BEYOND THE BIG SKY

Ugh.

Fuck with the paragraphs and let’s just get into the meat of it, I’ve blogged so many times in the past that I don’t want to go, Hi! I’m XX and welcome to my motherfucking blog which will mostly be about my long and comprehensive obsession with Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Illuminati silently manipulating everyone guised in the midst of all this global political chaos, and the trials and tribulations of a 21 year old something-something (not really that deep as transcribed in said blog).

Let’s go with bullet points since we don’t have time for that crap – hi, you, what a nice way to get to know yourself again. *cries in quarterlife crisis*

Name: Masahiro Patrick Niizuma
Blood Type: O
MBTI: I switch between ENTP and INTP
Religion: Dog (just kidding I’m a Catholic… I hate the God Fandom though, also I am pretty devout to my dog so technically it’s not really wrong)
Age: 27, at the time of writing, kinda felt the chills when I wrote that down. Ugh. Ew. Twenty Seven. and single? Oh my God, I’m dying alone.

So what is this blog for? As with all my past blogs, I just wanted an avenue where I could dump all my thoughts and ideas – to express myself freely and in written form, because you know, even I start to think I’m going crazy when I do all the thinking and post-processing inside my head, without ever having any evidence of the weird brain farts that even came to being afterwards.

Personally, I think I’m doing this because I want to rediscover myself – to get to know myself more. Because to be very fucking honest, I’m really starting to lose grasp of who I am at the moment. It’s funny actually because for the longest time, I used to take pride in being that “I know who I am” kind of guy. But now? I’m not really sure.

Let’s break this down by objectively looking at my timeline of being. For the most part of my late teens and early twenties, I practically only did three things: work, study, and sex. Pretty much it. I started working as early as I could remember, all the way back in high school in Japan, and took shifts after class to support my family (and of course, so I could buy stuff I wanted). I also studied a lot on the job and well, for a brief moment, I did attend Ateneo, and busted my ass off reading 70 page-long readings just because I thought they were interesting. Thankfully enough, Ateneo profs gave out really good shit for me to read. And as for the sex part, well, nuff said. I had lots of it.

Based from that, I guess we can have a pretty good assumption of who I think I once was (and probably what most of my peers used to associate me with):

1. I think I was pretty outgoing, and a lot of people thought I was a fun person to be around with.
2. I was a hard worker who has hands-on experience on what it is like to be in the working force, who had to go through tons of trauma and sacrifice, in comparison to most people my age.
3. Literally good with my hands. I am creative, has technical prowess in the things I excel at, and people could count on me if it came to it. That’s what she said, too.

But for some reason this all started to change during the pandemic, and even more so, during the entirety of 2023-early 2024.

I really dunno man, I just… disappeared. Like, the person we mentioned above, just dissipated into thin air and was just nowhere to be found anymore. I had time-to-time hermit modes during those moments, it started out maybe a month or two, where I was just gone off from the grid, until it escalated to like 11 months-to-a-year-levels of just unreachable, to literally everyone I ever knew. Deleted my socials everywhere too. Severed ties with pretty much every person who I had a any semblance of connection with. Which kinda sucks since I knew a lot of people. But the thing is, this blog isn’t about them.

So what happened afterwards? Let’s break that down too, I guess.

1. I pretty much forfeited every existing responsibility I had at school because online classes were not doing it for me and the situation at home was the absolute worst. Had to drop out of Ateneo without ever saying goodbye to everyone who has helped me along the way, which even to this day, I have nothing but regrets about it. Yeah, it sucks so bad.
2. I was a big huge mass of severe identity crises. The pandemic gave me so much time, but so little to work with since I couldn’t really leave home and I had so much alone time inside my head. As a chronic over-analyzer, I just pondered about everything so intensely, which includes my hypersexuality and my sexual orientation, my stances on relationships, life in general, and worst of all… dun, dun, dunnnnnn the future. Yuck!
3. In a stroke of luck, I was able to land a job despite not having a diploma, and got back home to the Philippines due to work requirements for said job. Had to get out of a serious relationship with my last girlfriend though, which taught me a hella lot about what it means to be in a sort of, adult relationship. It wouldn’t be an overstatement if I said that I was changed 180° because of it. And then I was just thrown right in the middle of the Filipino corporate jungle (despite working for Japanese companies).
4. For the last 3 years, I felt like I did nothing but work. In the office. Learning. Acquiring skill. Getting better at the grind. It was addictive. Finding out that you will never be enough and that you are borderline mediocre in various fields by working with actual professionals was an exhilarating experience. I was desperate to be good at whatever it was I was doing. All I did was work, and work, and work. Until I didn’t want to anymore.
   
