A week ago my parents celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary. They've been together for 30 years, including the seven-year relationship they had before getting married. Crazy.

I guess it's safe to say that almost everything I know about love I learned from them. I grew up in a home of only three people: mom, papa, and myself. We lived in a compound, and almost all our relatives were just streets away, but inside our house it was just the three of us. It wasn't at all a story-book set-up -- both my parents worked the whole day, and most of the time I was left with my lolas (or yayas). Sometimes I didn't see my papa when he gets home. I cried every time my mom left in the morning. But it was a happy, simple set-up. We shared our food, we told each other stories, we kissed each other good night.

If there's one thing I'm incredibly grateful for, it's this: my parents taught me that loving someone is being their friend. I can never stress how happy I am that they both raised me not only as their daughter but also as their best friend. I grew up listening to Sergio Mendes, The Carpenters, and The Beegees playing over breakfast on Sunday mornings. I knew all about their friends and more-than-friends. Likewise, I shared my secrets with them, and told them all about my days, both good and bad. I couldn't let a day or week go by without telling them a random anecdote about anything, from a professor's advice to a movie I just saw. I think deep down, despite our quirks and idiosyncrasies, we genuinely like each other enough to treat each other as very good friends.

Perhaps that really is the secret -- to love someone, you have to really like them. You'd be surprised at how difficult that can be for some people. Some people fall in love with people they don't even like - strip away the tension and they're left with nothing to make them want to say they're actually okay with being with that person. But I guess, when you like each other enough, when a person is more than just an object of your affection, but a person you share everything with and like being around, it's not so hard to choose to stay and love them even more. It's more fulfilling, even, to know that at the end of the day, all you need is a this person and a good chat, and everything will be okay.

(Belated) Happy anniversary, Mommy and Papa! Thank you for being the best set of friends - to each other, and to me.

A week ago my parents celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary. They've been together for 30 years, including the seven-year relationship they had before getting married. Crazy.

I guess it's safe to say that almost everything I know about love I learned from them. I grew up in a home of only three people: mom, papa, and myself. We lived in a compound, and almost all our relatives were just streets away, but inside our house it was just the three of us. It wasn't at all a story-book set-up -- both my parents worked the whole day, and most of the time I was left with my lolas (or yayas). Sometimes I didn't see my papa when he gets home. I cried every time my mom left in the morning. But it was a happy, simple set-up. We shared our food, we told each other stories, we kissed each other good night.

If there's one thing I'm incredibly grateful for, it's this: my parents taught me that loving someone is being their friend. I can never stress how happy I am that they both raised me not only as their daughter but also as their best friend. I grew up listening to Sergio Mendes, The Carpenters, and The Beegees playing over breakfast on Sunday mornings. I knew all about their friends and more-than-friends. Likewise, I shared my secrets with them, and told them all about my days, both good and bad. I couldn't let a day or week go by without telling them a random anecdote about anything, from a professor's advice to a movie I just saw. I think deep down, despite our quirks and idiosyncrasies, we genuinely like each other enough to treat each other as very good friends.

Perhaps that really is the secret -- to love someone, you have to really like them. You'd be surprised at how difficult that can be for some people. Some people fall in love with people they don't even like - strip away the tension and they're left with nothing to make them want to say they're actually okay with being with that person. But I guess, when you like each other enough, when a person is more than just an object of your affection, but a person you share everything with and like being around, it's not so hard to choose to stay and love them even more. It's more fulfilling, even, to know that at the end of the day, all you need is a this person and a good chat, and everything will be okay.

(Belated) Happy anniversary, Mommy and Papa! Thank you for being the best set of friends - to each other, and to me.

Hello, I'm Karla Bernardo. If you Google my name, you will find the Wikipedia entry of a Canadian serial-killer (and trust me, you do not want to read about that - but I'm sure you will because now you're curious), which is why I suggest you type Bombastarr instead so you can stalk me better.

I spent eight-and-a-half years of my life in the University of the Philippines, where I graduated with degrees in Creative Writing and Juris Doctor. It is also where I learned how to speak a bit of Italian, got a taste of the best tapsilog, and took striptease for PE.

I love telling stories, as much as I enjoy finding them.

