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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

The Jar

It is standing right here, by me. I see it, and it calls me to guess: Am I real or am I a dream? 

I am a little tempted to open it up and figure it out, but right now, I am looking at it numbly, "I don't care what you are". It knocked again from the inside, shouting: You're not done with me yet, you can't possibly dispose me this early. 

"Early? Keep your lid on, I think it's enough." And so, the memories in the jar looked at me, and realized: Maybe she's over me. I exist, but not to be dealt with anymore. She knows I'm here, but she knows I cannot do anything to her anymore, unless, of course, she loses it again and uncovered me. Okay, then. 

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.

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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.

A March Monday

I woke up to the sound of footsteps and busy conversations about. I tried to sleep another few hours away, but my dozy and hazy imagination brought me to the days and weeks ahead... there's so much needed to be done. I grabbed my phone from my brother's table--recently, I've been camping in my brother's room since he's too busy studying to even sleep--and saw that it's almost 9 in the morning. I sighed, I want more sleep. And then, I realized I've been slacking the past hours away because I was sick yesterday. I felt that I'm much better, and so I need to recover from the laziness my sickness caused me.

Exciting weeks are about to come! YAY. I have to get this day moving or I'm gonna be stuck during the time when I'm supposed to be having another set of adventures in my life (I'm talking about the first few days of April because it's gonna be really "yaaay"). I posted something on Twitter on how the weeks are gonna be real long and exciting and greeted the people a good Monday morning. 

I pulled myself up and went down and greeted my mom a very jolly morning. I realized the house was in grrrreat chaos, I started to place some stuff into order. My mom asked me to go buy something from the sari-sari store, and I reluctantly obeyed. 

While I was in the store, I overheard old women selling vegetables nearby talk. 

"Mahal na araw, umuulan."

"Oo nga eh, sabi ko nga... umuulan eh mahal na araw. Kakaiba. Abnormal." (short pause) "Parang mga tao ngayon, abnormal."

I wanted to take a shot of those women talking and caption it, "Old Women in Tondo During a Monday Morning". But I didn't have a device with me. 

I turned my way home, and I saw other people going on their own businesses. The scene is like any other morning: children playing, basketballs bouncing, old and young men talking, old and young women talking, people yelling, a little rain pouring... another morning in Tondo. 

I contemplated my life a little, I hoped I could pause and do some small talk with the neighbors (something I've never done in the entirety of my life in this place), I hoped I could run the way I used to during summers. I hoped I could just continue on letting the hours pass by, and just watch the rain confuse women. 

But I know that even if I were given the chance to do so, I cannot indulge myself to the slow and stationary living I dream of. My heart has been wired for action and displacement, that I cannot be still. And so, I went home and prepared for the day, listed down all the things I need to accomplish, and blogged these thoughts out. Now, in a little while, I'll be on the road again.

Song For You

I really appreciate this song by Alexi Murdoch. It's like comforting someone that someone is by his/her side, and that he/she is understood. I actually want to send it as a correspondence to someone, you know, just a brief way of saying that I know you are not feeling well, that your heart is stocked with so much insecurity and thoughts that no one understands. I sort of want to tell that person, "I see you... and maybe have been seeing you for quite a while now." Sometimes, I think it is too ambitious for me to think I can actually care for that person and help wash all his sadness away. In reality, I can only just utter a prayer and a wish that his heart is being caressed by greater and bigger hands. And maybe just sing this song unheard.

Inevitable

It is inevitable to continue on hoping and to have faith in the things which cannot ever be. It is inevitable to place your belief in something identified as  impossible. It is inevitable to look at the days to come, and to just hope.

I continue on believing, and in belief I've come across with despair. Nothing beats the melancholy caused by the are and are not. And still, if there's anything I've kept with all my strength here within me, it is the hope that cradles my love. I trust in the somedays and I depend in the tomorrows. I live with so much hope--that which I can't measure the scope. It causes me sadness to think that this hope is irreplaceable, and that it can only be filled. Hope, as I've always believed, is a funny thing, sometimes you hear it laughing at you, showing you opportunities that will never be yours. I look at the pictures in my head and it's difficult for me to see what's in the now, all I see are the yesterdays which had never been, and the tomorrows that I hope will be.

