Umpisa

I am a very courageous person. I always take challenges as hard ways of teaching a lesson, and they make me a better person. Giving up was never part of my vocabulary. Not until memories went back.

Kung merong kahinaan ang bawat tao, iyun yung pagbalik ng mga alaala. I never battle with memories because if I do, I will end up losing my sanity and worse, myself. 

I don't know what's with Jensen Gomez that made me fall in love with his album Understatements' first single entitled Umpisa. Is it his voice? The melody? Or the letters that encapsulated the real, existing feeling of somebody who wishes to bring back everything that has fallen apart? 

I first heard the song in Emerson Reyes' MNL 143 and it has made a huge impact in my life. The song is a vivid definition of a feeling that constantly haunts every vein of my systems as I try-- really hard-- to get back the love that I had for years. It was a very hard and tedious and unsure process, and the song added up to my emotions that wanted to fall apart. 

Jensen is a master of bullying. His song has made me cry for weeks and I will never forgive him for that. And if every word of Umpisa is a bullet, I will be declared as dead on arrival. 

But I realized it is me, not the song, that injects pain in my heart and soul. It is me who inflicts the deadly emotions. The song did its job, to reverberate the feeling to somebody (in this case, to me) and I must say it did its job very well. 

I realized I never ended anything. In fact, I am afraid to put that single period because I don't want things to end. I constantly renew the feeling-- however painful it is for me to know that I am the only one who wants to get back what was lost. I held on to memories. I flashed back all the times when we used to share laughter and tears. I lived in the past for so long that I never realized the world has left me behind. That my present has a lot of good things to offer. This time, I decided to single out the painful moments, deleted them from my library of pains, and lived in the present. 

The song had helped me to realize that there might be no other way to bring back the good stuff and all, but there will always be a reason to move forward. There will always be a reason to make my life meaningful to others,and most importantly, to myself. 

It thought that Umpisa refers to drawing back what was gone, making it real again and doing it right this time. But no. For me, it signifies a fresh new start. Kailangan nating mag-umpisa, hindi dahil ganito ang sistema ng buhay kundi dahil kailangan nating mabuhay. 

I realized Jensen was not really a bully. He was actually an instrument of realization to everyone who, like me, hopes and wishes and constantly puts that shitty 'what ifs' to something that really has to be ended. Jensen, I forgive you now. I am sorry for telling the world that you are bad. You are not, the world is. And I realized, lastly, that it is the truth that will hurt us a lot, but after all the pains, we will be healed by that same truth. 

To hear the full song, click here

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