Goodbye

I thought about writing about love lost and unrequited love. I was looking through the internet for an appropriate photo for it when I found myself with this blog: http://arnoldechevarriajr.blogspot.com/2010/12/unrequited-love.html

I'd like to share his simple, right-through-the-heart words and quote some lines I find striking:

" ... how it can actually ache in places that you didn't know you had inside you ..."

" ... you'll go somewhere new and you'll meet people who make you feel worthwhile again. And little pieces of your soul will finally comes back and all that fuzzy stuff, those years of life that you wasted will eventually begin to fade ..."

Last Friday was when I realize God was speaking right straight to me. I realize He has grown tired of my drama for the past four weeks and maybe, in His own reprimanding way, He allowed me to face the fears I will never be able to get over until such catch me off-guard and hit me in the face. It did that and more. We hugged me. I wanted to hold him longer but I know it's not allowed. He asked how I was. If only I could truly say I was fine. I think I never told him how I was though (though my friends told me I never said anything understandable anyway). I felt my smile was faltering and my knees where buckling. I was never a good actress anyway. All I wanted was to look at him. And look I did when he walked away, with his arms around his wife. That night, I closed my eyes and that's all I can see.

The experience took my night away anyway. I didn't sleep. Not that I didn't want to but I felt my heart was broken in tiniest pieces, my mind was overflowing with thoughts unshared, my soul was in pain. It was excruciating. It was ironic as well because I was off to a place for the long weekend, take my needed break and some breather from the events of my life in the past six months and most recently, in the last few weeks. But on the verge of my departure, I was confronted by the very thing I was running away from. I thought maybe God wants me to face head-on the realities of my drama, of my dilemma, of my life. He wants to hurt me, allowed to make me feel that numbing pain. I guess He knows there is no way I will be able to forget and move on until I am faced with the very person I never wanted to see in my conscious state. He knows I will never move forward until I put a period (.) in this phase.

And so, right now, I am okay. The three-day getaway to Dumaguete helped tremendously. The place, the people, the experience made me come back to the city with renewed spirit, with new realities and new hopes.

I still don't know what lies ahead but it's okay. I do know I have taken a step to recovery from the misery I put myself into, day-in, day-out every single day since weeks back. I am ready to join again the land of the living.

I can now sing again, laugh out loud, smile for no reason, dance when I'm alone. Everything's starting to feel normal again.

So here's to putting a period in this chapter.

PERIOD.

Ironies of Life

I don't know what to do with the ironies of life. The very things, moments, people you pray and beg and wish hard not to happen or transpire or see, it always does. All I wish for is the time to find my peace, struggle to find that finality of emotions that I stumble in every waking hour since that memorable day. But it seems life has something planned. God has something else to offer. The realities of my life has happened to tonight. I will never forget. As for the lessons, I'm still figuring out. As for the feelings, I'm still trying to find out what. As for me, I'm floating. Not here, not there, not anywhere. I'm off to find me. And when I do, I'll let you know. later.

Tea

I'm a tea drinker. Yes, if between coffee and tea, I would opt to drink tea -- green tea in particular, the plain, no frills type, no sugar or flavor is fine. But the truth of the matter is that i never 'really' liked drinking it. Sure, it's something warm to drink in the morning. But to actually say I like it, I don't think so. I prefer it, sure. But like? No.

Then why in the world do I drink tea, you ask? Well, it is good for the body! Yes, it is. If you want to know then Google the benefits of drinking it. The truth of the matter is that that is the reason why I drink it. Because I know it is good for me.

How boring can I get! The things that I do, I do because it's good for me. Isn't that what boring people do? Of course, sacrifice for my loved ones is not the context which I want to say in this writing. Doing that so is what is good and good for me. That all together is another long, emotional piece to write. But I just realized, now that I'm drinking this tea brought to me by my friend from her Beijing trip, I really really can opt not to drink this. But then, this is good for me and is a little better than plain old water, for that matter. I drink a cup or two in a day -- or three or four, okay -- because the more I drink it, the more I think I'm ingesting in my body what is good for me. To some extent, I think this is right. I mean, we should only eat and drink what is good for our body, right? Take care of our body as much as we can, si?

