they never go away

yeah he was making a pass at me! oh my! blah blah and that other guy, he kept on asking if i was attached. hellooo? please, my boyfriend is so much sexier than him, noh? blah blah blah i tried to look interested. i had to consciously stop my eyes from rolling. yes, he is good looking. but does he have to brag about it? do i really need to hear this? but polite me smiled courteously.

at another time, i found myself getting annoyed at a person strongly expressing this and that opinion. it's like he has an opinion on every matter. and he says it not like an opinion but as a fact, a generalization. im sitting there, getting pissed but not showing it. again trying my darndest best to be politically correct.

if i ranted about these to friends, im sure id pretty much get a consensus of how 'justified' my feelings are. who likes braggarts and opinionated people, right?

but i decided to analyze my reactions. why am i getting affected in the first place? so what if they are conceited or opinionated? what is it to me?

digging deeper, i began to realize how my reactions stemmed from my reactions to my own sister. our eldest.

she was like that. an achiever right at the start. and with good looks, too. so she aimed high and got what she wanted. and talked about it endlessly. i admired her. i idolized her. but i also loathed her. i felt sometimes that her opinions were baseless generalizations coming from wrong references. she acted like she knew everything. and she announced it.

i hated that she got all the limelight. she always did. and that she got what she wanted from my parents. and while i felt i was probably smarter than her, she was way more popular than geeky me.

i also became proud and conceited, showing off my academic honors and my intellect. that was how i started to turn the light to shine on me. but it didnt make me popular. the opposite, actually. so i resolved that i will inculcate the value of humility. but i know that somehow, somewhere, i remain a proud man. and though i dont talk about it anymore, i flaunt my material possessions. yeah, that's how insecure i can still be.

this became an "aha" moment for me. acknowledging that my strong feelings and reactions had their roots in my relationship with our eldest. with that insight, my own feelings started to simmer. it's not about them. it's about me. i react because of i still feel insecure. i still feel that the limelight has been stolen from me. i still envy what others have.

sigh. you would think that my age, all these things would have been resolved. sigh again. i guess not. they never really go away, these feelings. but what changes would be how i view them and what i choose to do about them. which is just to analyze and accept. maybe its a step towards maturity. a small step, though.


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