t have true legit friends, or the fact that you may seem to have “friends”, but they just come and go as time passes. It’s as if you’re always the “Odd Man Out” all the time, and it can be very frustrating so to speak. I am no stranger to this feeling, and I guess that’s what makes me “The Extraordinary Introvert”, as the blog name suggests. You see, life hasn’t been easy for me in terms of the social aspect of it. You’d think that my childhood was “normal”, given the fact that my family life is not too disruptive and my family members are very supportive of me. It’s just that when I leave home, I feel the more striking effects of my introversion. My grade school days were just classes-recess-lunch-dismissal-repeat. However, the in-between intervals were the lonely hours for me. These were spent either sitting in a dark corner of the classroom or walking along the corrid...