BUT always doing what is good isn't right, right? What if what I think is good is not necessarily what is good for me? To do what is always good is safe and will not at all give me any problems, worries at night, wrinkles, white hair, butterflies in the tummy .... but where does that leave me? Right. Not the looney bin, please. I think I have ample sanity not to land a spot there, thankyouverymuch. But I think I am in a place that is always safe and innucous, benign and unscathed. I'm like a mother who is protecting dearly my child -- only the child is also me. How odd is that? I think it's either I love myself too much or I hate myself too much. It's either I want to grow, sure, as it is inevitable but within the bounds of the parameters enough to always place me in a secure haven. Or hate myself to prevent me from seeking the possibilities of a life I may have probabilities of greatness. Living in the box or living in a bordeless haunt.

What to do, what to do? I need to find a balance in my life that shall swing me into taking a step in doing what I believe to be good for me and another to doing what I am unaware of the outcome. The un-Google-able. The unknown is not always bad, right? Balance. Yes, maybe that's what I should hope to find. Not hope -- strive to find.

In the meantime, I think I will drink my tea.

later.

Corner

I was sitting at the corner of our house yesterday afternoon, stirring the leaves of my tea and I had felt this dark, muddy feeling of weariness, of sadness, that clothed me like a blanket. In my normal mode, I would just go to my room and shut the door and let silence takes me off my emotions of drama and lowness. But yesterday, for some reason, I told my sister that I was feeling so sad. I jested even, saying I must be hormonal.

Am I? Or is this still an aftershock of the turmoil I've had few weeks back, some small, shockwaves of dark emptiness, of realization of solitude in life? Or another moment of missing my grandmother?

The dinner I had last night with my family made me realize some sad thoughts (which I still think is part of the 'aftershock' of my life's 'quake and tsunami' of the past weeks) - that I will be alone for the rest of my life. In the middle of our family gathering, with my sister's and brother's families, with all my nephews complete, I realize this will always be the scenario in the next five or ten or twenty years for me. That I will be surrounded by these wonderful people I call my family but by the end of the day, I will not have a husband or a son or a daughter or a family to call my own. That I will not be a wife to a man or a mother to child. It saddens my heart thinking that this can never be. The bleakness of the idea squeezes my heart softly, quietly, killing my heart and soul faintly. Pretty sad when I was thinking about it more as i lay awake at night, my mind going on a trip of its own.

I realized that the acceptance hasn't really sunk in. I don't know if it ever will. Or when it ever will. I have held tight as I can to my realities before, to the notions of hopeful future filled with togertherness, of little white house in the prairie, of small, giggly laughters of babies and mommys and daddys, of quiet nights of intimacy, of family, of generation upon generation of life. But I hold tight no more. I allowed myself for many years to yearn but I do not any longer. It's not an easy transition from being hopeful of the unknown future to being resigned to the reality of today. But what today is already a manifestation of what the future holds and the bleakness and coldness it brings my soul is a struggle I accept everyday.

I listen to songs about love, hear stories about relationships, see movies about families and kids ... but nothing seems as it was before anymore. A part of me was changed. That little part of me is already missing, the part that hopes for everything I wish for will come true. There was a piece of me gone.

later.

The End Where I Begin

It has been a rough month of March for me. I felt it was like when my grandmother died September of last year. Only this time, I was the only one mourning.

March came and went. April has started a new tide. There are moments in March that made me realize a lot of things in my life: my fate, my faith, my TV viewing habits -- I realized that one way to overcome sadness is when you watch sadder news in CNN - Japan earthquake, Libyan war to name a few. You will, for a moment, forget your own sorrows, I assure you.