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Featured Works

Stargirl (Cover story for Nadine Lustre, Scout, January-February 2017)
Surreal / So Real (at Scout)
Ode to a Great Love's 17-year-old Self (Love.Life, Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Postcard from Diliman (Youngblood, Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Writer for Philippine Law Register
A Call to Arms (January 2017)
Expecting the Expected (March 2016)

Former Writer for Stache Magazine
The Hero's Journey (June 2013)
The 8 People You Become In Your Youth (June 2013)
The Best Bad Idea That Is Argo (April 2013)
Mike Ross Remembers Everything You Don't (August 2012)
Style Between the Riffs (August 2012)
Book Lovers Never Sleep Alone (June 2012)
A Spectrum of Change (December 2011)
Digital Art (October 2011)
Elements of Style (June 2011)
In Her White Dress (All-Art April 2011 issue)

Morning After Pill (Fervore: Literary Folio 2013, UP Portia Sorority)
How To Make a Blueberry Cheesecake (Kalas: Kalasag Literary Folio 2011, UP College of Arts and Letters)
January 14th (100: The Hundreds Project, UP Writer's Club)

An Ode to The Pillow Book (at New-Slang)
Introductions (at TeenInk)
One by One (at TeenInk)

   

Recently

Hello, Baguio weather
Learning to love again
Of faith and fate
The most wonderful time of the year
December 18
say that i'm the one, 'cos you are a ten
ends meet beginnings
Hi, Inang.
To my engineer,
this is how it doesn't start, in eleven parts

This Is How It Doesn't Start

this is how it doesn't start, in eleven parts

Labels

An attempt at poetry; Books; Bullets; Creative nonfiction; CW; Featured; Feeble attempts at poetry; Fiction; Finger exercises; Law school; Mixtape; Playwriting; Poetry; Senioritis; Shuffle Wednesdays; Summer; The Pillow Book; Thesis; UP

Archives

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Got a comment, question, violent reaction, love letter, or random piece of information you want to share with me? Just fire away. I don't bite.

(I changed my form and went back to Freedback because Ask.fm's being a bitch, requiring people to sign up for accounts before asking questions. Because I love you guys, I tweaked my ask box a bit, so that the questions will now go directly to my e-mail, but I'll be posting the answers still on my Ask.fm for convenience. TL;DR - I'll still be getting your questions so no worries. You're still free to harass me / send me your love.)

Answers

Most Frequently Asked Question

Are you a pornstar?
No, I am not a pornstar, stripper, or your friendly neighborhood call girl. It's just a fancy pseudonym with a long history, and two R's. Rawr.

Bombastarr is my personal blog and my little corner in the Internet since 2005. Yes, I started writing here when I was 13 years old (aka when I was very angsty, hormonal, and always gushing at the littlest things) -- ergo, you'd have to forgive me if you come across an old post that reeks of immaturity and slightly unpolished grammar. I did a lot of growing up here, and from the looks of it, there's still a lot of growing up to do, so I don't think I'll be leaving this place any time soon.

The domain, Bombastarr.com, was purchased on June 2014 and launched on July 2014, on the blog's ninth year (and fifth month, to be exact).

It's crazy to think that this blog is now thirteen years old, because (1) that seems like an eternity in internet years, and (2) that means if my blog were a kid, it's a teenager! That's insane.

Here's to more tales, explosive and otherwise.

If you've been living under a rock and think I'm a threat to world peace or an object of covetousness, sorry to disappoint you, folks: it's just a fancy pseudonym.

As in most things, it started in high school. It began as a joke between me and a couple of friends during our freshman year. We were practicing for a field demonstration dance which involved the use of shawls, and being the crazy-always-trying-to-be-funny person that I was (or I always attempted to be) I started doing poses with the garment. Someone started taking my picture using my phone, and one shot looked like I was posing for those B-list movies (or should it be R-list, as in R-rated?) of the vegetable-nomenclature variety. #IKYWIM. Hence, the word, "Bombastarr." Yes, very cheeky, I know, but for a 13-year-old, it was quirky enough to figure as a username. That was 2005, right around the time I trying to decide on a URL for a new blog. It's been a lot of years since, and what started as a joke became something I've eventually embraced as an identity.

Despite the many other chances I've gotten to permanently move (to Multiply, Livejournal, Tumblr, Wordpress; to a bigger platform where I can earn or use the blog as a venue for commerce), I've come to realize that Bombastarr is something I can never truly leave behind. It is a place I've grown to appreciate and love because it is a place I can call my own. It's a venue for my rants, my views, my writing. It is home, and it is who I am.

Bombastarr is a glimpse of my life: the thoughts, ideas, and stories that shape it into what it is, and what it will still become. This journal has been with me for all my crazy, often embarrassing adventures, but I'm sure there will be more anecdotes and feelings and people to write about. Which is something I'm really looking forward to. After all, you know what they say about the greatest stories - sometimes, there's still a lot that's left unwritten.

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