I Miss My Dad

via

One of the most difficult things about longing probably is missing someone you won't see anymore. It's like a memory that's hazy and foggy--you know it's real, but it doesn't feel like it is anymore. Coupled with regrets and hopes which are to no avail, the longing gets even more unbearable at the worst instances.

It's been a lot of years now since Daddy passed away. A decade to be exact. I was 11 then, stupid and unaware of the effects of death. It just won't strike you as real or anything big at once, well, at least for me. It didn't happen that way. For all it was, I was wondering more than I was grieving. I found it normal. I found it as something which happens to anyone, anytime. I wasn't the grieving girl type when it happened.

Until the fact struck me. I remember the sad dreams that haunted me months after the event. I cried in my sleep, more of because I hoped the dreams were real. I cry when my mind wakes up, and realizes none of it were true. (When I wake up from a dream, I don't usually automatically open my eyes). The content of the dreams are usually the same, my father returns, an indication that he has already left. And at the end of it, leaves. Usually, he leaves when I am unaware of it, that I'll wander a little, thinking he's gonna be there when I return. Usually, in my dreams, I get lost looking for him. Maybe these are projections of my hopes that he'll still return. Because the grave doesn't look like it's full. It looks like a bed of grass with nothing else beneath it.

When I miss him, I feel like curling into a ball because I want to hug him so badly, but I know I couldn't ever anymore; because my chest hurts so badly, I want to make the pain seize; because I want to be like a little girl again, forgetting everything. There were those quiet sobbing at some nights, trying to conceal the pain. Sometimes the triggers are quite simple, a chocolate bar, a string of beads, a fragrance, a tall man, different things that remind me of him.

They say that time heals wounds, but I realized that the wounds will turn to scars--visible reminders of pain. And though they say scars don't hurt anymore, sometimes, it feels like there are frail scars, they hurt when you touch them. And though it is a decision to move forward and to not dwell on pain, it is human frailty to go back and wish things were different.

I have been healed from the pain, yes. But remembering is just inevitable, especially when someone deeply dear to you cannot be there for you anymore, all you have left are the memories and hopes. And though it is to no avail I hope he returns, I look forward to let him remain in my heart. Moving forward doesn't come with forgetting, shouldn't even. I told myself I should not dwell in the pain of the past anymore, but I concluded that doesn't mean I forget the beauty of it. How could I easily forget the only time I depended on a man? How could I forget that once in my life I have been carried? How could it be easy to unremember that time all I was waiting for was Daddy to appear on the school gates and pick me up?

I am thankful for the turns of events that crafted me to be who I am right now. I am thankful that it didn't go otherwise. I am thankful that everything has been well-orchestrated by my dear Creator. And though I remember, I won't go back and try to remedy things and try to do the improbable and impossible. I am happy to be reminded that my father was a good man who loved me and my siblings so much. I am happy to have had him in my life. Knowing that the Lord's design is for me not to have him in the entirety of my temporary existence, I am thankful that for the first eleven years in my life, I have been taken care of by someone like him. Time is rolling, and the time that I have had no Dad will be longer than the time he was with us, but my desire is to continue to treasure the memory of one of the most beautiful people I have ever met in this life.

Thank you, Daddy. Thank you so much.

4 / 24

There's a hollow box containing coldness
Somewhere in the passage of my voice
Along where my breathing comes and goes
I tried to let it all out to free myself
From the questions it is packed with
But the more I do, the colder the air becomes

I feel a thousand hot daggers in my chest
All in the size of the biggest needles
The heat of the blades burn the surface
I try to pull it off to rid myself of it
To take the puzzles afar and away
But the more I do, the hotter the pain becomes

E---

Emotions are as rare as the sunsets and sunrises. It is never out of sight nor is it ever out of scenarios. What I've been contemplating recently, though, is as ubiquitous as it is, is it that bad to have them?

I've been battling with all kinds of emotions these days, and I don't know how I can juggle more (or how I can juggle all these I already have in me). There has been a series of joys, melancholy, confusion, etc. And under these categories, are there even more sub-emotions. Emotions are just about everything, everywhere.

We've been talking a lot about emotional maturity these days, and there's been a lot of opinions about it: that emotional maturity is being invulnerable to emotions, that it is about not being affected by anything, or that it is about having no or little inconvenient emotions... bla bla... but are these things possible?