Somehow, I realized that life doesn't end for me when it has started to begin with the others. The end that I may seem to think is all for me is truly a beginning of something else. Cliche as it may sound, it does seem a beginning to an end. The road doesn't end until it already is. All of us has a road to walk on. There maybe merging paths along the way, people we meet, experiences that occur in life, moments that we all go through, but through it all, there is one road to walk on. And for as long as you keep on walking, you are living. But more than living, one should be thriving. Feel the rough patches along the way, the bumpy, rocky terrain that is part of the journey as well as the smooth glide on cemented roads and the soft patches of white, warm sand on your feet. There will be rains -- heck, storms -- that will need you to take cover for a while or the blazing sun that warms you -- don't get toasted as may happen sometimes. The elements of life will all be present as you walk on your path. You may need to run sometimes, when it all seems that you want it all to end, when you want to reach the end of your road. But you will never reach the end until you really do. The end you seem to think is the finality of the road is simply another beginning of it. Then you walk on again to restart.

I guess when March ended, April 1 came. As well as the realization that there are more to my life that what March has given me. It was a bumpy ride at most, all rough and tumultuous. There are views in my life that changed. Rejection of old rules, acceptance of a few. Heightened fears of the unknown but at the same time calm sobriety of emotions and drama. Growth? Most definitely. Maturity? Yes. Regrets? Plenty. Change? Yes.

Writing about this still gives a pinching ache in my heart. It was not as painful as when March was passing, when I felt I almost had no heart to feel a pain so great. Now it's a pulsing pain, something that remains in my heart, a reminder of something heartbreaking, of something sad. Of something finite. An end.

So here I begin with an end. What follows is whatever comes. And whatever comes is my life from hereon.

later.

Exams

I received some very good news that I passed my comprehensives and got a pretty good grade for it. It was a wonderful blessing for me but at the same time I felt quite worried for a friend of mine. When I learned about my grade and that I passed first thing Friday morning (at 6am!), I opted not to inform her because I know she really worries about her own. I did not want to share anything yet until I know she learns her status. I guess I want her to tell me first before I tell her mine. Don't get me wrong, I was never worried that she did not pass, even what she did was a re-take. I believe in her and know in my heart she did pass the comprehensives. What I worry is that I think she doesn't think the same as I do with herself. At mid-morning, she texted me and asked what grade I got. I had my hesitations to tell her but I didn't want her to feel I was keeping it from her so I did. Then she began worrying so much for her results and when by lunch time she realized her grade was not in the online system, she began freaking out, crying and just crushing herself with mindless tirade of baseless thoughts and was overcome by fear of knowing what the real score is of her exams. Of course, I called our Department even when I had no business doing so. My friend did not want to even CALL the university to ask. I was informed by our ever kind-hearted Department Secretary that I should ask 'my friend' (which I think she obviously knows who I was talking about) to go see her and get her results, as in the case when student's grade is not reflected online. I told my friend this and she simply didn't want to go last Friday to know the answer to all her anxieties. She opted to immerse herself with sorrow and tears instead for a while. She didn't even want me and another friend of ours Claire to bother her for a while. My passing the exams was never really something I felt truly successful because of this situation. Sure, I passed but I felt there was something that does not seem right to be happy about. When I decided to attend graduate school, I never really had any notions that I will have any close friends. I am not the most sociable person in the world and a little geeky on the side (which at times misconstrued by some as being snobbish -- far from it, that's for sure. I am more shy than standoffish). But this friend of mine, who I initially felt too lively and cheery,-- and a little talkative on the side -- became a good friend. She was funny, smart, generous and very passionate about her goals in the graduate program we are in. She may often see herself as someone most often misunderstood within our circle but I understand her just fine. I introduced her to my high school acquaintance Claire whom I also had a chance to be friends with again and the three of us became good friends. Saturday morning came and I was thinking of her. I knew she went through some rough tide thinking about her results (which she already decided she failed) but space I gave her, despite that fact that I really really want to bug her to get her results from the department -- stat! In the middle of my Saturday morning, she texted me and informed me that.... SHE MADE IT! That was when I felt a gushing relief for her and was very very happy for her. Then I felt at that moment an instant overwhelming emotion for my own success in my exams! It truly was a moment when I felt I did pass too and I scored high and I am truly a candidate for my graduate program (pending Thesis, of course!). I never realized that I was waiting for my friend's result as well as my own to truly feel I have made it this far in this journey. To my friend Tess, we made it, mare. I shall look forward seeing you and Claire in our Thesis Seminar in May. Graduation in March 2012? later.