But the beautiful thing with hope is that it doesn't leave me deprived. I am alone and yet, I have ropes pulling me up. I have fallen and yet, I can stand up. There's always an end to every single thing, and there's always an opportunity for a beginning. Hope is beautiful, and it tells you that tomorrow will be different, as it should be. It may not be as what you've expected, but what's beautiful with this belief is that you see things which surpass your expectations. You experience something unimaginable.

In love, I have failed and have hurt and have been hurt. But my heart is living surrounded by the beautiful things each new morning offers. I live in hope, I live hoping. In this, I have confidence.

I hope in the Loveliest, because I know, and it will be...

StoryRunners

"Almost 7, 000 languages exist in the world today. More than 1, 800 have no Bible, New Testament, or any portion of the Scripture. StoryRunners exists to help these unreached people groups hear the gospel in a format they understand: oral storytelling."

Last February 25, we had a Gospel-sharing/storytelling seminar entitled StoryRunners in the Philippine Campus Crusade for Christ office. This was done with the heart to equip students from different colleges and universities in sharing the Gospel with the use of different Bible stories.

It was studied that 2/3 of the people all over the world learn better through auditory techniques, and most people are more engaged to listen to stories, so with the knowledge of these, StoryRunners ministry sought to seize this opportunity to share Jesus in a way that can accommodate to the learning style of most people. It is also a way to reach out to different tribes!!

The way the ministry works is that coaches tell the stories to a person from a group/tribe, and eventually this person will translate the stories into their own tongue. By faith, these people who first heard the Gospel would be able to share it with others from their group, who would share this to others also.

For the Metro Manila training, we've had 102 delegates who attended the seminar. We learned how to use stories and dramas. It was only a day of training so we weren't able to learn other techniques, but this ministry also teaches how to use songs and other literary techniques to share Bible stories, and a full course-training lasts for 3-4 days (if I remember it right).

I have learned from this seminar the importance of being creative in sharing the Gospel, in that, if we really would want to win people (and all kinds of peoples for that), we could think of and use different ways to share the Word. This is still in obedience to Jesus's command for us to "Go and make disciples of all nations..." (Matthew 28:19-20). Ain't it an exciting adventure to just share God's love to all the nations?!

The awesome delegates!

Want to learn more about StoryRunners? Visit this cool website: http://storyrunners.org/

Blog Renovation!

Hello Lovely,

I just fell in love with writing even more than I ever have before. Experiences and heartbreaks proved me that there is no better way of salvaging shattered pieces than to express it with ardour and honesty through words. For this reason, I want to take it to a higher level with the purpose of being a window before the people who take the time to drop by in this little cave of mine. And I want to be something/someone who could leave a legacy with words. 

So I've been getting blog traffic! Thank you to those people (who I don't think ever come back after their first visit). I don't know how they came across this little page, but I am delighted to see that someone /maybe/ took interest in my mumbles. From this, I have realized that every little thing (just like this blog of mine, and this amateur writing career) can be an avenue to shed light and inspire different kinds of people. As it has always been my dream to be connected to people, in a way that our lives will be intertwined through stories/poems/thoughts/etc, I am going to take this desire into action--I mean writing. 

I have not much of a high hope that my life is very much interesting or that I am very much agreeable, but I am going to give this one a shot. That is why, I am going to be even more faithful to my blog-writing--promising to talk about love, faith, beauty, truths, passion, adventures, skies and everything as the hue of the morning daylight. 

May my heartbeats tug your heartstrings. Follow me as I get to my next adventures (after this post).

(Yep, I just advertised my blog. Thank you!)

Living a life of Love-driven passion, 

Skate Penny

PS,

How to follow Skate's adventures? Get a Bloglovin' account (so you can follow other lovely pages, too) and hit the follow button right there at the right (?) side of this page. Thank you! (Or just do it manually. I may be posting once every week.)