Maybe as an answer to my prayer to be more emotionally matured, different emotion-invoking situations just flooded me. And it is inevitable not to feel anything towards everything--to just be vulnerable, affected, and have not just little inconvenient emotional responses. I wanted to conceal how I feel, to not break down in front of anyone and to maintain my "emotional bravado". In reality, I am so fed up with emotions, I need to let it out. But there's something in me that's scared to be called emotionally immature.

And then, I got done with these thoughts: I shed the tears I've been blinking in, I screamed the anger I've been locking in, I ranted it out... I faced my emotions. I asked God, "Am I doing it wrong?" And then, I've realized that emotional maturity is not being invulnerable to the emotions, because emotions are always there!

Emotional maturity, I realized, is not being able to feel nothing towards what's happening. It is being able to feel emotions, and dealing with them the "proper" way. The proper way? Emotions are moment by moment states of the mind and heart. They don't claim permanency in anyone's lives, they quickly come and go. They quickly change. Being able to handle one's emotions that it can't affect the way we deal with people, the way we deal with our work, and the way we deal with ourselves--that, I think, is emotional maturity.

To feel hate, without hurting someone. To feel depressed, without hurting oneself. To feel stressed, without flipping everything over. To get broken, without having to leave everything else into pieces. To feel melancholy, without having to snap at everyone. These are possible. This is emotional handling. It's okay to cry. It's okay to get angry. It's okay to really feel bad. I don't think that we're ever limited to not have these emotions. But it is how we deal with them that matters.

This is just a pinch of a journey yet, and I know, surely, there are more yet to happen and to conspire. I'm sort of afraid that I might not be able to handle or juggle anything any longer. But being afraid? It's not gonna bring me anywhere if I let this emotion handle me. I must deal with it. I mustn't let it conquer. And so afraid as I am, I will continue on to this battle, with a soft and strong heart.

You're Not Made For Sadness

Melancholy can be beautiful, and it is easily associated to poetry. With so much drama, tears, and brokenness... the beautiful words happen. Even if we admit it or not, most of us have this great pull towards sadness. Sometimes, we just have to feel our heart pierced for us to feel the life in us. That's understandable, I am always like that. It even had me falling for a guy who has this certain quality of sadness. Other people's sadness attracts us--it makes us feel like we're superheroes who can redeem someone from their pain, or if not a superhero, a compatible soul--another lonely heart.

via

After a long time, I have realized that there's something wrong with how I deal with pain. Pain is absolutely paradoxically lovely. It squeezes all the rains and the gloomy seasons from us, but it is not a state to be stuck in or to live in. It is true that it is an event in someone's life but it isn't true that we can live there forever.

I am a Christian and I believe that God has bought me with a very precious price--the blood of Jesus, but I have to admit that I have a lot of unresolved things in my heart that need to be addressed. I indulge in the lies of bitterness, sorrow, anger, and false hopes. And then, I realized it's tiring. Where could this get me? Aside from the fact that it pulls me away from the greater plans God has built for me, all these black feelings shove me away from genuine joy--a gift I have always had.

Hugot has been ubiquitous in my life for the past months. Certain words, phrases, events remind me of things that I shouldn't think of. As a Psychology student, I tried to study this phenomenon once--the idea of certain words or happenings opening certain folders in the memory, therefore eliciting emotions into action. From this, I have learned that what matters most to us easily gets retrieved from the memory files (I honestly can't remember if I have learned this from someone else or if it's a personal hypothesis). Then, if I easily retrieve memory files that cause me grief it means that what's on the surface of my core is bitterness and the spirit of the inability to move on.

I realized I don't want sadness anymore. It's time I step out of it and bid my farewell to it. I am more than the past that keeps me buckled into it. Because of these things, I can hardly move forward, I can hardly get anywhere. Everyday, I walk the earth as I remain in that stuck phase where I am in.

God didn't forbid anyone to experience sorrow though; in fact, He understands us. What we have left to do is to entrust the Lord with our healing. The pain is not ours alone.

Psalm 147:3 says, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

The Lord is in the business of healing us from moment to moment. It is not our job to bandage ourselves. We can do all these steps to move forward and away from sadness, but God has mightier hands than those that we have.

From all these things, I have resolved to seek and see the beauty of God, and be inspired and driven by His love more than by anything else at all. If I bask before the beauty of the Most Wonderful, it would be lighter to walk the realm of this life. From these, I conclude that I was not made for loneliness. I was made for joy, worship, and true and unfailing hope.