   I had a really really REALLY bad case of burnout.
   
   After the devastating loss of my loving aunt, I had a tonsillectomy around the latter half of 2023. And when I entered bed rest, I was just thinking of ways to not get back to work. I eventually did though, but it really wasn’t it. I was having breakdown episodes in the restroom, and just finding it harder and harder to find quality sleep at night. And when I welcomed 2024, 2 weeks in, despite enjoying the work, and wanting to be loyal to my boss who has been nothing but understanding, I had multiple resignation letter drafts. And it was breaking my heart. I just didn’t want to work. I was given time off work after I submitted my first notice, but it just went all downhill after that.

I don’t really want to go into detail about what transpired during the months after, but it involved a lot of crying, antidepressants, weeks of just being above my bed, multiple resignation letters, and a lot of relocating. Right now, it’s 12:02 AM and I’m somewhere in Makati, a bit sleepy, but very much in a state of catharsis. You guys have no idea how much writing this all down is turning me on.

So.

What am I like now, and how do I see myself:

1. I’ve been off my meds for a couple of months now *ehem* and I think I’m doing relatively better compared to where I was at the start of the year. I feel like shit though because I gained a TON of weight, so I’m thinking of doing something about that soon.
2. Definitely not the most outgoing person, so please don’t schedule any sort of meetups. I run entirely on a social battery, and the second I hit the 30% mark, I am not risking it. I will leave and go home. Gone are the party days, and the long night outs (but we have our exceptions hihi)
3. Still sassy, still sarcastic, still shady. Some things never change I guess. But definitely a bit more reserved and more collected, quieter even. Which I think is an improvement.

Now that I think about it, I feel like all the times I was blogging in the past, I was always going through something pretty bad. And I guess this is why it’s going to be different this time around. Because I actually think I’m in a good place at the moment. And I’m doing this not so I can gush-pour-and-vent. I think I’m doing this because I want to keep track of where I am at and how things will turn out – and to rediscover who I am, because I want to check if those days where I would look at the mirror, and all I could do is just go “Who the fuck are you?” (I’m a brat when I’m bumpin’ that ayyyyyyy) will finally come to an end. If there is one thing I learned from the past couple of years though, it’s that things couldn’t be fucking worse than what’s already happened. That’s the biggest take, I guess. The worst is past me, and that it can only get better from here… right? This whole blog must probably have no cohesion of the sort since I’m just typing down any word that’s popping out of my brain, but yeah. Hello. Oh also, the sex part? I’m not having much at the moment. The meds altered my brain chemistry so I only feel the need for sex every so often (didn’t need to say it, but I will leave it in anyways)

To my family, thanks for always bearing with me and for picking me up when I was at my lowest.

To the people who I became out of touch with, if ever you are reading this… why are you even reading this? Kidding aside, I apologize if I kinda just disappeared, and left stuff out without any closure. So ito na yung closure, ayoko na kayo makita uli (I will be making a Google Form and a When-to-Meet soon, please standby for the links)

To my 9 favorite people, you guys know who you are, thanks for sticking with me despite me being like… this. I love you guys so fucking much, words cannot even.

If you don’t know me personally and have for some reason stumbled upon my blog, hi…? I guess. I am concerned for your well-being but I am thankful if you made the time to even reach this part of the blog.

And to me, hello again. You did good by not giving up when you had all the options to do so. You seem cool and I would love to get to know you better.