Pretensions

    When I was a kid, I hated pretending to smile to other people. Say hello, good morning, have a nice day like I mean it. Sure I was a brat and nonetheless spoiled. I hated concealing my emotions just so I would look polite towards other people. I didn’t understand my dad who kept a smiling face in front of everyone despite the seething anger, frustration or irritation he showed to us. What a fake, I kept telling myself. 

     Even as a child, I was already too idealistic. Why do you have to lie, to fake and to hide emotions when it would be better to let other people know? What’s so wrong with telling the truth?

     I’m taking Corporate Communications right now and it should teach us how to act, to speak and to think like we’re in the business of Public Relations. I thought to myself that wasn’t PR a bunch of flowery words and misleading statements? Perhaps I was wrong. I remember my prof telling us that you can never sound sincere, you can never fight with conviction if you don’t believe in yourself, in your job and your company. Guess she’s right.

     I also learned that I will have a hard time if I’ll venture in the field of PR. I realized that I don’t easily believe in things, I don’t even trust my own judgement at times. It’s so hard for me not to show the truth. Sure I can conceal it with a bunch of lies, or even silence but I can never be too sure of concealing my feelings about something. It’s the only thing that’s hard to control. 

     There were times when I felt comfortable weasling my way out of sticky situations. Pretending to be numb, careless, unsympathetic and apathetic. I can do that to cover up my nervousness, anger, confusion, frustration, excitement, and grievances. I wanted to keep every thing inside so I won’t lose my composure, my poise, my stand.

     Recently, my patience was on the verge of dissipating into thin air. I came back to my five year old stance on pretensions. Hindi ako plastic. And I couldn’t tolerate people who treat me so. If ever I don’t feel comfortable I’m not going to pretend that I enjoy your company at the moment. I just want a breather. I needed space to just let it all go, flush all those nasty feelings out of my system. And it takes time.

    On the other side of things, some things limit me from opening up my mouth and just throwing a sarcastic comment. I was so frustrated at that time that I really wanted to answer back and say all the things that I know to disprove and discredit every thing that will come out of her mouth. Sure, I’ll certainly cause a pang, or perhaps tore her heart out with the things I can say. But I didn’t. I held back. I backed off. I was the one who turned her back. I was the one who dismissed the argument. I was the one who gave up and let her win. It would be pointless anyway. None of the things I say will change her for the better. It will only cause fractures and rift relationships apart.

     It’s hard to keep all those things in me. It’s hard to restrain myself from telling the truth, letting all the ugly truth out. It’s so hard to pretend how I should feel and act. Now I realized that I will never be a good actor. My Acting class is my anger management class after all. Just the let the anger out. 

     It’s pitying that I have to resort into acting like so. As if I had the worst attitude ever. Being a reformer, I wanted to change, to correct things but being a realist restricts me because I know that I can’t do that. It’s frustrating enough that I don’t know what to do to help. Maybe it would all be better to just pretend that I don’t care. Retort to another individualistic and selfish shell.