Im...perfect

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I am interesting. I know that. I don't even have to pretend to be that person because I have been born that way. I don't pride myself with that adjective because I am worth-knowing, but because I tend to be deviated from the norm--and it's not even in an I-don't-wanna-conform way. I am interesting because my brain's probably tangled in a different kind of technique. I talk a lot, and I keep things a lot. I want people, and people scare me. I love poetry, and I don't appreciate other people's dramas. I am always happy, while I'm usually bored... I'm always in the middle, really. And everybody has to agree with me, that being in the middle is not a very good thing.

I am spontaneous. Adventurous, you may say. Not because I don't care about what can and will happen to me (because I care a lot about these things), but because I want to see more of the world, I want to be more enchanted by the beauty of this world and this life's experiences. But my actions that show me to be carefree can get me killed. Is it good to just jump into experiences, and just die at the brink of it?

I am an escapist. I can hardly deal with things that I don't want. I live in the belief that I should live my life to the fullest. And is it good that way? To just keep on running from things that I don't wanna deal with. It's true that I choose my battles, but is it good to quit battles I've already started fighting in?

People may say that I am very much satisfied with myself, and I say that the least person I ever want in this world is me. I am crazy, not interesting. I am impulsive, not spontaneous. I am a coward, not just an escapist. How can someone reach their full contentment in who they are? I am flooded with insecurities. Being hurt by the people I've trusted and loved makes me feel like my love can never be reciprocated. It's effect on me is not the thinking that I can't love again, but the thinking that I can love but it's really okay if they can't loved me back because I know it's quite difficult to appreciate someone like me.

The thing with me is that I really don't like myself most of the times. Why? Many reasons. Sometimes it's because of the way I look, most of the times it's me and my big mouth, then it'll be because of the way I think and react, plus my impulsiveness, and then this thin skin for when emotions attack. I mean, sometimes... oftentimes, I get tired of myself.

I look like someone who's unafraid and who's always ready to conquer. I'm restless, but maybe because there's something within me that I don't want to prevail. I try to realize what is in life for me. And I travel the world looking for a purpose. And that's it?

No. My insecurities are just a part of me. They happen but they're not me. They exist, because somewhere within anyone's core, insecurities live. Having them is not a disease, because we are all in fear one way or another. It is how we deal with them that matters.

Just a story. One of the things about me is that when I am in front of a guy I like, I pose the ugliest me: I eat a lot, and I swallow the too-spoonfuls of food, I laugh loudly, I speak my mind out (even if it turns out to be really sarcastic), etc. It is not because I am shielding myself from being loved or appreciated. It is because I am afraid to get hurt--by making a guy fall for the wrong me, and then being left because I was a mistake after all. This is what my insecurities do to me, they make me honest. They make me brave. Because realizing them and not being afraid of what they can do to me and not being afraid to show them, well... they help me find the real me.

People say that the first person who can accept us is us. I've been working on that from day one, but finding out that people can actually love me even if I show them my ugliest, it helps me realize my real identity. I am someone loved. I am someone special. I am worthy. It is because Someone really loved me that much, and I am worth too much for anything to even doubt my own importance. It makes me realize what love is really about, but that's another story (maybe for another post). They say that we should never find our self-worth from others, but having other people love me despite the roughest sides of me exposed, makes me feel that there should never be space for self-hate. It somehow helps. Really.

We are expected of many things, but what other people don't know is that most of the times, during our battles, we are afraid. It's not because we're weak, but because this reality is universal. My life is a series of disappointments, guilt, and failures. I'm not cool enough not to regret anything in my life. Because I always end up scolding myself for my stupidity. I'm on the road to forgiving myself from what I lack though. I know that it's being honest to say that I am weak, but it's another thing to fully realize that I am worthy. I am deserving of appreciation. And I am free to live this life--dealing with a series of mistakes and regrets and falling and of rising and forgiving and loving.