The Sunbaked King

Moving forward begins with the self.

I’m glad I started filtering your updates in Facebook. I have always been curious as to what you were up to, and every time your name appeared onscreen, I couldn’t help but take a quick peek at your page to see what was going on. Filtering? Brilliant idea. Not even a month has passed before I totally forgot that you even existed.

I’m glad I had the courage to tell you what I knew about you all along. I should have done it earlier, and perhaps met with you in person, but for a non-confrontational guy like me, those messages were a big deal and a big step forward. I’m glad that you’re fixing your life, but it’s a little bit too late for us. The good news? It might not be too late for you.

I’m glad I started to manage expectations. I’m no longer the eager boy I was when the year began. I realize that people do not always turn out to be the majestic angels I once envisioned them to be, so I adjusted my expectations accordingly. Too much time, effort, and money have been spent on people who disappoint you in the end.

I’m glad I’m a stronger person because of the pain. I’m glad I’m a wiser person because of the disappointments.

But most important:

I’m glad this phase is now over, because I’m getting sick of writing the same old tired words on the same old tired themes surrounding the same old tired phases of this same old tired life.

I have been living my life with my own brand of sorrow.

The year began with an abrupt awakening of the senses, a violent exposure of a vulnerable self. In one swift stroke (or one brief meeting, whichever is more appropriate), I became bare. Despite the pain, I embraced my nakedness. I persevered through the hazy and confusing rules of engagement in pursuit of an end that I knew to be uncertain. I did not succeed in meeting this end.

Several heartaches later, I find myself alone, all set up against a backdrop of a rainy evening and a soundtrack telling me that “good things come to those who wait.”

To all of you: you have hurt me, but I have moved on.

The price of detachment is one of conscious isolation, but the rewards can be enticing: no waiting, no sorrow, no fairy tale expectations. This is what I did last year, to much favorable result: 2009 turned out to be one of the best years in recent memory. I sailed through the year armed with a carefree attitude, a body that was 20 lbs lighter than when the year started, and a career that was well on its way to peaking.

A wave of a hand and the career nosedives into a place of insecurity and unhappiness. A snap of a finger and the pounds come rolling in. A blink of an eye and the confidence vanishes into thin air.

How easy it is to lose what one just had.

I am Kerwin Ray Sentillas, and I reappear six months later, broken and torn. But I am not gone. I have not given up. Although I am only the shadow of the king I once was, I will pick myself up, piece by piece, until I am whole again.

This is me, picking up that first piece. Watch me.